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Book Cover for: Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas, Clarice Lispector

Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas

Clarice Lispector

Paperback
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The things I've learned from taxi drivers would be enough to fill a book. They know a lot: they really do get around. I may know a lot about Antonioni that they don't know. Or maybe they do even when they don't. There are various ways of knowing by not-knowing. I know: it happens to me too.

The crônica, a literary genre peculiar to Brazilian newspapers, allows writers (or even soccer stars) to address a wide readership on any theme they like. Chatty, mystical, intimate, flirtatious, and revelatory, Clarice Lispector's pieces for the Saturday edition of Rio's leading paper, the Jornal do Brasil, from 1967 to 1973, take the forms of memories, essays, aphorisms, and serialized stories. Endlessly delightful, her insights make one sit up and think, whether about children or social ills or pets or society women or the business of writing or love. This new, large, and beautifully translated volume, Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas presents a new aspect of the great writer--at once off the cuff and spot on.

Book Details

  • Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
  • Publish Date: Sep 27th, 2022
  • Pages: 864
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.97in - 5.37in - 1.96in - 1.78lb
  • EAN: 9780811226790
  • Categories: • Essays• Caribbean & Latin American• Diaries & Journals

About the Author

Costa, Margaret Jull: -

Margaret Jull Costa, who has translated Javier Marías and José Saramago, lives in England.

Lispector, Clarice: - Clarice Lispector (1920-1977), the greatest Brazilian writer of the twentieth century, has been called "astounding" (Rachel Kushner), "a penetrating genius" (Donna Seaman, Booklist), and "one of the twentieth century's most mysterious writers" (Orhan Pamuk).

More books by Clarice Lispector

Book Cover for: Água Viva, Clarice Lispector
Book Cover for: The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector
Book Cover for: Near to the Wild Heart, Clarice Lispector
Book Cover for: The Hour of the Star: 100th Anniversary Edition, Clarice Lispector
Book Cover for: The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector
Book Cover for: Complete Stories, Clarice Lispector
Book Cover for: An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures, Clarice Lispector
Book Cover for: Covert Joy: Selected Stories, Clarice Lispector

What people are saying

Mentioner image for: The Paris Review
The Paris Review
@parisreview
2 years

Quarterly literary magazine founded in 1953.

“Whenever I was writing on the typewriter, he would position himself half-lying, half-sitting by my side, sphinxlike, dozing.” —Clarice Lispector on her mischievous dog Dilermando. Read our last installment of the Complete Crônicas. https://t.co/EGW9SQiAdw

twitter.com
Mentioner image for: The Saturday Paper
The Saturday Paper
@SatPaper
2 years

A weekly newspaper, from the publisher of @TheMonthly, and @7amPodcast. 📨 Newsletters: https://t.co/BAFtfpNeQN 🗞️Subscriptions: https://t.co/tW3FfgZjKw

Clarice Lispector’s introspection has often been defined as “hermetic”, but her columns make visible her sincere connection to the world. She is in constant dialogue with her readers, writes @itrimboli in her review of ‘Too Much of Life’. https://t.co/S1DID105ZF

twitter.com
Mentioner image for: Cleaver Magazine
Cleaver Magazine
@CleaverMagazine
2 years

Cleaver Magazine shares cutting-edge art and literary work from a mix of established and emerging voices.

“Lispector’s crônicas are short and sharp…which lets readers hop between them with the same carefree perusal used to swipe through TikToks.” Dylan Cook on TOO MUCH OF LIFE by Clarice Lispector, translated by Margaret Jull Costa & Robin Patterson. https://t.co/l0FEZAvSMl https://t.co/VIt61wQDvw

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Praise for this book

In 1967, Brazil's leading newspaper asked the avant-garde writer Lispector to write a weekly column on any topic she wished. For almost seven years, Lispector showed Brazilian readers just how vast and passionate her interests were... Indeed, these columns should establish her as being among the era's most brilliant essayists. She is masterful, even reminiscent of Montaigne, in her ability to spin the mundane events of life into moments of clarity that reveal greater truths. Superb, wonderfully obsessed with exuberance and what it unlocks and reveals.-- "Publishers Weekly"
One might have thought that so stern a 'new novelist' would scorn the chatty style required. Far from it: she discovered her own extraordinary idiom-intimate, revelatory, mystifactory. This long flirtation with her readers was a triumphant metamorphosis for the avant garde author.--Lorna Sage "Times Literary Supplement"
If she played with the superficial truth, it was in service, she believed, of exposing one deeper, of passing readers a brief-lit lantern for the moonless dark of ourselves, even if that light revealed, sometimes, more contradiction, more chaos, more fluttering soul-storm. Her crônicas muddied demarcations between nonfiction and fiction, resurrecting the oldest question of form: Where does nonfiction truly end and fiction begin, and what do we do with texts where we do not know the answer?-- "The Paris Review"
Clarice Lispector had a diamond-hard intelligence, a visionary instinct, and a sense of humor that veered from naïf wonder to wicked comedy....She attempts to capture what it is to think our existence as we are in it--in the 'marvelous scandal, ' as Lispector puts it, of life. An astounding body of work that has no real corollary inside literature or outside it.--Rachel Kushner "Bookforum"
For those unfamiliar with her, this book opens a door into her uniquely challenging and rewarding body of work. Stretching over a decade - and across nearly 800 pages - the pieces, some amounting to a few sentences, some many pages long, make up a self-portrait in bits and pieces. The result is, like Lispector herself, witty, mystical, surreal and profound: a treasure to return to again and again.--Madoc Cairns "The Guardian"
No two columns are alike: strands of dialogue, observed scenes, diaristic entries, life advice, even the author admiring herself in the mirror...Too Much of Life is a huge addition to an already impressive collection of evidence that Lispector could transcribe a guestbook and make it interesting.--J. Howard Rosier "Vulture"
[T]his is Clarice Lispector as one-woman chorus and psychic weather forecaster, and the charm, wit and engagement that she brings to her columns transcends barriers.--John Biscello "Riot Material"
Funny, dark, whimsical, intimate, and always self-questioning, the crônicas seemed to touch everything: reflections on writing, motherhood, the seasons, depression, love, suffering, death."--Jared Marcel Pollen "The Yale Review"
An excellent collection for readers who enjoy commentaries and observations from a wise, entertaining, realistic writer.--Joyce Sparrow "Library Journal"

What people are saying

Mentioner image for: The Paris Review
The Paris Review
@parisreview
2 years

Quarterly literary magazine founded in 1953.

“Whenever I was writing on the typewriter, he would position himself half-lying, half-sitting by my side, sphinxlike, dozing.” —Clarice Lispector on her mischievous dog Dilermando. Read our last installment of the Complete Crônicas. https://t.co/EGW9SQiAdw

twitter.com
Mentioner image for: The Saturday Paper
The Saturday Paper
@SatPaper
2 years

A weekly newspaper, from the publisher of @TheMonthly, and @7amPodcast. 📨 Newsletters: https://t.co/BAFtfpNeQN 🗞️Subscriptions: https://t.co/tW3FfgZjKw

Clarice Lispector’s introspection has often been defined as “hermetic”, but her columns make visible her sincere connection to the world. She is in constant dialogue with her readers, writes @itrimboli in her review of ‘Too Much of Life’. https://t.co/S1DID105ZF

twitter.com
See more