Probably not a great introduction to this author. A rambling meditation on nothing in particular, which is fine by me, but none of the fragments comes in to focus and the work cannot sustain momentum without anything resembling focus or characterization. ( )

Clarice Lispector se confunde com a personagem, uma solitária pintora que se lança em infinitas reflexões sobre o tempo, a vida e a morte, os sonhos e visões, as flores, os estados da alma, a coragem e o medo e, principalmente, a arte da criação, do saber usar as palavras num jogo de sons e silêncios que se combinam. Tudo é revelado através do olhar dessa pintora-narradora, que cai em estado de graça em plena madrugada.

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Lispector-Agua-viva/66577
> BAnQ (Ouellette-Michalska M., Le devoir, 26 sept. 1981) : https://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2769172
> Éditions des femmes : https://www.desfemmes.fr/litterature/agua-viva/
> Bibliographie : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/035774ar

Edição com manuscritos e ensaios inéditos

A fascinating attempt to write a philosophical 'novel,' and one which should appeal to readers of the Camuses and Satres as well as those searching for new forms! I say attempt, because I'm pretty sure this is a failed attempt! Lispector's translators all bemoan the difficulty of getting her idiosyncratic Portugese into English, and I have to think, from the two novels I've read, that nobody's succeeded, because this (and The Passion) both sound like over-awed teenagers who've just realised they're allowed to use their brains, but don't really have the skills with words needed to, you know, get their brains out into the public!

Lispector was clearly very intelligent; her thought in here is much better than the older existentialist-novel types, and would probably repay close study! But I just can't read books in which every sentence seems like it should have Spanish-style exclamation points before and after! Is this just because I'm so hemmed into the Anglophone tradition that I've lost touch with my inner excitable child?! Perhaps! But I'm too old to really care! If I want to read musings on the nature of time and memory, I'll stick to Proust, Woolf and, in a pinch, Bergson! And even Henri's a little too over the top for me! So Lispector probably never stood a chance! ( )