WHY THIS WORLD: A BIOGRAPHY OF CLARICE LISPECTOR by Benjamin Moser

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Paperback, 496 pages
Published 2012 by Oxford University Press (first published 2009)
ISBN: 9780199895823
#leafbyleaf #bookreview #claricelispector #biography

[@marinellamaccagni6951]

The discover of clarice lispector was for me as much important as that of Virginia woolf. I must buy this book ASAP. Thanks once again for this amazing review. Ps. Btw I love reading biographies!

[@LeafbyLeaf]

I feel the same way. Reading The Passion According to G. H. was a revelation! BTW, I read Deirdre Bair's biography of Samuel Beckett and I'm including a review in my forthcoming long video.

[@marinellamaccagni6951]

@@LeafbyLeaf,awesome!

[@reallycoolgal]

wow great timing. I just finished The Passion According to GH today. Lispector is a truly incredible writer.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

🙌🙌🙌

[@xgryphenx]

For whenever you get there, best literary bio I have read by far is Genet by Edmund White-like a lost Genet novel, with research that’ll make your eyes pop.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Adding it to the list! I have enjoyed White’s translations and introductions that I’ve read.

[@jennyhirschowitz1999]

Genet, by Edmund White is indeed an excellent biography… my hefty old first edition paperback has the Brassai 1950 B&W photograph of Genet on the cover…..also in my library may I suggest Jean-Paul Sartre’s ‘Saint Genet’. This, I think, is the finer biography (same Brassai photograph on my old copy). Thank you for your comment. Miss Jenny (music theory teacher, Manhattan).

[@testcardII]

Clarice Lispector is absolutely brilliant! Incomparable really.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Hear! Hear!

[@Focaminante]

Lispector is one of my favorite short story writers. I don’t read her through Mr. Moser but through her various translators to Spanish. I can’t read Portuguese, which I find particularly shameful considering that Colombia borders Brazil and that I can read other languages. I hope to change this somewhat soon. Here’s something I like to discuss: I have never, ever, found an edition of a book by Lispector that doesn’t have her picture on the cover (at least in Spanish), and I can say that, at least in the Spanish reading world, she has been woefully banalized. You can find pictures of her everywhere, at the peak of her beauty, with some inconsequential quote which does not reflect her complexity of thought and style. The edition of her complete short stories by Siruela press, which I treasure dearly, has an extreme close-up of her beautiful feline face which goes all the way to the spine... Thank you for this review, I was very moved by some of the biographical details you mentioned and I didn’t know already. I’ll make sure to get this when I can.

[@AleksandarBloom]

Is it hard is for spanish lan. native to learn portuguese?

[@Focaminante]

@@AleksandarBloom Not at all, at least learning to read it, which deepens my shame.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Always enjoy your input, @Focaminante !

[@mattjmjmjm4731]

One of my favourite writers, her short stories are amazing as well, everyone should read The Crime of the Mathematics Teacher, that one hits hard. I like her focus on the subjective experiences of women and her whole mystical approach to writing is quite amazing, one of a kind.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

She is, indeed, stunning. I have yet to read any of her short stories, so thanks for giving me a recommended starting point!

[@quinnjones5742]

If you haven't read them already, I would really recommend Água Viva, Near to the Wild Heart, and The Chandelier. All incredible. And I believe a new translation of The Apple in the Dark (unfortunately out of print) is due out sometime in the near future.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Agua Viva I have read. The Chandelier I sought out and purchased as a direct result of reading this biography. It sounds like a book I will really dig!

[@jackwalter5030]

I've owned a copy of this bio. for ages, but haven't read it yet. Now, I must do so. Thanks!

[@LeafbyLeaf]

It was the same for me. I bought this years ago.

[@kieran_forster_artist]

Great review. Biography is a very rewarding genre, somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, but essentially grounded in an actual life narrative that is always open to the inherent ineffability of each lived life. Thanks for showing us new ways to consciously value good biography, Chris. As usual, you suggest there is an atmosphere of, or undercurrent of, hopefulness in the story of this fully lived life, including its hardships and challenges.

[@andrewmatthews5477]

I am so excited for the upcoming compilation of her cronicas!

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Same here! NDP is also, I believe, putting out a collection of Fernanda Melchor's cronicas.

[@kieran_forster_artist]

Tear asunder the cloud of unknowing……absolutely brilliant review

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Thanks! :)

[@semiote]

Thanks for this video. I loved this biography! I'm really looking forward to the publication of Lispector's Complete Cronicas in September, and really hope the English translation of her children's stories comes out soon.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

So many goodies on the way for us!

[@rickharsch8797]

That was terrific, Chris

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Thanks, Rick!

[@charlesvia6745]

So enjoyed this book review of Why This World. I have a great interest in Gematria also! Excellent summation by “Leaf by Leaf”! Thanks Chris Via!

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Thanks so much! :)

[@liquidpebbles7475]

Ooooh i want to read this, havent read any of her novels but ive an idea, reading all of her short stories, about to finish them, she's one of the best ever and that's saying something, her figure is so enigmatic and I've heard very good things about this bio, but I want to read her novels first so this vid will have to do. Tldr thx for the vid as always and pls do check her short stories and comment on them :)

[@LeafbyLeaf]

My pleasure! I've only read 3 of her novels, but each was sublime. I'm definitely getting to her short stories.

[@MaximTendu]

Being the Johnny-Come-Lately I've been all my life, this weekend I'm going to read my first Machado De Assis (The Alienist & Other Stories). Before the end of the month, I will read my first Clarice Lispector. Now, what would you recommend as an hors d'oeuvre: The Passion, Wild Heart or Água Viva? Muito obrigado in advance.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

The Passion was my first Lispector novel, but I've heard that her first is a solid amuse-bouche too!

[@MaximTendu]

@@LeafbyLeaf An embarassment of riches. Either way, I shall turn 40 in her company. Oh, since we are at it: feliz niver, Cristóvão 🎂

[@jamessaldariega3011]

love the cat tho hehe

[@LeafbyLeaf]

He kept rubbing against the camera tripod! So I had to give him some attention. 😁

[@petersattler2241]

I don't care much for biography, but I'm glad that other people write them. It's always unclear to me what this biographical facts do -- or should do -- to my reading experience. Let's say, for example, that Elizabeth Bishop was right when she said that CL was professionally unreliable and, as far as EB could tell, didn't read anything. What should I do with that -- or its opposing set of facts?

[@aspirant7713]

I'm amazed by the repertoire of a writer's vocabulary . How could you have such a vast collection of words . What's your source of knowing words other than reading books. Would u recommend me any books for knowing obscure , recondite & grandiloquent words. I , myself , an ameteur logophile im always facinated by the beautiful words and prose . what's list of books should one wordssmith/logophile should possessed ? I like to learn new words thematically , is there any specific books like that.

[@jarx7500]

read those words themselves I guess?

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Not sure how I overlooked this comment, so, thanks to the other commenter who just replied. All the logophiles and word collectors I know read dictionaries and thesauruses. Reading these sources is a boon, too, because you’ll get etymologies, related words, and other fun facts. Happy wording!

[@SergioRamos-lz2ql]

I used to have hard time accepting his depicting Brazil to the American audience, but last Fall I had an experience during a course on Brazil that helped understand why audiences here tend to prefer to believe in their view of Brazil despite the plethora of better sources by Brazilian authors. Although it seems exhausting trying to change these misconceptions on Brazil, and by extension on Clarice's, work, I still should say again: there are way better works by Brazilian scholars on Clarice Lispector, and some of them are already available in English.

[@munaali840]

Can you name some so we can read them? Thank you

[@michaelrhodes4712]

From the shtetl to the top echelon......she sells sea shells by the shtetl store......he thrusts his fist against a post he still insists he sees a ghost......incidentally, I don't know if you ever reviewed The Book Of Genesis, but if you haven't, you should. When you learn about all the crazy patterns in that book, and the way that you can compose a matrix of the different days of the week, and see how patterns emerge on the different days (except for the Sabbath), Oy Vey!