I am now going to tell you how I entered the inexpressive that was always my blind and secret search. How I entered whatever exists between the number one and the number two, how I saw the line of mystery and fire, and which is surreptitious line. A note exists between two notes of music, between two facts exists a fact, between two grains of sand no matter how close together there exists an interval of space, a sense that exists between senses- in the interstices of primordial matter is the line of mystery, and fire that is the breathing of the world, and the continual breathing of the world is what we hear and call silence. Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G.H.This book was very intense. It follows the emotions and inner turmoil of a South American sculptress, G.H., when she, while in her former maids room, inadvertently slams the door on a cockroach and watches it slowly die.I must admit that I was perplexed for the first few chapters. The book was a confusing inner monologue written after the cockroach was crushed. G.H.s philosophical musings as she watches the cockroach die are fascinating, to say the least. It made me wonder how someone could react like that to a cockroach being killed. Perhaps it does make sense because anything, big or small, can trigger off self-reflection even if it doesnt seem to be related. There were musings on love, identity, religion, journeys, into her past, flashbacks.All G.H. experienced took place within a short time frame, all in one room, but it was somehow spread out over 200 pages. Although I havent read much Kafka, I would say that this book did have a Kafkaesque tone to it, especially towards the end. Lispectors writing style is spellbinding and poetic. This is one of those books I would need to re-read in order to fully appreciate its brilliance.Some quotes that I liked/found interesting:Suddenly, sitting there, a tiredness all hardened and without any lassitude, overtook me. A little more and it would petrify me.That image of myself in quotes satisfied me, and not just superficially. I was the image of what I was not, and that image of not-being overwhelmed me.Sometimes- sometimes we ourselves manifest the inexpressive one does that in art, in bodily love as well to manifest the inexpressive is to create.Could I be living, not the truth, but the myth of the truth?Sometimes- sometimes we ourselves manifest the inexpressive one does that in art, in bodily love as well to manifest the inexpressive is to create.

A world wholly alive has a Hellish power.i am giving this book five stars, because five stars means "it was amazing," and this book was definitely amazing; i would say it was one of a kind. it wasn't what i'd call enjoyable, though-- or even, really, unenjoyable-- it just kind of was what it was, and was that 100%.I keep looking, looking. Trying to understand. Try to give what I have gone through to someone else, and I don't know who, but I don't want to be alone with that experience. I don't know what to do with it, I'm terrified of that profound disorganization. I'm not sure I even believe in what happened to me. Did something happen, and did I, because I didn't know how to experience it, end up experiencing something else instead? It's that something that I'd like to call disorganization, and then I'd have the courage to venture forth because I would know where to come back to: to the prior organization. I prefer to call it disorganization because I don't want to ground myself in what I experienced-- in that grounding I would lose the world as it was for me before, and I know that I don't have the capacity for another one.a woman goes into the maid's room to straighten up, and finds a cockroach in the armoire. that's what happens in this book; everything else is her in head. (well, there are a couple other things, but basically that's the idea.) what happens is, the woman has a vision; she falls into the reality of the world.like Ubik, which i read just before, this is a story about facing the universe. unlike ubik, however, this one takes place, one person, alone, in a room. there is no plot to keep things going; no drama, really, to unfold. or, at least, i suppose, no interpersonal drama. what drama there is, what tension, all takes place in the woman's soul. needless to say, there's no comic relief. in fact, there's no relief at all.the strange thing, though, i have to say-- or maybe it is not at all strange-- is that this book is so much less moving and powerful than ubik. maybe because it takes itself so seriously, or because it is so incredibly cerebral, or because it is so unrelentingly locked into its course, it is really hard to stay involved. whereas ubik holds you and won't let you go, and stays with you, around you, when you close the book, this book loses its grip immediately, even when you glance up to see what time it is.which makes it sound much worse than it is. i don't really know what to say. it is a very, very well-written book. perfect, i think, in its way. also, i think it took a lot of courage to write something this utterly uncommercial. and not just uncommercial, but un-literary, un-beautiful. i would say that it's sort of the literary equivalent of dreyer's the passion of joan of arc, and maybe i would be right, i don't know. but it's that kind of work-- deadly serious, weighty, unconcerned with what it might be supposed to be. doesn't give a shit about anything other than communicating itself.anyway. that's all i got. it seems that brazilians write books.Transcendence is transgression.

" estou procurando, estou procurando. Estou tentando entender. Tentando dar a alguém o que vivi e não sei a quem, mas não quero ficar com o que vivi. Não sei o que fazer do que vivi, tenho medo dessa desorganização profunda.""A vida, meu amor, é uma grande sedução onde tudo o que existe se seduz.""eu estava saindo do meu mundo e entrando no mundo.(...)Se soubesses da solidão desses meus primeiros passos. Não se parecia com a solidão de uma pessoa. Era como se eu já tivesse morrido e desse sozinha os primeiros passos em outra vida.""O inferno pelo qual eu passara como te dizer? fora o inferno que vem do amor. Ah, as pessoas põem a ideia de pecado em sexo. Mas como é inocente e infantil esse pecado. O inferno mesmo é o do amor. Amor é a experiência de um perigo de pecado maior é a experiência da lama e da degradação e da alegria pior.""como poderei dizer senão timidamente assim: a vida se me é. A vida se me é, e eu não entendo o que digo. E então adoro. "

A woman goes into her former maid's room, with the intention of doing some cleaning. She spies a cockroach. She smashes it in the door of the wardrobe.There - that's 95% of the 'plot' of this book. Really! It is a short book, granted, just shy of 200 pages, and comprised of pithy, snippety chapters. But still. That's 95% of what happens, story-wise, in this book.The rest is a whole bunch of gobbledeegook an existential crisis that the woman (known only to us as G.H., the initials on her luggage) takes us through, as she stares into the ancient eyes of the cockroach.I am dismayed at my inability to love this book as others do. It is revered as one of the most important works in Brazilian literature. Certainly it is experimental. Certainly it is daring. There are parts written powerfully with insight. But to sit here and join the voices of those who adore it would be pretentious on my part. I actually hated the first 15 pages. I was adrift from the very first sentence. I had no clue what was going on - NONE, I can't emphasise that enough - what with talk about a third leg that the unnamed narrator thinks she had and now has lost. I was re-reading paragraphs over and over, grappling, trying desperately to hold on to something that made a lick of sense. When we got to the cockroach, I was thrilled. There is a person, a place, an event that has occurred! I can dig it! Sadly though, this concreteness is short lived. The bulk of the book is G.H.'s spiritual, mystical meanderings, much of which is nonesensical difficult to grasp. Okay, I will try not to be so reductive. Forgive me. G.H. is a privileged, upper-class sculptress who lives independently, and upon seeing the cockroach, realises the inauthenticity of her life up until now. She sees that she has anaesthetised herself with ideas of "human identity" and "hope", among other things. She goes through the painful process of shedding such things, upending everything she previously held dear, entering the "neutrality" and "nothingness" of the universe.I did enjoy certain ideas, such as the kingdom of heaven is now, and the idea of relying on the promise of such a kingdom is actually fear of living presently. This has a positive "carpe diem" message that I can admire.I want to find the redemption in today, in right now, in the reality that is being, and not in the promise, I want to find joy in this instant...But much of this is very hard to read. It was such an unpleasant reading experience. The philosophical rambling soliloquy is SO dense, with so many ideas in just one paragraph, I found it overwhelming, stifling. This combined with the setting - staring at the vile roach carcass, made me feel suffocated, claustrophobic. And filled with dread at how it would end. FILLED WITH NAUSEATED DREAD.There are parallels to be drawn with Kafka's The Metamorphosis - but I found Kafka far more palatable (yes! I used the word palatable to describe a story of a man who wakes up in the form of a dung beetle), and way more accessible.

O livro A Paixão Segundo G. H. é a minha estreia literária com Clarice Lispector (1920 1997), escritora nascida na Ucrânia mas naturalizada brasileira.Esta obra originalmente editada em 1964 suscitou e continua a suscitar uma gigantesca bibliografia, incluindo teses de licenciatura, mestrado ou doutoramento.A Paixão Segundo G. H. é um livro denso, com uma escrita inovadora, de cariz poético, evidenciando um experimentalismo que nos obriga a ler e reler cada frase com uma atenção e uma disponibilidade inimagináveis.Nessa narrativa angustiante e inquietante existem partes com um entendimento imediato, mas outras há que nos exigem uma profunda reflexão emocional e existencial.A personagem G. H. é uma mulher independente, sincera, financeiramente autónoma, escultora, que vive num magnífico apartamento, numa cobertura, mas profundamente deprimida, com medo da paixão e do amor, desiludida e traumatizada por acontecimentos trágicos, e que vive enclausurada num abismo de emoções e de pesadelos profundos.A visão de uma barata, que ela entala entre a porta de um armário, no quarto da criada despedida, e de onde sai uma matéria branca viscosa vai-lhe provocar uma violenta naúsea, despertando uma fobia e uma repulsa que culmina numa dolorosa introspecção da sua vida e da sua consciência atormentada pela solidão e pela loucura.A Paixão Segundo G. H. é um livro complexo, metafórico, um monólogo sobre o amor e sobre o ódio, numa viagem alucinada de lágrimas que ardem mas que não escorrem pelas nossas faces.Clarice Lispector escreve um livro intrigante, com uma escrita inventiva, que congrega outras áreas do conhecimento, exigente na sua leitura e releitura, e que representa uma profunda reflexão sobre os labirintos do comportamento humano. Estive completamente perdido na leitura de A Paixão Segundo G. H., mas consegui reencontrar o caminho