Reviews

The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector

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miffy4real's review against another edition

5.0

I started reading this a long, long time ago and decided to parse it out because I was enjoying it so much and also because short stories when read all at once feel very decadent. But reading Clarice Lispector is also very decadent, and there's not a lot of treats in quarantine, so this was a good thing to pick up now. She delivers delirium in a matter of fact way, and love very viscerally, and all her metaphors and similes are very very good -- people are always feeling some emotion in their whole body, their desires flashing like gold coins - my favourite description was a woman who 'resembled a howl' after meeting a lover from Saturn. this is both ordinary + extraordinary --- high recommend.

paul281f's review against another edition

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medium-paced

2.25

sch1ewe's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

bedside bible

cjfich's review

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5.0

Very engaging. The stories were all different, yet shared a common theme. I reread The Lottery, probably for the 100th time. This compilation also contains Jackson's unfinished novel. I so wanted to know how it would have ended. I have enjoying this "walk down Jackson lane."

wmbogart's review against another edition

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My first Lispector. Her writing feels like a kind of tangled thinking. The text frequently "clarifies" itself with dependent clauses. Her sentence structures are very interesting. There's a unique rhythm (or anti-rhythm) to them.

And as her style develops over the collection, she incorporates more and more jarring devices in her work. Not that they feel like "devices" necessarily, because the writing flows in a bizarrely organic, disorienting way.

A lot of the stories explore the inner psychologies of women in various forms of exile. Characters overanalyze things until thoughts turn in on themselves. The narration wraps itself up in knots. But not without a kind of clarity. It reminded me of Sarraute in this way.

With collections like this, a reader is always tempted to trace the development of the author over time. As noted in the introduction (and the translator's note), Lispector gets more and more concerned with aging. This is made sadder in light of the obsession around appearances earlier in the collection.

And there are some unsavory elements here; Lispector clearly prizes a thin figure. The bourgeois "ruminations" around class, wealth, and guilt can be a little exhausting. Not every story worked for me. Particularly the more fantastic ones in the middle of the collection. But I don't mean to complain. Her prose is incredibly unique at every turn.

I particularly enjoyed "The Imitation of the Rose" as a psychological portrait of someone aware of her own illness and how she might appear to her partner.