My observations of Living Water by Clarice Lispector

Hello friends of this great community; I bring you my opinion or reflections about some books, novels, stories, poems in this case I will be talking about a novel by Clarice Lispector, on the occasion I had commissioned Novelas III which includes three novels including Agua Viva, La Hora de la Estrella and a breath of life, of which I have already had the opportunity to read some parts that I liked and that is why I decided to order this book.

In this publication I will be quoting some small parts and commenting on my impression of the novel Agua Viva and I would like you to accompany me until the end, I really like Clarice Lispector's writing style because it seems very experimental to me, and from what I have been able He really likes reading to try to explain with words what we could say has no explanation, which is existence, meaninglessness, searching for meaning where there is none, and I think he plays a lot with phrases, trying not so much to that the idea is literally captured, but that with the metaphor and what is not said between the lines a concept that remains for you in your mind is understood.

Also about the description that he tries to make of the present, of the moment of pure existence and this novel Agua Viva seems to me like a personal exercise, a game with phrases and with words trying to create a painting because it mentions a lot that it, paints and expresses through the image; and in this novel he tries to jump from one art to the other, from the image to the words, from the tangible to what cannot be grabbed.

“I want to be able to hold the word in my hand, the word is an object, it is questioned”

It reveals a need for others to identify with it.

And this is where I got the idea that she has a need to identify herself in others or for others to identify with her and her ideas, she wrote,

“And if I say I it is because I do not dare to say you or we or a person, I am obliged to the humility of personalizing myself, minimizing myself, but I am he who is you”

These are ideas, thoughts that are recurring in all human beings and that she would like others to identify with her art.

“I will not achieve the final nudity which is what I always seem to seek and apparently I still do not want it, this is life seen by life, perhaps it does not make sense but it is the same lack of sense that the vein that pulses has, I want write to you like someone who learns, I portray each moment I deepen the words as if I were painting its shadow more than an object, I don't want to ask why, you can always ask why and always remain without an answer, maybe I manage to surrender to the expectant silence that follows a question unanswered"

We are always looking to make sense of everything.

Uses the word or describes the need to use words as a means to explain the intangible, leaving between the lines an empty space where the revelation of existence occurs and wrote

“I don't want to have the terrible limitation of someone who lives simply on what is likely to make sense, not me, what I want is an invented truth”

“Listen, I let you be, let me be then, but eternally is a very hard word, it has a granite T in the middle, eternity because everything that is never began, my small, very limited head explodes when I think of something that does not begin and does not It ends because that is what is eternal. Fortunately, this feeling does not last long because I cannot stand it to continue and if it persisted it would drive me crazy. However, my head also explodes when I imagine the opposite, something that had started, where would it start and what will it end? What would come after finishing? As you can see, it is impossible for me to go deeper and take ownership of life, it is aerial, it is my light breath and I know well what I want here, I want the unfinished, I want the deep organic disorder that despite "Everything allows us to sense an underlying order."

It reminds me of when I read nausea, I thought it was trying to describe or what Sartre had meant with the term nausea, for me it was that momentary sensation that comes in small moments, it comes to everyone, in who you are, in the that you are only, in which you are within existence, where there are no concepts, explanations, words but that we cannot remain for too long in that sensation or thought or in the feeling that the thought of the unknown, of the infinite, provokes in us. of the intangible, it comes to overwhelm us and we do not stay in it for too long.

I feel that in this previous paragraph he describes exactly this, that for a moment the present came to him, the intangible came to him, but that he cannot fully explain it and cannot remain in it.

We cannot bear the idea of ​​eternity, or that everything had a beginning and that everything will have an end, that existence began or ended or is eternal, it is as if we cannot understand this, we are content. with continuing to invent meanings and continue inventing time.

“but the most important word in the language has only two letters, e, s, es, I am in its center, I am still in its center alive and still soft, in the center where I am, in the center of es I do not ask questions, because when it is, it is, I am limited only by my identity, I am an elastic entity and separated from other bodies, I write to you because I do not understand myself, but I continue to be elastic, the mystery of that jungle where I survive to be is so great, and now I think I'm really going to do it, that is, I'm going to enter, I mean, into the mystery, myself mysterious inside where I move swimming protozoan, one day I said childishly I can do anything, it was the announcement of the day when I could and fall into abandonment of any law”

Beyond thought it tries to explain that there is nothing, only the essence and it says “it is”, “I am”, you are”; He also questions where I'm going and the answer is: “I'm going.”

Here it describes the essence of things, in the translation of this book they put it as “it”, it in English which would be “that”, which would be the description of things, the things that do not have life and that it deals with. to search for their soul and says

"Although there is also the mystery of how impersonal it is, I have the impersonal inside me and it is not infected and corruptible by the personal that sometimes soaks me, but I dry in the sun and I am an impersonal of dry and germinative seed ”

I really liked the following metaphor

“I used to put drops of lemon on the live oyster and watched with horror and fascination how it all writhed, I was eating the living “it”, the living “it” is the God, I am going to stop a little because I know that the God It is the world, it is what exists, I pray to what exists, it is not dangerous to get close to what exists, what I don't like is when they put drops of lemon inside me and make me squirm all over, the facts of the "Life is the Lemon in the oyster, the oyster is sleeping."

For her, an oyster would be an “it”, a thing that is not conscious of itself, that is, “it” would be rather something that is not aware that it exists, as we human beings and some animals are, so for her An oyster is not aware of its own existence and when she ate she put lemon on them and saw how they squirmed, but then she compared herself to the oyster and it was as if she were writing that the problems or adversities that are out of her control And what happens is as if they were also pouring lemon on her and she became twisted.

“I am breathing up and down, up and down, how the naked oyster breathes, if it breathes it does not see what I do not see does not exist”

I also liked a phrase and it says

“Whoever is capable of stopping reasoning accompany”

“I do not think, just as the diamond thinks, I shine completely with effort, I am not hungry, nor thirsty, I am, I have two eyes that are open towards nothingness, towards the ceiling”

It is compared to a crystal that is an “it”, an object without awareness of its existence.

I want to make you curious if you like this type of literature, about these writers, I hope you look for them and discover their literary wealth for themselves.

I hope you liked it and see you soon.

and thank you for coming this far.