Clarice Lispector

The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Writers on the back of her recently published, freshly translated COMPLETE STORIES--we're talking Elizabeth Bishop, Colm Toibin, Orhan Pamuk--compare her to Borges, Kafka, Flann O'Brien, Joyce.
As far as I'm concerned, you can keep most of those, and your Toibin and Bishop, too. Thrown in your Marquez and (please, please) your Bolano.
This is the magic, plain and simple. Mysterious and luminous as memory, but hurtful and hard, too, full of wisps and whispers and folktale and fallout, tossed-off bits of description that capture not just specific characters but whole categories of people you knew once or know still, but didn't realize were a type, and don't quite, even now, except you're suddenly sure they are. Strewn with places you've never been and remember, states of being you forgot you're still in, can't escape, will never even be sure whether you want to.
Real and magically real. Real-as-magically-real. Some of it's dreamy and hypnotic. Some frightening and angry. Most of it hurts, but sometimes sweetly. It's about so many things at the same time that it's impossible to pin down or summarize, except to say it's really, really, really, really good.
Did I mention I like her a whole lot?



View all my reviews