Clarice Lispector’s Imitation of the Rose

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) was a Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist and short-story writer, widely considered one of Brazil’s most important literary figures of her century. She moved to Brazil at age 5 with her Jewish family to escape persecution and deportation, and her literary production explores complex themes like self-identity, human suffering, and the inner lives of middle-class women, often through introspective, lyrical prose. She is often compared to Virginia Woolf, Kafka, and Katherine Mansfield.

It was my first time reading anything by her, and this short stories collection includes:

• The Imitation of the Rose;
• Family Ties;
• The Crime of the Mathematics Teacher;
• The Buffalo;
• The Egg and the Chicken;
• Mineirinho;
• Covert Joy;
• In Search of a Dignity;
• The Departure of the Train;
• Report on the Thing;
• The Sound of Footsteps;
• Brasilia;
• Beauty and the Beast or The Enormous Wound.

Some of these stories are astonishing in the way they use prompts from everyday life, like simple objects and apparently inconsequential events, to dive deep into the existential anguish of the main characters, mostly women, often at turning points of their lives.

A bunch of roses triggers the return of depression because they’re simply too beautiful to keep and it’s such a shame to give them away.
A taxi driver who doesn’t know the way resonates with the feeling of being trapped into an old woman’s body while the soul, still feeling so young, is desperate for a way out.
A departing train and the chance meeting between two women initiate a mute dialogue between their lives, and what they’re running from.
Some other stories, though, I’m simply not smart enough to understand. ‘Cause by the life of me what was the Sveglia thing all about? And what prompts you to write pages and pages of existential dissertation around what does it mean to be an egg? The essay on Brasilia made sense, but just because I studied architecture. The egg thing might make sense to a veterinarian, I don’t know. All I know is that sometimes too much is too much.

Still, the balance between the deep and the obscure is definitely in favour of the deep.