The Passion According to G.H.

Is Clarice Lispector the prophet of the millennial “can’t even” generation? And could that be the reason she’s so overpraised by a certain cohort of young female critics? I wonder this because a lot of Lispector’s work follows the same general pattern: a woman goes to perform a seemingly mundane task, but in the course of doing it, for reasons that are never quite clear, she becomes overwhelmed, a sort of mental paralysis sets in, and she can’t go through with whatever she was supposed to do. So millennial! In this novel G.H. has decided to spend the day cleaning her apartment -- a manageable task, one would think -- but no! Preparing to clean the maid's room, she closes the door of a wardrobe on a cockroach, not quite killing it. Then (as one does?) she spends the rest of the novel staring at the dying cockroach as the wardrobe door squeezes its whitish insides out and she has, I suppose, some sort of spiritual crisis/mystical experience. I couldn't quite piece it together, but the general tenor seemed to be: we are all just composed of physical matter, inevitably subject to decay and death, and there is no larger meaning to existence. In terms of the writing, maybe this was a translation issue but I repeatedly had the disorienting sensation of understanding all the words in a sentence but still having no clue what the sentence meant. Representative (I swear!) example: “Contact with supersound of the atonal has an inexpressive joy that only flesh, in love, tolerates.” If you read that and think, “Genius—I want 190 pages of that!” then this book is for you. If not, I’d recommend reading something else. It is possible, though, that this book is a profound masterpiece, and I just didn't get it. I did finish it, which suggests there's something there.

I'm in something of a Lispector reading phase right now - read 'The Hour of the Star' decades ago, and although it made a lasting impression on me, I wasn't sure why, and with hindsight I somehow don't feel I was wholly 'ready' for now. Recently, I've read Agua Viva as well as The Passion, have The Besieged City on my 'bought and to read' list and am working my way through the Complete Stories. The Passion barely has a conventional plot, it's about - if anything - a transformative experience whose specific circumstances I'm not sure I am able to fully buy into. But this doesn't really matter - I feel Lispector is very explicitly inviting us to step into our own experience in old or (new-very-old) ways and what happens in G.H's maid's bedroom is by any stretch a good enough vehicle for what is essentially intended as a universalist 'message' or lure. At this stage in my life, personally I feel ripe for her work, and unhesitatingly ready to accompany her, or to acknowledge an appeal repeatedly made by the narrator of 'The Passion' to reach out my hand to her. Any comment on the quality of the translation is limited by my lack of knowledge of Portuguese, alas, yet with that massive caveat in place, I can say that nothing jars, and all my intuition is the adverb 'lovingly' would not be inapt.

I’ve read this a handful of times. It has such a comfort to it that I feel Clarice is my friend. The roach too. The room too. Her voice is honest, insightful. I love the slowness and detail of this book. Sort of a meditation. Beautiful addition to the introverts library.

I received the book damaged !!!

Absolutely obsessed and in awe of Lispector's works. But unfortunately, this copy too, like other recent editions from Penguin use cheap, abominable quality of paper. How much profit can a conglomerate make at the cost of quality. How much greed. Also, received damaged book. The packaging was just a thin plastic layer and no bubble wrap. Seller do better!