An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

by Clarice Lispector, Stefan Tobler (Translator), Sheila Heti (Afterword)

What to make of a writer who follows the metaphysical heights of her great Passion According to GH with a book that looks suspiciously like a romance novel?

In The Apprenticeship, or The Book of Pleasures, Clarice Lispector tries to discover how to bridge the gap between people, or how to even begin to try.

A woman struggles to emerge from solitude and sadness into love, including sexual love: her guide on this journey is Ulisses, who (yes) leads her patiently into the fullness of life.

The Apprenticeship was a bestseller and, as her biographer Benjamin Moser writes, "This accessible love story surprised many readers. When it came out, an interviewer said: 'I thought The Book of Pleasures was much easier to read than any of your other books. Do you think there’s any basis for that?' Clarice answered: 'There is. I humanized myself, the book reflects that.'”

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Romance, Literary Fiction, Brazil, Novels, Philosophy

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Clarice Lispector was a Brazilian writer. Acclaimed internationally for her innovative novels and short stories, she was also a journalist. Born to a Jewish family in Podolia in Western Ukraine, she was brought to Brazil as an infant, amidst the disasters engulfing her native land following the First World War.

She grew up in northeastern Brazil, where her mother died when she was nine. The family moved to Rio de Janeiro when she was in her teens. While in law school in Rio she began publishing her first journalistic work and short stories, catapulting to fame at age 23 with the publication of her first novel, 'Near to the Wild Heart' (Perto do Coração Selvagem), written as an interior monologue in a style and language that was considered revolutionary in Brazil.

She left Brazil in 1944, following her marriage to a Brazilian diplomat, and spent the next decade and a half in Europe and the United States. Upon return to Rio de Janeiro in 1959, she began producing her most famous works, including the stories of Family Ties (Laços de Família), the great mystic novel The Passion According to G.H. (A Paixão Segundo G.H.), and the novel many consider to be her masterpiece, Água Viva. Injured in an accident in 1966, she spent the last decade of her life in frequent pain, steadily writing and publishing novels and stories until her premature death in 1977.

She has been the subject of numerous books and references to her, and her works are common in Brazilian literature and music. Several of her works have been turned into films, one being 'Hour of the Star' and she was the subject of a recent biography, Why This World, by Benjamin Moser.

Reviews

[Ashley (back!) · Rating 5 out of 5]

edit: changed my rating to 5 stars because i genuinely cannot stop thinking about this book
"—Before dying you live, Lóri."

holy crap. people weren’t lying when they said that reading lispector is an experience. it feels transcendental—like being cracked open from the inside then being put back together. i feel changed. and i almost cried?? if a book makes me cry or almost does, it has my heart forever. thus, unsurprisingly, clarice lispector has a new fan!! i feel much too under qualified to write this review, but i shall try my best to express my thoughts coherently.

"In faith itself, since faith can be a real scare, it can mean falling into the abyss, Lóri was afraid of falling into the abyss and was holding on to one of Ulisses's hands while Ulisses's other hand was pushing her into the abyss —soon shed have to let go of the hand that was weaker than the one pushing her, and fall, life isn't a joke because in the middle of the day you die. A human being's most pressing need was to become a human being."

the prose is so uniquely stunning. a meandering, eloquent stream of consciousness that sometimes feels like it’s mirroring thoughts i could never express this beautifully. i’m besotted. captivated. she wonderfully captures the innate desire to live—to feel human, with a quiet intensity. but also, who is worthy of love? who deserves to love?

"—Your advice. But there's a great, the greatest obstacle for me to make progress: I myself. I've been the greatest hindrance along my path. It's with enormous effort that I manage to impose myself on myself."

i feel like i read this book at the right time, and i am forever grateful that i did. i felt seen. her portrayal of self-sabotage—standing in your own way and obscuring opportunities, living in your mind and being your own greatest hinderance, chronically stuck in a loop of inhibitions was so painfully and vividly accurate. it’s something we almost all experience at some point—our own worst enemy is often ourselves. how often do we stop ourselves from reaching what we want, all because we’re too afraid to do anything or unsure of what we deserve?

"–Living, she said in that incongruous dialogue in which they seemed to understand each other, living is so out of the ordinary that I'm only alive because I was born. I know that anyone could say the same, but the fact is I'm the one saying it.
–You still haven't got used to living? Ulisses asked with intense curiosity.
–No"

i think most of us have moments where we don’t feel real—we’re still getting used to it. there are days when living feels like a foreign concept. as if we’re detached from the world around us, sometimes staring into the abyss. derealization. questioning everything. i love how clarice lispector captures that as well—to be alive and to love is an absurd experience.

"Lóri, said Ulisses, and suddenly he seemed serious though he was speaking calmly, Lóri; one of the things I've learned is that we ought to live despite. Despite, we should eat. Despite, we should love. Despite, we should die. It's even often this despite that spurs us on. The despite was what gave me an anguish that when unsatisfied was the creator of my own life. It was despite that I stopped on the street and stood looking at you while you were waiting for a taxi. And immediately desiring you, that body of yours that isn't even pretty, but it's the body I want. But I want it all, including the soul. That's why it doesn't matter that you're not coming, I'll wait as long as I have to."

one of the most compelling passages for me was the one above, about the despite. being a human is a tumultuous experience, yet it goes on. while life brings an immense amount of pain and uncertainty, we live despite it. in that despite, there can be a strange hope to keep going—to find joy, beauty, and the opportunity to learn and grow, even when we’re bereft, even when we’re still trying to figure things out, or even when things don’t make complete sense.

"You just stopped and found nothing beyond it. I'm not saying I have much, but I still have intense searching and violent hope. Not that quiet and sweet voice of yours. And I don't cry, if I need to one day I'll scream, Lóri. I'm in the middle of a struggle and much closer to whatever people call a poor human victory than you, but it is a victory. I could already have you with my body and soul. I'll wait for years if I must for you too to have a soul-body in order to love. We're still young, we can waste some time without wasting our whole lives. But look at everyone around you and see what we've made of ourselves and considered our daily victory. We haven't loved, that most of all we haven't accepted what we don't understand because we don't want to look stupid. We've hoarded things and reassurances because we don't have each other. We don't have any joy that hasn't already been catalogued. We've built cathedrals, and stayed outside because the cathedrals we ourselves built, were afraid they're traps. We haven't surrendered to ourselves, because that would be the start of a long life and were afraid of that. We’ve avoided falling to our knees in front of the first one of us who says, out of love: you're afraid. We've organized smiley clubs and associations where you are served with or without soda. We've tried to save ourselves but without using the word salvation in order to avoid the embarrassment of being innocents. We haven't used the word love so as not to have co recognize its contexture of hate, love, jealousy and so many other contradictories. We've kept our death a secret in order to make our life possible. Many of us make art because we don't know what the other thing is like. We've disguised our indifference with false love, knowing that our indifference is disguised anguish. We've disguised with a small fear the greatest fear of all and that's why we never speak of what really matters."

-
pre-review

currently questioning everything
rtc

-
pre-read

i know i’m reading 4 other books rn buttttt i’m feeling like starting something short and sweet. i’ll finish a book or two today trust. i’m trying to become a cool girl so i’m reading clarice lispector!! this is my first by her and i’m ecstatic!! the cover is serving!!

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

The heart has to present itself to Nothing alone and to beat in silence from a tachycardia in the darkness.
The protagonist's experience bears resemblance to the trials of the beautiful Psyche from Greek myth and the mystical adventure of the soul as it navigates the night in the "Spiritual Song" of São João da Cruz.
Like a painting whose main lines cut it out from the great mystery that contains everything, this book, which asks for greater freedom, is the narrative of initiation and an extraordinary hymn to love. Lóri, the woman, embarks on a profound journey to her depths and attains a profound awareness of her being. She says: I am the man, Ulysses, a philosophy professor who has formulas to explain the world, but I become something more straightforward —a simple man. Both will initiate: Ulysses closes his ears to the other mermaids because he is only available to Lóri, whose real name is Loreley, as the character of Heine and Apollinaire, an undine or mermaid who used to attract the boatmen from the Rhine to the rocks. Each one will find himself face-to-face with the other.
Because it is work, asceticism, and travel, the love of Lóri and Ulisses overcomes the difference, the strangeness, and even death or the fear of death. The characters' final physical delivery takes place with a tantric force of ecstasy and epiphany. For Lóri, the atmosphere was miraculous; Ulysses suffered from life and love.
Nothing ends; however, the moment announces a new dawn: Both were pale and beautiful. Clarice inserts herself wisely and closes the narrative with a comma with two points.

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a book calls to you. You keep picking it up yet never quite bring yourself to buy it, but then go home and discover the perfect recommendation about it and have to race back out to get it and devour the book. Such was the case with Ashley’s exquisite review and this marvelous wonder of a brief book, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures by the late, great Brazilian writer Clarise Lispector. Reader: I soared from work back to the bookstore to snag this and then could not rest until I had finished it. An Apprenticeship is a gorgeously rendered portrait of love, of life, and of our struggles to live it, told through a fluid interiority that blend boundaries of first and third person as well as authorial distance for a blissfully accessible story rife with philosophical underpinnings and aglow in mysticism. Lispector plunges us into the introspectively intensive mind of Lóri, a underpaid and suicidal teacher of underprivileged children, on her quest for self-knowledge to ‘be alive through pleasure’ under the tutelage of university professor and potential lover, Ulisses. While ‘in the end living was no more than getting ever closer to death,’ it is a reminder that the space between birth and the grave is a vessel to fill with emotion: pain, pleasure, yearning, learning, and all the joys and sorrows of life. A novel alive on vibes as the duo vacillate between intimacy and isolation, Lispector weaves us through examinations on the possibilities of pleasure, the frailties of language, and the pains of confronting the spirituality within as we exist in an endless apprenticeship of becoming human.

‘I'm not saying I have much, but I still have intense searching and violent hope.’

Lispector begins An Apprenticeship not with a word but with a comma. One can look at the novel as a fragment, for what is a slice of life but merely a slice from the whole? And this comma, joining what came before to what is yet to come, represents that the novel is already in the state of narrative movement, already in a perpetual state of becoming. Just as we, too, are all in an endless state of becoming what we will later be. ‘Life isn’t a joke because in the middle of the day you die,’ Lispector writes, ‘ human being’s most pressing need was to become a human being.’ Being and being in flux is central to Lispector’s narrative, which admittedly moves more along the lines of character development than a “plot” per say (though it is a breeze of a read and pulls you right along on the strong currents of philosophical investigation and self-reflection), and her narration also waltzes between first and third perspective. There is a felt sense of instability as the novel interrogates the proximity of intimacy and the volatility of wanting a sense of unity while also desiring singularity between Lóri and Ulisses—she withdraws while also wants to ‘absorb Ulisses completely’ We’ve all been there, struggling between our desires and our anxieties. ‘The truth was she didn’t know how to live,’ and, girl, SAME.

‘Ulisses, remember how you once asked me why I voluntarily kept away from people? Now I can tell you. It’s because I don’t want to be platonic in relation to myself. I’m profoundly defeated by the world I live in. I separated myself just for a while because of my defeat and because I felt that other people were defeated too. So I closed myself up in an individualization that if I hadn’t been careful could have been transformed into a hysterical or contemplative solitude.’

Though we also find an instability of proximity between the author and her characters. Blurring boundaries we hear Lispector’s own voice coming through either collectively with Lóri’s character or individually as Lispector addresses the reader directly. Understanding and an embrace of ignorance wax and wane as well, with the stream of consciousness that often feels akin to the fluidity of Virginia Woolf winding the reader through the interior instabilities as well:

‘Through the drunkenness of the jasmine, for a moment a revelation came to her in the form of a feeling–and in the next instant she’d forgotten what she’d learned from the revelation’

The instability of the self is evinced in Lispector’s opening note to the novel, writing ‘“This book demanded a greater liberty than I was afraid to give. It is far above me. Humbly I tried to write it. I am stronger than I.’ The two “I”’s of Lispector nudge against the notion that Ulisses instructs Lóri she’ll know she has reached transcendence when someone asks her name she will not state ‘Lóri,’ but be able to reply ‘my name is I.’ Yet throughout the novel the “I” of Lóri and the “I” of Lispector are occasionally absorbed into each other as they are rocked by a destabilized selfhood. Artists, don’t cast your eyes down, it’s okay, we definitely put ourselves into our creations to live vicariously. And this novel celebrates that as a source of mysticism to fulfillment of the self that, like the freeway in Grand Rapids, Mchigani, is always under construction.

‘Could love be giving your own solitude to another? Because that's the ultimate thing you can give of yourself.’

This is part and parcel with the professed purpose of Lóri’s “apprenticeship” into being human under Ulisses, who is, sorry to say, occasionally insufferably self-important as one might fear an academic man taking it upon himself to be a “life coach” of the soul for a woman beneath his status might be. The burgeoning romance between them keeps it tender with Ulisses insisting he will wait to properly “be” with her until she has reached a ‘state of grace,’ where only then can one ‘see the profound beauty, once unreachable, of another person.’ And while ‘it was liberty he was offering her,’ we know that she ‘had only one fear” that Ulisses, the great Ulisses whose head she was holding, would let her down,’ and her past, such as a father who ‘had overburdened her with contradictions’ and failed as her protector assuming her as his own, rises up to haunt her. It can lean almost towards oversentimentality at time, yet miraculously remains afloat. In lesser hands this book could get irksome quick, particularly as the novel is full of philosophical quips or lessons steeped in mysticism such as ‘it's only when we forget all our knowledge that we begin to know,’ yet Lispector and her luminous prose (translated here by Stefan Tobler) give it a awe-inspiring lightness that penetrates the soul with bliss and scratches the brain as if it were a dog belly-up eagerly awaiting your hand.

‘I'm in the middle of a struggle and much closer to whatever people call a poor human victory than you, but it is a victory. I could already have you with my body and soul. I'll wait for years if I must for you too to have a soul-body in order to love. We're still young, we can waste some time without wasting our whole lives.’

We must all confront our fears in order to live and sometimes living is what we fear most. I found Lispector is able to effortlessly and eloquently probe these fears that keep us from living, that keep us separated, that have us hiding within ourselves to not have to see ourselves even when we so badly want to come out into the world. ‘We've built cathedrals, and stayed outside because the cathedrals we ourselves built, were afraid they're traps,’ Ulisses warns and far to often the traps we are caught in are of our own making and ‘It's with enormous effort that I manage to impose myself on myself.’ Been there.

‘We haven't surrendered to ourselves, because that would be the start of a long life and were afraid of that. We’ve avoided falling to our knees in front of the first one of us who says, out of love: you're afraid….We haven't used the word love so as not to have to recognize its contexture of hate, love, jealousy and so many other contradictions…We've disguised our indifference with false love, knowing that our indifference is disguised anguish. We've disguised with a small fear the greatest fear of all and that's why we never speak of what really matters.’

Lispector’s An Apprenticeship is utterly overflowing with beautiful lines and empowering aphorisms and encourages us to live. Simply that: live. Even when it is hard.

‘[O]ne of the things I've learned is that we ought to live despite. Despite, we should eat. Despite, we should love. Despite, we should die. It's even often this despite that spurs us on. The despite was what gave me an anguish that when unsatisfied was the creator of my own life. It was despite that I stopped on the street and stood looking at you while you were waiting for a taxi. And immediately desiring you…’

Desire, pleasure, it is all found when we allow ourselves to come outside of the hiding places we construct in our interior selves, to knock down our fortress walls and be vulnerable.

‘ Lóri had gone from the religion of her childhood to a nonreligion and now had gone to something more ample: shed reached the point of believing in a God so vast that he was the world with its galaxies: that was what shed seen the day before when she entered the deserted sea on her own. And because of his impersonal vastness this was a God you couldn't implore: what you could do was join him and be big too.’

Mysticism and spirituality are another major theme deftly threaded through the narrative. We see that a spiritual instability conflicts with the attempt to find a balance of the self. ‘From Ulisses she’d learned to have the courage to have faith,’ Lispector writes. But faith in what? ‘In faith itself, since faith can be a real scare, it can mean falling into the abyss.’ The idea of faith that we jump into and trust will be there even if we have no evidence for it. One must believe this about themselves too and in Lóri we find the idea of ‘the God’ comingling with the notion of the self.

‘We erred by humanizing him. We humanized Him because we didn’t understand Him, so it didn’t work. I’m sure He isn’t human. But though not human, nonetheless He still sometimes makes us divine.’

To know the God, or to know oneself is seen as a path to the divine, ‘ To know herself was supernatural.’ It all mixes quite effortlessly with the romantic plot and the ideas of vulnerability to a fever pitch of beauty and intense introspective joy. Lispector can do so much in such a little space and while the novel can get rather repetitive at times, the repetition begins to feel like a mantra that opens up understanding and takes the self to new heights.

‘With me you’ll speak your whole soul, even in silence.’

I found An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasure to be a profoundly gorgeous and moving work. Clarise Lispector writes like a river gently flowing yet, underneath the pristine beauty of the surface reflecting the suns rays, there is a strong current that we must surrender to. It is a marvelous little read that, honestly, was exactly what I needed in my life at this moment. Life is hard, life is scary, but we must face it. I enjoyed the sentiment that this wasn’t about a transformation, per say, not becoming something different because ‘you’re the same as you ever were’ she writes, ‘you’ve just bloomed into a blood-red rose.’ We bloom into who we were meant to become when we face life with the faith of the self in our hearts and that is truly beautiful.

4.5/5

‘She was full and didn’t need anyone, it was enough to know that Ulisses loved her and that she loved him.’

[Joey Shapiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like every Clarice Lispector book, it feels like wading through the densest most beautiful prose on the planet and just submitting to the fact that her writing is so meticulous and loaded with meaning that you'll never fully understand it all on a first read. Clarice never missteps and I loved it!! Imagine if people read this, a book about learning to live and be deserving of love and exist in the world, instead of lame self-help books!! The world would be that utopia meme.

[elle]

i just know this is going to be a good read. february books have all been deliciously good so far.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars would be an understatement. This book is the embodiment of "a perfect book at a perfect time", for I came to struggle on the quest of loving and being loved by someone, and how deserving I am to hold the title of happiness, that which is, to love, and being loved. But does happiness only really fathom such way? Does happiness really meant, putting a huge importance on finding someone, and pouring every bits of ourselves into them? Do we, in order to truly love, and be loved, must first find one's way to exist; find our own solitude and there forth, sharing it with one another? Why so, when human life is so very superficial, do we need love; and how does it complete us, when we are flawed, in our own way, and the mere possibility of ruining others, with our own flawed self, how do we find peace in loving, peace in moments of joy, when we never thought we deserve them?

Lispector has always been incredibly alluring, eloquent, spiritually profound in her prose, for how she elaborated feelings or petty aspects of life as a human, sensually grounded yet incredibly congenial. This slim but intense volume is definitely much more straightforward than her other works. The plot, such as it is, involves a man and a woman—Lori and the aptly named Ulisses—who love each other but can’t be together. At least, not yet, until they find their own meaning of existing; of living; of being human.

I can't help but to bear such a strong resemblance on Lori, of how she; in many instances, wonder about why she is living; existing, of how to let herself being flooded by joy, and how she manage to find peace with gradual acceptance of it. Lori knew, that her happiness is Ulisses, a wise professor of philosophy who, is waiting, and always being there for Lori, for her to find freedom within herself, in order for them to love each other. Maybe, in a sense, I desired to find the Ulisses to my Lori. Of how he is able to patiently, and relentlessly extend his hands to Lori, even when Lori struggled to find her way of existing. I always find myself, unable to give in to someone in fear of being the act of burden to them, and how I would ruin; taint them with my incredibly flawed self, and this book told me that well, that's what being human is all about; learning and accepting the gradual moments of joy even though we hardly understand it, just existing, even of how absurd it is; and to love, after we find the way to be worthy of life itself. Indeed, the prize of becoming a human; a few private moments between ourselves and the universe, that is the struggle toward love, is presented as an apprenticeship, and we will always remain as apprentices, for we will constantly learn, feel, and struggle, and that's on being human. This book will always hold a special place in my heart.

[daniella ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a beautiful, beautiful book

[Scarlett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oops, I guess I'll be an exception with this one. There are some passages that are indeed beautifully written. Lispector relies heavily on synesthesia and metaphor, with various degrees of success. I was really looking forward to this one as I had heard great things about her modernist style (often compared to Joyce, no less) and her existential, internal approach to writing. The main problem I had with this is it reeked of new age mysticism and antiquated stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. Where some people seemed to have found fascinating insights into our human minds, I found tired symbolism and banal, shallow observations. There was quite a lot of male condescension too, which grossed me out more than once. All in all, the beauty of a few passages were not enough to make this a good read. Someone told me her short stories are vastly superior to her novels, so I might try that before giving up on her altogether.

[nastya · Rating 1 out of 5]

pretends she’s alive and not dying since in the end living was no more than getting ever closer to death… pretends that everything she has isn’t pretend… pretends she isn’t crying inside…

There was the sea, the most unintelligible of nonhuman existences. And there was the woman, standing, the most unintelligible of living beings. She and the sea.

Banal, vapid, ponderous…

Can there even be a more 'not me' book? This ain't Woolf. These are the worst tendencies of Elizabeth Bowen and Jean Rhys combined. I found out after starting this book that this is one of her most accessible ones, and maybe that's the issue? Without smoke and mirrors, it is revealed there's nothing there—except for cigarette smoke.

And what is it about? A very hysterical woman, an open wound of a person, who is barely able to function in this world, obsessing over a man and herself, of course

Suffer - 29 times
Pain - 85 times
Death - 44 times
Dying - 22 times
Pretend - 23 times
God - 96 times
Silence - 68 times
Grace - 23 times

[Miss Lo Flipo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clarice Lispector empieza este libro con una coma y lo termina con dos puntos. No se puede ser más chula. Qué manera de decir: ojo, que no me importan las formas, que esto es un fragmento, esta es una historia que ni yo sé dónde empieza o dónde acaba, pero te va a dar igual porque es más grande que tú y te va a terminar eclipsando.
⁣
Qué genio era. Escribiendo desde la total introspección, perdiéndose en divagaciones existencialistas que la dejan a una con estupor y temblores (guiño, guiño): no encuentro otra manera de enfrentarme a ella. Especialmente cuando se pone tan densa que, con el cerebro confinado y a medio gas, sé que a pesar de entender la literalidad de lo que me cuenta, hay mucho más entre esas líneas. Algo que varía según el momento vital o el momento del día, si me apuráis. ⁣
⁣
Lori, la protagonista, se pregunta todo el tiempo "Quién soy yo" y Ulises, su pasión y, a ratos, su némesis le replica: "Eso no se responde, Lori. No te hagas la fuerte preguntándote la peor pregunta". ⁣
⁣
Pues eso, amigas, no nos hagamos las fuertes tratando de comprender todo lo que se plantea en este libro a la primera. A Lispector se la lee desde la intuición, no desde la lógica.
⁣

[persephone ☾ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Before dying you live, Lori"

at times it seems as though the pain of existence far outweighs the pain of death. it is only something we can hypothesize about, however when the mere thought of breathing another day seems too much of a struggle, one might seek a quick yet permanent relief to it all.

this book reconciles this feeling with a call for hope and an incentive to seek peace in every sense of the word.

it dives into how affection turned into deep love can be a catalyst for this change of perspective. but ultimately the emphasis is on how a sense of self has to be found before throwing one’s self in the pleasure of companionship.

pouring your feelings into someone can so easily leave you lost in the midst of indecisiveness and can blur the borders of the Self : the person you are, the person you desire to be, or who you are when you are not performing.

some books, as love does, leave a mark on your soul and Clarice Lispector might have managed to stamp mine.

[Meagan✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so Lana Del Rey dates her philosophy professor while having an existential crisis coded.

Pretty much this whole book is annotated and underlined. 🥹

[Come Musica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leggere la Lispector è per me, ogni volta, come tornare a casa.
Le sue riflessioni (a volte così tormentate) le sento così mie.

In questo romanzo, Lori (diminutivo di Loreley) è una donna che si rimette nelle mani di Ulisse per apprendere l'amore. Lei che aveva avuto cinque amanti, non aveva mai detto "Ti amo" a un uomo, perché non si era mai sentita di appartenere a un uomo: "E “io ti amo” era una scheggia che non si poteva togliere con una pinza. Scheggia conficcata nella parte più spessa della pianta del piede."

"una delle cose che ho imparato è che si deve vivere nonostante. Nonostante, si deve mangiare. Nonostante, si deve amare. Nonostante, si deve morire. Anzi, molte volte è proprio il nonostante che ci spinge avanti. È stato il nonostante che mi ha dato un’angoscia che, insoddisfatta, è stata creatrice della mia stessa vita."

Lori, come gLoriosa, come gLoria, diminutivo di "Loreley è il nome di un personaggio leggendario del folclore tedesco, cantato in una bellissima poesia di Heine. La leggenda dice che Loreley seduceva i pescatori con i suoi canti e loro finivano per morire in fondo al mare."

Conosce Ulisse, un professore di filosofia, che la seduce completamente e diabolicamente. E così inizia il cammino di Lori dal dolore verso l'allegria, nel definire se stessa, nello scoprirsi e aprirsi all'altro per diventare amore. E ritorna al mare per abbandonarsi e prendere coraggio e liberarsi da ciò che la blocca, per farsi dono: "fin da allora ti ho desiderato, questo tuo corpo che non è nemmeno bello, ma è il corpo che voglio. Ma ti voglio tutta, anche con l’anima. Perciò non importa che tu non venga, aspetterò il tempo che sarà necessario”.

Fortunata quella donna che trova un Ulisse che è così paziente da aspettare e rispettare i suoi tempi, che sa cogliere nella sua anima quel bocciolo di rosa che fatica a sbocciare. Fortunata quella donna che, sedotta, non è abbandonata. Fortunata quella donna che, nel dono di sé e nell'accoglienza dell'altro in sé, si scopre meno diversa di quanto ha sempre creduto di essere: non più così diversa da essere scartata e abbandonata, ma diversa, perché unica, perché amata per ciò che è, nonostante le sue paure, nonostante le sue reticenze. Nonostante.

"Indovinò che si era quasi addormentato, e allora lentamente liberò la sua mano da quella da lui. Lui sentì subito la mancanza di contatto e disse tra addormentato e sveglio: “È perché ti amo.”."

C'è una Loreley in ogni donna, c'è una Loreley in ogni donna che si sente irremidiabilmente diversa, come se questa diversità fosse stato da sempre un anatema. C'è una Loreley che aspetta un Ulisse che la sa aspettare: "Amore è forse regalarsi l’un l’altro la propria solitudine? Perché è la cosa più estrema che si possa dare di se stessi,” disse Ulisse.
“Non so, amore mio, ma so che il mio cammino è arrivato alla fine: vuol dire che sono arrivata alla porta di un inizio.”


Tra 4 e 5 stelle.

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

perfection. no notes. i need to properly collect my thoughts because it is 12am.

[nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

READING VLOG

Lispector is my religion.

I know so.

I often wondered why my mother went to church. Why she spent long days and hours sitting in silence, waiting for the presence of God to fill her, replenish her presence on earth like light, like a gift.

I get it now. And now, I feel a lot richer sitting next to my mom on a Sunday, on knees in pews, allowing her to feed and drink off on the body of Christ.

Because it happened. This holy feast, a moveable feast, and a vastness opened up in me, led me to answers without questions and questions without answers. Here is Lispector at her most vulnerable, searching for love. Not as receptacle or reciprocal, but as something that exists between pain and pleasure, that gray zone of the self where we reach beyond the humane and become, at once, human.

Because I want to be human too.

And I'm in love without loving myself enough. My enough-ness has been away for a while, but with these few pages, with such a normal narrative, I became anew with this bold-shy winter.

I can stand the cold, generating a warmth straight from my palms, tactile with the earth, and I am open to feeling.

So much so that I eat men like air.

[leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

beautifully-written, philosophical meditations on love: a woman opening herself up to love, and learning to find love for herself. a very episodic, stream of consciousness novel. enjoyed the afterword by sheila heti too.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Somehow everything comes with an expiry date. Swordfish expires. Meat sauce expires. Even cling-film expires. Is there anything in the world which doesn't?"

A bloodless-brother and former lover introduced me to Lispector nearly a year ago, though I've only recently become taken by the woman's emotive force. Her writing as an unfathomable intimacy, is treasured by both He and myself alike. I dusted this book pulling it from the library's small section of Clarice at the same time that I was told, "I love you like a sister." These words gnawed into a wound of which I am ashamed. The book chronicles a relationship between man and woman that borders the philosophical, platonic, sexual, romantic. The pair learn metaphysical truths from one another in their relationship as friends. Meanwhile, all dimensions of their relations come to fruition. The painful relatability of this story made it incredibly difficult to read. I am continually pulling quotes to share with my dearest as our experiences mirror theirs.

My life, this book a painful and shimmering shard.

[Brian McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel....dazzled.
dazzled by language,
in awe of her ideas
and her command of unusual feelings&experiences
those fleeting moments in the middle of an ordinary day in which, looking at an apple, you feel the universe compressed into solid form and you want to take a bite and experience the universe and feel a part of it and also more like yourself than ever for having knowledge of yourself and control over your actions and you can sense your own presence in the world.
As the narrator becomes herself, the reader, too, becomes an "I"....
Reality is incredible

[Adam Ferris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lispector is intoxicating. Her writing lives on a molecular level in the space between the cells in my body and spirit. Goodness gracious, she goes deeper than the beyond. This is a magnificent masterpiece, unlike anything I have ever read. This book left me shattered and hopeful in all kinds of ways. All hail Clarice.

When we truly love, it is a deeply spiritual experience. And a component of that spiritual experience is the fact that to truly love we must face the things reflecting in us. This can feel like staring into the abyss of our own existence and is not for the faint of heart. The romantic aspects of the passion aren't the only integral part of a deep and soulful connection. Knowing oneself and being able to live through suffering is not something all of us are able or willing to do. If we do, there will be something greater on the other side and these are the aspects that Lispector delves into with pretty precision. Pulling at emotions deeply held within and sending shivers down my spine, this reality is scary, haunting and freeing.

Glimpsing into the developing intimacy between Lori and Ulisses, brought up all sorts of memories of stories of love and life from my first forty-five years on this planet. At this point, my memory is filled with vast experiences and stories of love that had me whirling through feelings and emotions. Lispector finds a way to thread a needle through the tiniest of gaps in my being to pierce me so deeply and then mend me back together again with her words and her prose.

I know I usually try to intersperse my reviews with quotes from this book. Well, that is completely impossible, as this whole book is one beautiful phrase and passage after another. So you'll have to read it to see what I am talking about.

The Apprenticeship is a book that will live on in me for years to come amongst my all-time favourites.

[Dea]

Would be greatly improved (i.e. made readable) by the adherence to some basic rules of grammar. The vapid pretension of writers who think that periods and quotation marks are beneath them is an immediate turnoff.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 bumped to 4 because Ulisses is an absolute fu*kboi

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

, o meu primeiro "Clarice", tomado como uma aprendizagem do prazer de ler um livro de Lispector:

, uma narrativa poética, que conta a história de amor entre dois seres. O nascimento e crescimento do amor na alma, no coração, na mente, ou seja lá onde ele se aninha antes de, pelo desejo, ser consumido por todo o ser, físico e mental:

"Nunca me sei como agora, sentia Lóri."

, o que diz Clarice é belo e perturbante. É como se se desnudasse e, simultaneamente, a quem a lê:

"- Amor será dar de presente um ao outro a própria solidão? Pois é a coisa mais última que se pode dar de si, disse Ulisses."

, os leitores que apreciam livros -
com descrições rigorosas do físico e outras características das personagens;
de leitura fluida que arrastam para um devorar de página após página;
com surpresas, segredos, revelações,...;
diálogos comoventes e amorosos;
....
...não se metam nisto:

, as 4 estrelas são irrelevantes, pois podiam ser 5. Sei que gosto de Clarice Lispector; mas quero saber mais:

" Então o que chamava de morte a atraía tanto que só poderia chamar de valoroso o modo como, por solidariedade e pena dos outros, ainda estava presa ao que chamava de vida. Seria profundamente amoral não esperar pela morte como os outros todos esperam por esta hora final. Teria sido esperteza dela avançar no tempo, e imperdoável ser mais sabida que os outros. Por isso, apesar da curiosidade intensa que tinha pela morte, Lóri esperava."

[od1_40reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

To read Lispector is to examine what it means to be human, what it is to be alive; and what it means to simply be. You can’t review her work, you have to be absorbed by it.

Probably one of my favourite of her works that I’ve read so far (and I’ve loved all of them), there’s a line on p.53 of this edition that for me perfectly sums up this book, and perhaps much of her work… “What was a Nothing was exactly the Everything.”

‘An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures’ is a love story between Lóri and Ulisses, but unlike most love stories you might read, as Sheila Heti says in the Afterword of this edition ‘in order to truly love and be loved, one must find one’s way to the most difficult thing, which is a joyful relationship “with the mightiness of life.” And while most love stories do away with this requirement and don’t even recognise it – just have the lovers hurtling towards each other – this love story is a question about the requirement, and can it even be won?’

Lispector continues to win me over. She is a force of nature.

[Paige Ramsamy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m still on page 15 idgaf this is so fucking brilliant jesus christ.

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Em honra do centenário de Clarice Lispector

Costumo dizer com veemência que ninguém escreve como Hilda Hilst, mas ninguém escreve como Lispector também. Transformando uma estória aparentemente banal num profundo exercício de estilo em termos literários e filosóficos, essa leitura rápida alimenta o corpo e mente para quem tem fome da mais pura arte.

[Brodolomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nije najbolji, ali je verovatno najjednostavniji Lispektorkin roman. U osnovi, ljubavna priča između učiteljice sa crvenim kišobranom po imenu Lori („I sad lađaru i čamcu/Ja mislim da je kraj:/A sve to sa svojom pesmom/Učini Lorelaj.”) i profesora filozofije Uliksa („Priđi, Odiseju slavni o ahejska velika diko/amo upravi lađu, da pevanje počuješ naše”), tako neko, savremeno ostvarenje erotskog susreta Lorelaj/sirene i mornara/Odiseja, iskazano laganijim modernističkim, čulnim izrazom. Ili je to barem bila pretpostavka pisanja na početku. U krajnjem rezultatu ispalo je sasvim drugačije; od karakterizacije Uliksa se odustalo, te je Odisej u reinkarnaciji profesora sveden na nezanimljivog sveznalicu, sva pažnja je usmerena na Lorin razvoj, a i ispalo je manje o ljubavi, a više o Lispektorkinim opsesijama: postojanju, metafizici i Bogu. Stoga, zaboravite na Uliksa, ovde je samo Lorelaj bitna. „Knjiga užitaka” nalikuje na njene druge romane iz 60-ih, na „Pasiju po G.H” i „Jabuku u tami”, ali se od njih se i razlikuje po tome što nije mračan, lepršaviji je (Obećanje slobode 1968. se oseća), a narativno i stilski je manje zahtevan. Takođe, ova roman se može gledati kao mogućnost izlaska iz mračnih problemskih čvorova postavljenih u prethodna dva pomenuta romana.

Donekle, „Knjiga užitaka ili učenje” liči na nešto što bi Hajdeger mogao da napiše da je seo i napisao ljubavni roman. Junakinjino učenje putem užitaka gotovo je uslovljeno spoznajom razlike između bivstvovanja i bivstvujućeg. Zbog unapred onemogućenog poistovećivanja biti (esencije) i egzistencije, čovek u svom bivstvovanju nije ništa bivstvujuće, nema unapred datu bit s kojom se mora u svom egzistiranju izjednačiti. Lori kroz užitke otkriva da nije ništa bivstvujuće, te potragu za „smislom života” (pitanja životne namene i značenja) zamenjuje bivstvovanjem. Ona uči da „nema dan-za dan. Već život-za-život.”. Stoga, otkrivanja mirisa ulovljenih riba, kupanje u moru, otkrivanje kruške ili dramatična spoznaja krompira na pijaci (za kojom sledi još dramatičnija spoznaja repe) jesu otkrovenja postojanja bez potrebe za naknadnim objašnjenjem. Život čoveka kao smrtnog, konačnog bića jedinstveno je i neponovljivo, pravo čudo nad čudima. A čudu da „jesam” nije potrebno naknadno objašnjavanje. A tako nekako biva i u ljubavi.

Navijam da Jelena Žugić nastavi da se usuđuje da prevodi Klarisu, jer se oseća ljubav. Baš bih voleo da čujem kako bi, recimo, „Pasija po G.H” zvučala na srpskom.

[Sofia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apparently you either get into 'Clarice' immediately or not at all. I seem to have fallen in the latter category.

I first tried 'The Hour of the Star' and I did not get very far until I shelved for another time. This time round I chose this one, deemed to be one of her most reader friendly. This one too turned out to be a chore even though it is such a short piece.

Fortunately I do not have to continue reading where I'm not invested, so my adventure with 'Clarice' stops here for now.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prophetic at an intimate level.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estou completamente apaixonada por este livro. É tão tudo que dói. Encontro-me nas conversas de Loreley e Ulisses. E não me encontro apenas a mim própria, mas também a quem me apresentou a autora pela primeira vez. Não há palavras. É uma viagem que começa em todo o lado e acaba em mim, eu. Uma consciência extrema do que significa estar vivo, do estar vivo sem nunca ter vivido. O eu como o limitador, o inimigo, e também a salvação. É uma obra que consome mais do que é consumida.

Numa palavra? Sublime.

“O óbvio, Lóri, é a verdade mais difícil de se enxergar.”

If I were you, I would run for a copy of this novel.

[Romulo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Existem livros que nos pegam de surpresa e nos envolvem de tal maneira que parece que foi escrito apenas para nós mesmos. Só assim consigo descrever como foi prazeroso ler esse livro de Clarice Lispector.

O livro já começa com peculiaridades típicas dessa fantástica autora. Por exemplo, talvez seja o único livro a começar com uma vírgula, isso mesmo, uma vírgula e a terminar com dois pontos.

São apenas dois personagens: A Lori e o Ulisses. Lori, é uma mulher que está aprendendo a viver e a amar, daí o nome do livro. Mas para viver Lori terá que aprender a alegria e a dor de ir ao encontro do outro. Ulisses é seu guia nesse aprendizado. A cada passo de Lori, ele a espera e pacientemente a explica o que está se passando com sua amada.

Um das cenas que nunca mais vou esquecer é quando Lori sai de casa e toma coragem de conversar com uma estranha. Ela troca poucas palavras, mas para ela foi o suficiente para provar, experimentar a vida. Imediatamente depois de chegar em casa ela liga para Ulisses e diz:

- Que é que eu faço? Não estou agüentando viver. A vida é tão curta e eu não estou agüentando viver?

Através de Lori Clarisse consegue nos mostrar que o simples ato de encontrar alguém e conversar, pode ser algo intenso e profundo. Sua personagem vivia tão intensamente o encontro com o outro que isso chegava a ser insuportável tamanha era a carga de sentimentos contidos nesse ato. O livro é repleto de reflexões, como essa, sobre a vida, sobre não ter medo de viver ou sobre como a vida é, ao mesmo tempo, terrível e bela de se viver.

Eu recomendo este pequeno livro à todos os apaixonados pela vida. Inclusive à todos os que estão vivendo uma paixão neste momento. À todos que tem sensibilidade para entender que fomos feitos para nos relacionar uns com os outros e que não existe outro modo de fazê-lo se não for nos tornando vulneráveis.