Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) was born in Ukraine to Jewish parents who emigrated to Brazil in 1922.

She published her first novel in 1943, aged just 23. It is known in English as ‘Near to the Wild Heart’, from the book’s epigraph, which is from Joyce’s ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’. I read the Penguin Modern Classics edition, translated by Alison Entrekin.

It is a small but difficult book, consisting of several episodes drawn from the life of a young woman, Joana. We are typically inside her mind, viewing the scene from her internal perspective.

Comparatively accessible observational sections are interspersed with others, more introspective and philosophical, which are often opaque and elusive.

Lispector is pushing language to its limits in striving to capture these ideas and internal thought processes. 

This would be hard enough to follow in the original Portuguese, let alone when translated into English.

The novel is an impressive achievement for one so youthful but demands a great deal of the reader.

I felt I needed to re-read it immediately to understand it sufficiently, but decided I wasn’t intrigued enough to devote the necessary time and effort.

TD

September 2023