24 Comments
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Mark Meier's avatar

I am putting this in my list of books to read. You sparked my interest. Truly, you have. Thank you. THank you so very much.

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AMANDA's avatar

Mark! Thank you!! I hope you read it sometime soon! You’ll really like it!

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Kevin Maher's avatar

I have to read her now. Intriguing sounding prose and just looking at the comments has piqued my interest. Thanks Amanda. Also, do you do a book club, or a breakdown of literature on your stack? I’ve subscribed to a a few too many writers based on the restacked of some others that I’ve come across because of other restacked, and I’ve kind of lost my way. Did I read your take on the first couple of chapters of The Great Gatsby? I’m looking through my history but not having much look.

Thanks for this post. Much appreciated.

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AMANDA's avatar

Kevin!!

Thank you for reading!

So glad it was interesting to you! My purpose with the book club is to present books monthly (like a book club) but have more of a discussion about the books, a breakdown of literature, as you said!

Hahaha I actually don’t know if you read the one on “The Great Gatsby”, but I’m doing the other parts soon (it’s too much work - so it’s a slow process), so it’s definitely worth the read!

Thank you! ❤️

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Kevin Maher's avatar

I read The Great Gatsby when I was younger. I remember liking it, but I was too young and inexperienced to fully comprehend what was happening, or what the different characters represented. I can hardly remember a line of it, although your words sort of brought it back to life, deep within my frazzled memory bank!

I will have to reread it, now that I’m 56 and have life figured out!!😂

Hope to talk to you soon. Have a lovely weekend.

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Kevin Maher's avatar

I did read the Gatsby dissection.. love it.. now I just need to find it again. I’ve been looking for a book clubhouse. I loved your way of relaying the plot, fleshing out characters, your sense of humour. The whole shebang! And I must’ve forgotten to hit that heart button! Again! I read so much on this platform that it’s interfering with my reading of actual, physical book!! I have a few on the go. But my time is limited regarding reading. This book club of yours will prove invaluable to me, as I’ll have to set a time aside to read. A bit of discipline. Just what I need. So, once again, thank you for the post. It was a great read.

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Camille's avatar

Absolutely love Clarice Lispector!! She manages to make the mundane poetic in a way that is truly inspiring

I want to read all of her books but I’m trying to take my team with them so as not to run out of her prose too quickly—we’ll see how long that lasts :)

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AMANDA's avatar

omg yay!!! glad to hear that! You’ll be in for an amazing ride!

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Esther Sharp's avatar

Thank you for reminding me to pick up Lispector again. I’ve started The Stream of Life several times, had my head swim with ecstasy at the language and thoughts presented, paused to let it all percolate—then I get washed in other directions and forget to return. But it’s time. 🧡

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AMANDA's avatar

thank you so much for reading, Esther!! ✨🩷✨✨ i would love to hear your thoughts about it when you’re done!! 🫶🏻✨

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Marella Ricketts's avatar

Obsessed with her and how mystic her prose is! I should check this book out soon

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AMANDA's avatar

hi, marella! please do check it out!!! it definitely won’t disappoint! let me know what you think afterwards!! 🥹🫶🏻

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Marella Ricketts's avatar

Will do! An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures is my current favorite, I've read it twice and it was still as magical the second time! ❤️

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Kate's avatar

My wife introduced me to Clarice and I have been entranced by her ever since

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AMANDA's avatar

She’s really the best!!! I’ve never seen a writing style quite like hers!

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Jacob Riley's avatar

Clarice Lispector is INCREDIBLE! And definitely super intense, but also uniquely warm. At this point I've read most of her work but Family Ties is one I still need to get to.

Have you read Too Much of Life? A genuinely life-changing book for me. (Excuse the shameless self promotion but my second ever Substack post was actually about it: https://somethingishappening.substack.com/p/the-genius-of-friendship)

She finally seems to be getting some recognition these days but she's one of the greats in my opinion.

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briffin glue's avatar

clarice's prose goes incredibly hard. It really does make the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic (how does she do that??), and honestly I believe her to be one of the more slept on writers of the past hundred years, at least in the English-language world: probably due to a combination of her writing in Portuguese, her femininity, and a general disdain of South America by English-speaking countries. But anyways my first real post on this platform was about her last spring when I was obsessssed with Agua Vida and her Chrônicas (but not the Jill Costa translation which i'm tbh not a huge fan of); I was generally fascinated by the way she laced overstimulation into her work, it felt more real than anything else I had encountered in print.

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AMANDA's avatar

oh my god, i could talk about Clarice for hours! The way that she enters our heads and just consumes us is scary and mesmerizing at the same time. She’s the most singular writer i’ve ever read, and i think it’s impossible to read her and not have a very strong reaction towards what you’re reading! For me personally, i think it’s impossible not to be captivated by everything she ever wrote as well. And she’s so difficult to be translated, too. It’s not like anything you’ve ever read, and i find it so difficult to translate that level of intensity and emotion transmitted through words into various languages, so i can’t even imagine having to translate Clarice Lispector. Lol. I read “The passion according to G.H” when i was sixteen and my life was just… never the same after that.

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briffin glue's avatar

Me tooooo, her writing feels like an elaborate form of spellcasting. She had such a special power over language, I'm so happy that she's finally starting to gain a following. And yeahhh I have to imagine that her writing is incredibly hard to translate, I would love to try and learn Portuguese just to read her as she wrote, and I def need to check out G.H. from the library at some point soon.

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AMANDA's avatar

You definitely should check it out! I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

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briffin glue's avatar

will do asap

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briffin glue's avatar

And (ugh) i hate to self-promote but I think you would enjoy this piece https://briffinglue.substack.com/p/clarice-and-other-names

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AMANDA's avatar

ooohh I’ll read it!! Thank you so much!

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briffin glue's avatar

aaa i hope you enjoy it! it's a bit of a ramble tbh

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