Clarice Lispector: a unique voice of the suppressed feminine

My choice of author to spotlight this week; one with a unique and resonant writing style, is Clarice Lispector. Ukrainian-born in 1920, Lispector emigrated to Brazil with her family to escape anti-semitism and the pogroms of Ukraine, and remained there until her death in 1977. I’ve chosen Lispector for her profound encapsulation of the female experience, particularly in the psyche of neurotic, complex female characters, and for her exquisite story-telling that beautifies the most simple moments.

Clarice Lispector has been hailed over her career and posthumously as Brazil’s “preeminent modern writer” (The New Yorker). Originally written in Portuguese, her works have spread globally in translation. Whilst it seems a tragedy to me that I haven’t learnt to read her prose in its original form, she has been translated eloquently by the likes of Katrina Dodson and Benjamin Moser. I have always imagined it would be a particularly diligent task to take on as Lispector’s stories are characterised by her rich yet simple prose examining detail and intense emotion which evokes something almost spiritual to be felt by the reader. However, both translators preserve the stream-of-consciousness form that underpins her writing. If you prefer character-driven narratives that invite you to consider the inner workings of a particular mind or offer an articulation for the deeper feelings you haven’t quite been able to put into words, then Clarice Lispector’s writing is definitely for you.

I would recommend beginning your journey into the Lispector universe, surprisingly, with her final novel, The Hour of the Star, which follows Macabea, a working class woman living in Rio. Lispector assumes the male perspective through a self-aware author who often digresses into philosophical streams of consciousness that invite the reader to consider the political and social undercurrents of Macabea’s and their own lives.The omniscient narrator, who immediately exclaims his apparent love for our protagonist, details the otherwise insignificant life of Macabea. He insinuates that Macabea’s life would have passed anonymously if it were not for his self-professed “duty, however artlessly, to reveal her life”. She is just as forgettable as the “thousands of girls scattered throughout the tenement slums” of Rio de Janeiro, and she symbolises the neglected female population of Brazil. Lispector alienates with her abstract form, and yet involves the reader so intimately into the very streets of Rio as we follow her complex protagonist in her day-to-day life.

this narrative does exactly that; it shatters deep into your bones as you are thrust into an existence you may not ever have known without Lispector’s immersive prose

When one reads this story, one feels a physical melancholy, as Lispector, or her narrator, would like to remind us how “[l]ife is a punch in the stomach”; this narrative does exactly that; it shatters deep into your bones as you are thrust into an existence you may not ever have known without Lispector’s immersive prose.

Some of my favourite stories of Lispector’s revolve around the position of the woman within Brazilian society. Still pertinent almost fifty years after her death as statistics demonstrate continued gender inequality within education and the workforce, Lispector challenges systemic injustices through her intellectual female characters. Her short form does anything but restrict her as she concisely summarises the absurdities of patriarchal codes in a few short pages. Her collected Complete Stories, collated by Penguin Classics, is full of examples of her ability. Within “Jimmy and I”, or “Eue e Jimmy”, Lispector narrates in the feminine voice; a woman with more agency than Macabea, barely tolerating a young man named Jimmy. In this four-page long monologue-style story, Lispector reveals her critiques of the gender imbalances within romantic relationships, but offers an inverse of power. As we read it, we begin to question who truly is in control within the dynamic as our unnamed narrator recognises her own disdain for Jimmy and her awareness of his blatant misogyny. The narrator recognises “the predominance of men’s ideas over women’s”, yet her very highlighting of this double-standard liberates her from the status quo.

She subverts the male-female stereotypes of relationships, which I find especially intriguing in the economic gender imbalances in Brazil in which Lispector centres her prose around

She subverts the male-female stereotypes of relationships, which I find especially intriguing in the economic gender imbalances in Brazil in which Lispector centres her prose around. Eventually, the narrator embraces her liberation through her sexuality and desire for another man, using the “lessons” Jimmy had engrained in her, against him, ultimately growing cleverer than him. For such a short read, there is much to delve into in terms of the predeterminations we have about male and female roles, and as a reader you feel like her co-conspirator in a victorious rebellion against institutional and social oppressions.

Overall, I’ve chosen Lispector as my author spotlight because her work is still so relevant today in highlighting sexism in social and institutional terms and her identity as a Ukrainian-born woman living in Brazil gave her an insight into these very inequities, fuelling the detailed and beautiful prose of her work.