There is a distinct tension in the way Clarice Lispector approaches language: not to clarify, but to displace. Slowly reading the Crônicas, as translated by Giovanni Pontiero in Discovering the World, I felt something unfamiliar. These short pieces seem gentler than her fiction, but not simpler. They move at the edge of thought, tentative yet exacting. It was not ease I found, but a moderated form of disorientation.
It confirmed something I’d suspected but hadn’t resolved: that I needed to spend time this summer rereading her works in English. Not to interpret her more clearly, but to remain longer in the space her language opens. Her resistance to paraphrase is not a barrier. It is the work. Alongside the Crônicas, I returned to The Stream of Life (translated by Elizabeth Lowe and Earl Fitz). A third reading, and still it doesn’t settle. The text moves in the moment of its own articulation, mimicking thought before it stabilises into language.
Lispector offers no explanations. Her sentences hover, break, retract. She keeps the reader close to the surface of perception, but never grants mastery over it. What deepens with rereading is not comprehension, but a kind of fidelity: to how language falters under the pressure of subjectivity. One does not follow her logic so much as accompany her attention.
I don’t read Lispector to understand her. I read her to stay near what it feels like not to understand, consciously, attentively. Few writers evoke such a direct, if necessarily fractured, sense of another consciousness. In her work, subjectivity is not represented. It is enacted.
‘Clarice offers no overt clues, no keys to unlock the mystery of language. Instead she presents doors that go deeper into the ineffable nature of existence.’ – yes, exactly, this is why I enjoy her writing so much.
So unusual for a writer of prose.
Always glad to hear your thoughts on Lispector, Anthony. Do you have any preferred translators of her work?
My Portuguese is progressing slowly but not to the point of being capable of judging accuracy of translation. From what I understand, the translators of the fiction appear to write well and preserve what is possible of Lispector’s style.
It is the recent publication of the Chronicles that was a missed opportunity, so do seek out the original Carcanet if you can, though it is scarce. I quote in full a letter sent to PN Review by Anthony Barnett:
“I considered writing a full review but I may be out of my depth. I hope this letter will suffice. It is a complaint about style, not about accuracy. In 1992 Carcanet published a virtually complete volume of Clarice Lispector’s newspaper chronicles, up to 1973, under the title Discovering the World, translated by Giovanni Pontiero. A selection from that translation was published in the USA by New Directions. In 2022 New Directions in the USA and Penguin in the UK published a new translation, by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, under the miserable, tiresome title Too Much of Life: Complete Chronicles (which it really is not, as some entries appear to be missing, and not only those whose omission is justified along the way in a footnote – though there are a few added entries from other, post-1973, sources, and an interesting afterword by one of Lispector’s sons). Why this new translation? Pontiero’s original, clearly a labour of love, has a beautiful clarity, with absolutely appropriate cadences; it never jars. The new translation often does. Too often one is brought up short by a thoughtless, questionable tone. It is, in this respect, not that well written. Read any entry and then go back to Pontiero’s translation, if you can, and you will see.”
Thanks Anthony – that’s most helpful and I will see what I can do about the Carcanet – what a shame it’s so hard to track down…
That said, I do have a preferred translator: Giovanni Pontiero. He seems to best understand Clarice.
Thank you – I’ll try his versions! 😀