Água Viva

by Clarice Lispector

Book Overview

A meditation on the nature of life and time, ?gua Viva (1973) shows Lispector discovering a new means of writing about herself, more deeply transforming her individual experience into a universal poetry. In a body of work as emotionally powerful, formally innovative, and philosophically profound as Clarice Lispector's, ?gua Viva stands out as a particular triumph.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811219909
• ISBN13: 9780811219907
• Release Date: June 2012
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

I'm Scared That I Don't Find This All That Difficult

And that nobody has reviewed this piece for four years and I'm only the third one ever to do it. Maybe I've read too much Joyce, Cixous, Beckett, Celan, Kristeva, et al, but I am surprised to see all the reviews on this page refer to this piece's difficulty. It's ecriture feminine along the line of Beckett's _Unnamable_. What could make more sense? Either I'm irrevocably warped or I've attained to the rhapsodic state of "it" that she so effortlessly riffs on and dances around/within--spins, hums. How could such a gem be so underappreciated in America? Shame on us. That editorial review above sums up all that's wrong with the readerly sensibility of people: "this is weird, go to her more 'accessible' stuff." As if "it" has anything to do with accessibility. Let me tell you one thing: read this, hang with her, try to get in with what she's doing. You'll get a lot more "life" from this than from reading all the reader-friendly hogwash that pours out of Creative Writing programs combined in one week. Start to try and get this stuff? We got a whole lot of liberation ahead of us . . . via jouissance! "Hallelujah!" as Lispector would say. Even when I'm scared in a world that doesn't know what to do with Lispector. She wouldn't have it any other way.

The Continuous Stream of Being

Clarice Lispector's "Stream of Life" takes her experimentations with language in "The Passion According to G.H" to an even more abstract level in this novella, if anyone can define it as such. Her fluid use of symbols and language attemps at the impossible: narrating the unspeakable. From this perspective, the reader can appreciate the apparently meaningless meandering of her words and let go of trying to understand. In her own words, "Let go of understanding. To be alive far surpasses the limits of understanding." With this in mind, I was able to enjoy my reading of this work as one who lives fully, wholly present in the company of a witch who uses words to enlighten the dark depths of our pre-historical caves. Viva Clarice!

startling and beautiful; one of my favorite books

This is by no means an easy read, but it is beautiful. Lispector is often compared to Joyce; her psychological landscapes and stream of consciousness writing can be likened to his. However, Lispector's writing is thoroughly Brazilian, warm and soft, feminine, dreamlike, interior, yet unafraid of starker realities at the same time. Stream of Life, Lispector's masterpiece, poses the question, "What does it mean to be at the crux of life?" In the process of asking this question, the book's sense of time and concrete reality expands. There are no real narrative boundaries... nothing to exactly grasp on to. It is because of this that this book is difficult. But as much as it is difficult, it is rewarding. It's an intriguing work, trying to explain life while at the same time be life. It begins, "It's such an hallelujah..." and there is rejoicing. it is a book rejoicing in life, wondering at it, and hungering for more of it.