Brain Pain discussion

This discussion covers page 1 – 88
Conclusions/Book as a whole


“Let me tell you: I’m trying to seize the fourth dimension of this instant-now so fleeting that it’s already gone because it’s already become a new instant-now that’s also already gone. Every thing has an instant in which it is. I want to grab hold of the is of the thing.” (Pg. 3)


Published thirty years after her debut novel, Água Viva reads like a bridge between the high modernism of the 30’s and 40’s, and the post-modern experimentation of the 60’s and 70’s.

I finished this afternoon. Still processing my thoughts, but in general, some passages sublime, some painful, some shamelessly self-revealing, all hard to digest, all worth exploring --- I think...

Jim wrote: "I finished this afternoon. Still processing my thoughts, but in general, some passages sublime, some painful, some shamelessly self-revealing, all hard to digest, all worth exploring --- I think..."

Sounds fascinating! The "shamelessly self-revealing" piques my interest. I didn't read this one, I will get to it some time in the future.

Sarah wrote: "Sounds fascinating! The "shamelessly self-revealing" piques my interest. I didn't read this one, I will get to it some time in the future..."

This is only my second Lispector book, but my sense is that maybe I should have read some of her other books before this one to help me better understand her mind.

Agua Viva is less like fiction and more like the confessions of a future saint. I enjoyed the last pages of the book the most, for reasons I won't say here because of potential spoilers, but the way she sewed everything up in the end made it easier to understand the book as a whole.

I know that Pigeon and Filipe are more familiar with Lispector than me, and hopefully they will comment here.