In what is most likely Lispector's final interview in 1977, she is almost combative as questions are asked of her. Suffering from ovarian cancer, Lispector carries herself with grace, yet gives off the impression that she is more shaken by her works continuing to be misunderstood. Saddled with a translation that she was most unhappy with, the world of Clarice Lispector would have to wait for a second generation of translators in the 2010s to allow the world to discover her.
Her life reads like a novel. Born in Podolia, modern-day Ukraine, Clarice and her family emigrated to Brazil. Settling in the coastal city of Maceio, the Lispectors changed all their first names to fit into South American culture. Her mother was paralyzed, and her father worked hard to make ends meet. She died when Clarice was just nine. It was very important to her father that the Lispectors maintain their belief in Judaism. So Clarice learned Yiddish and quickly proved to display a talent for writing. (Full disclosure: her older sister wrote about all these events in 1948's "In Exile," also unearthing that their mother secretly wrote poetry.)
As her father pursued better economic avenues, he moved the family to Rio de Janeiro. Clarice entered law school in 1937 and published her first story in 1940. Even though she maintained her interest in the law, Lispector's writing was bringing her more opportunities - including the chance to marry a diplomat. In 1943, Lispector published her first novel "Near To The Wild Heart" to critical acclaim." Its success and her diplomat husband moved her to Naples, Italy to an Allied training base in 1944.
Torn between her ambitions and finally being able to travel the world in financial safety, Lispector's writing became subject to her moods and coded issues. Moving from Naples to Switzerland and then to Washington DC, she conceived the novel "Family Ties" somewhere between 1943 and 1959. Back in Rio in 1960, Lispector struggled to find a publisher despite still being held in high regard in her adopted homeland.
"Family Ties" is a difficult set of short stories. Like Virginia Woolf, Lispector is orchestrating these tales to illustrate struggles with daily life. In addition to this, it is often hard to perceive if she is either the character, the narrator, or both. This liminal existence within her writing is quite often where one has to devote the most thought and attention to parsing the movements of her/her protagonist. While it is hard to appear sympathetic to her characters (especially given lives of privilege,) Lispector has an unflinching eye for the most necessary to recall actions.
In "Daydreams of A Drunk Woman," Lispector coerces her main character out of a Woolfian state of ennui. However, Lispector's stream of consciousness and especially word choice are violently different from most other female writers. If Sylvia Plath could draw depths of emotions out of the steel gray skies, Lispector wants to alter your perception of a world that you think you know.
Her character plops down in front of a "vanity." While vanity is an object of furniture, Lispector does not want to separate it from its double meaning. So she writes "eyes didn't leave themselves," thus allowing you to decide how to engage with a lonely woman who is lost in a haze. Lispector tantalizes us as readers with a mention of her seeing herself in three mirrors as a series of "intersecting breasts." While that is an arresting image, once you process the symbolism of the situation - this acts as a revelation of possibly three versions of herself.
Thankfully, the paperboy breaks up the languor. The dose of reality is welcome to us. However, the character oscillates dangerously between singing and becoming "wrathful" (an adjective, Lispector will later use in tandem with "tenuous" and "ardent.") Remember what was said earlier, older more experienced Lispector was angry about the alteration of her words in translation. The 2015 Benjamin Moser translations collected in "The Complete Stories" were taken straight from Portuguese - thankfully winning Moser a Pulitzer.)
It seems like Lispector is not giving you much to work with. A couple of podcasters that we normally consult in studying the work said, "You could read a few pages, get lost, keep reading, and not think you missed anything." Sadly, that is not the case. Lispector writes with a foreignness that makes her thoughts leap out. When the protagonist is almost on the verge of happiness, Lispector characterizes her as "envisioning her bright still-young lady's smile." Upon first glance, that feels like an awkward appositive. However, Lispector's thoughts are as jumbled as her character. In addition to this, Lispector seems committed to subvert cliches. So when the character accepts that she must adopt her public "social" persona, Lispector describes her as "came from the street as a butterfly."
If there is any hint to breaking through Lispector it is to follow the word choice. Never in literature has an author said so much with the seemingly "wrong" selection of words. At one point, her character now slightly taken with herself flips around the saying "Finders Keepers" to say "Finders, seekers." Lispector knows this is incorrect. However, she also knows that this Freudian slip reveals a detail about her character.
Despite being seen as a high point in Brazilian Literature, "Family Ties" took the hardest path toward publication. After a pair of stories were published in a Rio de Janeiro newspaper, the governmental Ministry of Education and Health offered to publish four more. So when she finally sought publication of the entire work, the Ministry was difficult. Oddly enough, these obstacles would continue to hinder her writing for the rest of her career. By 1977, suffering in silence she composed her fragmentary final novel, "The Hour of The Star." Through this work, the world outside of Brazil finally discovered Lispector. Shortly after its publication, Lispector died on December 11, 1977.
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
CARAVAN PALACE - Gangbusters Melody Club [TAN LP/CD](Le Plan) • Dancefloor-driven hybrid Pop from this collective. Their fifth album is a melange of Electronic and classic Pop. The hook is their incorporation of Twenties style Jazz/Swing ("Mad.") Twelve new songs that aim solidly for Nineties French House, "Gangbusters Melody Club" looks to break the act out of Europe onto our shores.
SHEER MAG - Playing Favorites [ORANGE LP/CD](Third Man/The Orchard) • Philadelphia's Punky/Garage rockers Sheer Mag arrived at an impasse. After ten years of making records, they felt that artists just were not writing "straight-ahead bangers" anymore. So they sat down and drilled out eleven songs that put the hooks, riffs, and writing right up front. "Playing Favorites" refuses to look back at previous Sheer Mag material and announces their next phase of development.
JULIAN LAGE - Speak To Me [LP/CD](Blue Note/ Universal) • On his latest for Blue Note, Lage again changes up his musical style to showcase yet another facet of his virtuosic playing. Working with producer Joe Henry, "Speak To Me" looks to Lage's love of Blues and Gospel music. Back with his core trio of bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King, Lage introduces woodwinds and keyboards into play. Henry's spacial production provides Lage with a lot of room to roam into both the driving ("'76") and atmosphere ("As It Were.")
MINISTRY - Hopium For The Masses [GREEN/ YEL LP/CD](Nuclear Blast/AMPED) • On what Al Jourgensen says is the penultimate Ministry album, "Hopium" is Ministry back at its old game of crushing riffs, samples, and Jourgensen's pained yowl. These drum beats are huge as cuts like "Just Stop Oil" ride locomotive speed into chainmail chug and haunted twang.
FAYE WEBSTER - Underdressed at The Symphony [FAYE BLUE LP/CD/CS](Secretly Canadian/ AMPED) • Atlanta's Faye Webster has made her own place in the growing realm of female singer/ songwriters. With co-opting of Auto-Tune ("Feeling Good Today") and even enlisting Hip-Hop's best ("Lego Ring" features Lil' Yachty,) Webster's sad girl Indie Pop continues to ride her helium voice through some deep grooves ("Lifetime.")
LIAM GALLAGHER/JOHN SQUIRE [LP/CD] (Warner) • When these two Manchester legends join forces, it is almost as if Liam gets his dream of fronting Stone Roses (the second album bliss of "Just Another Rainbow,") while Squire gets to stomp them out like a bluesier foil for Oasis. Those looking for anything new are missing the point - the Nineties are back!
REISSUES OF THE WEEK
THE BEACH BOYS - Pet Sounds [GREEN LP](Capitol/RSD Essentials/ThinkIndie) • Between January and April 1966, Brian Wilson stopped touring with the band to focus on a new vision for Beach Boys' songwriting and production. Feeling the heat of studio-only Beatles (who were cloistered away working on "Revolver,") Wilson wanted to incorporate more exotic undercurrents in music and create what he called "teenage symphonies to God." So hidden away in the studio with the world-class session musicians known as The Wrecking Crew, Wilson indulged in every musical boundary possible. For example, using a theremin gave "Good Vibrations" an entirely new feel. While Wilson was following nearly every musical whim to its conclusion, he was examining his own life for source material. As the Beach Boys ended their "beach music" phase, "Pet Sounds" would define their general direction for the next decade-plus. While it was seen as underwhelming upon initial release on May 16, 1966, it has grown massively in stature over the last sixty years. Now a classic for its depth and warmth of production, careful assembly of chords and harmonies, "Pet Sounds" even influenced the Beatles' work. A classic.
EDWARD SHARPE AND THE MAGNETIC ZEROS - Up From Below [BLUE/BLK LP](BMG Rights Mgmt) • There was a moment in 2009 when if you uttered the line, "Alabama, Arkansas," someone near you would follow it with "I do love my Ma and Pa." With the massive hit single "Home" leading the way, Alex Ebert's sunshine-y rootsy Pop surprised everyone even going Gold. Their raw but sweet collective appealed to fans of music looking for something more earthy and substantial. One year later, they even played on the Festival Express-style train ride to New Orleans with Mumford and Sons and Old Crow Medicine Show. Ebert even kept it going until 2013. His solo work brought him a Golden Globe for scoring 2013's "All Is Lost" Today, he owns the largest studio in New Orleans.
