loving's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
I could make some sense of it, but not a lot. I’m sure it’s better for people who can intimately understand it.
amimt's review against another edition
challenging
fast-paced
4.0
i dont wish to understand anything
lornarose's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars. I think I enjoyed reading the 30pg introduction more than the actual novel! Hilda Hilst is undoubtedly a fascinating person, and I can see how her personal experiences with madness has influenced her work. There are some lovely passages in here, but overall a lot of it is too fragmented and garbled to make any sense of. I know this is probably somewhat the point, but for me it needed to have a bit more of a coherent narrative thread to hold together.
fromfieldnotes's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
shksprsis's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
topfife's review against another edition
4.0
To read, to experience; to digest and read around. To re-read.
“I grapple with myself, I set off a fight. I and my someones, the ones they say have nothing to do with reality. And it’s only this I have: I plus I. I understand nothing. My nothings, my vomits, to exist and understand nothing. To have existed and to have suspected an iridescence, a sun beyond all selves.”
—
“We were young and your father was handsome. Everything seemed all right. His eyes went blank for a moment as though you and I were no longer there, as if he himself were another person, his mouth gaping like he couldn’t breathe and he said all at once: it’s such an effort to try not to understand, it’s the only way to stay alive, trying not to understand.”
“I grapple with myself, I set off a fight. I and my someones, the ones they say have nothing to do with reality. And it’s only this I have: I plus I. I understand nothing. My nothings, my vomits, to exist and understand nothing. To have existed and to have suspected an iridescence, a sun beyond all selves.”
—
“We were young and your father was handsome. Everything seemed all right. His eyes went blank for a moment as though you and I were no longer there, as if he himself were another person, his mouth gaping like he couldn’t breathe and he said all at once: it’s such an effort to try not to understand, it’s the only way to stay alive, trying not to understand.”
cais's review against another edition
5.0
“Is there a face exactly like mine? A croaking hoarseness, as unable and despairing as mine? Vertiginous-precise landscapes done with a Japanese paintbrush, and in them I listen to the sound of my own crippled gait.”
A slim little book, as much of a long poem as it is prose, about, yes, "a descent into madness" as many reviews have noted. Hilda's father’s paranoid schizophrenia is in these books, deeply so, unavoidably so. Perhaps her mother's dementia as well. There's more here, though. The sometimes transparent line between knowing what is real and what isn't, between language describing and grounding our experiences and failing to do so.
It's sad and moving and disturbing reading about a man who seems somewhat aware that his mind is faltering, his confusion, moments of lucidity. Hilst is not exploiting him for the sake of experimental literature. She seems to be making biting statements about conventions as much as she is examining how the mind can fragment, either destroying us or transforming us. Extraordinary writing, an intense reading experience.
A slim little book, as much of a long poem as it is prose, about, yes, "a descent into madness" as many reviews have noted. Hilda's father’s paranoid schizophrenia is in these books, deeply so, unavoidably so. Perhaps her mother's dementia as well. There's more here, though. The sometimes transparent line between knowing what is real and what isn't, between language describing and grounding our experiences and failing to do so.
It's sad and moving and disturbing reading about a man who seems somewhat aware that his mind is faltering, his confusion, moments of lucidity. Hilst is not exploiting him for the sake of experimental literature. She seems to be making biting statements about conventions as much as she is examining how the mind can fragment, either destroying us or transforming us. Extraordinary writing, an intense reading experience.
doctormon's review against another edition
2.0
This was another #readharder challenge selection. The journey into a mental breakdown was one that I was glad to escape from in one piece. On a more positive note, I learned a great deal from the introduction to the translation which included a detailed account of the author's life story and writing habits.
greeniezona's review against another edition
4.0
So on my last day in New York, we took the subway down to Brooklyn so that I could make my pilgrimage to Melville House Books. There I was, fresh out of a book conference where there had been multiple sessions on representation, conversations about bias and counting as a way to be aware of your own, and I had two books by men in my hand, and I was struggling to find a book by a woman that I wanted to buy. I didn't attempt an actual count of the authors on the shelves, but they did look overwhelmingly male. And so many books by women that did look interesting (because Melville House is my favorite publisher) I already owned, or in some cases, at least suspected that I owned. It wasn't that there weren't books by women left on the shelves, but there should be enough books there for me to choose from that I could find one I was excited to buy.
Okay, well, then I found this. A female Brazilian writer whose works have been untranslated because they are too radical? Sold! With all the build up of the introduction and stress of how avant-garde Hilst was, I got a little worried that this book would prove inaccessible, but it was not. It was a fever dream of poetry, mathematics, philosophy, of a descent into madness, but it never tried to put distance between itself and the reader. Which isn't to say that it wasn't sometimes challenging, but then, so is losing one's grip on sanity.
A great find. Will be keeping an eye out for more translations of Hilst.
Okay, well, then I found this. A female Brazilian writer whose works have been untranslated because they are too radical? Sold! With all the build up of the introduction and stress of how avant-garde Hilst was, I got a little worried that this book would prove inaccessible, but it was not. It was a fever dream of poetry, mathematics, philosophy, of a descent into madness, but it never tried to put distance between itself and the reader. Which isn't to say that it wasn't sometimes challenging, but then, so is losing one's grip on sanity.
A great find. Will be keeping an eye out for more translations of Hilst.