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A disoriented and confused young woman looks back on her life and her place in the world.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
By the time I had finished reading this book I was quite exhausted. There is a strong conviction that the author is describing her own experience. I do believe that the crisis described in The Passion is of a religious or if you will "metaphysical" nature; the conceptual apparatus employed by the author evokes that of Simone Weil; to put a feminist perspective on this work I would find rather misleading. Excellent book!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have just finished The Passion According To G.H; and before I start again, hurling myself at the wall like Patroclus before Ilium, I'm daring to write a review or at least a recommendation of a book that defies explication.
This is my third Lispector. First was The Hour of the Star (Black & White S.) which I loved, then came The Apple In The Dark which I disliked, although it contains a good deal of pithy insight. I began Passion with just a little trepidation, but was soon consumed by it, forcing myself to take a break after approx. 45%. Then, much like the narrator, I was lost in the wilderness for the next 35% before regaining the road for the great affirmative last 20%. And I now I think I start again to see if it means more to me second time around.
One ought to read it twice, given the passion is being described by G.H. in order that she might recapture the moment and somehow venture on more boldly. It begins wonderfully, with G.H. hesitantly but determinedly seeking to re-enter that space in which a great and terrible metaphysical experience took place. How to summarise what happens next?
i)The character passes through the eye of a cockroach and discovers the world?
ii)She becomes a cockroach and space becomes time as she enters a pre-human state of being?
iii)She kills a bug, dies and is reborn?
iv)Someone dropped LSD into Lispector's coffee just before she went back to her typewriter.
In short, G.H. has a series of epiphanies, not revelations, and these lead to a new acquaintance with the world and with her place in it. Exactly what happens to her can only be guessed at, and in order to do that you must read The Passion According To G.H.
As with her other books, I found much in Lispector's writing that was wise and perceptive and good; she is at once authoritative and humble, her philosophy is in question, the listener invited to share in her musings rather than nod along and accept some sort of lecture. In an effort to achieve clarification, she risks verbiage, ridicule, deadends, as her ideas find expression and then are abandoned or modified. The stream of consciousness style tempts one to laugh or make an ironical remark, but Lispector's / G.H.'s character invites confidence, even affection. Read this and you'll have more empathy the next time you hear some arts pundit describe a new work as 'extraordinary': in other words, "It had an effect on me; it touched me but I can't say whether for good or ill."
Not extraordinary. FASCINATING. Buy it and put it next to your copy of Plato's Symposium.
This is my third Lispector. First was The Hour of the Star (Black & White S.) which I loved, then came The Apple In The Dark which I disliked, although it contains a good deal of pithy insight. I began Passion with just a little trepidation, but was soon consumed by it, forcing myself to take a break after approx. 45%. Then, much like the narrator, I was lost in the wilderness for the next 35% before regaining the road for the great affirmative last 20%. And I now I think I start again to see if it means more to me second time around.
One ought to read it twice, given the passion is being described by G.H. in order that she might recapture the moment and somehow venture on more boldly. It begins wonderfully, with G.H. hesitantly but determinedly seeking to re-enter that space in which a great and terrible metaphysical experience took place. How to summarise what happens next?
i)The character passes through the eye of a cockroach and discovers the world?
ii)She becomes a cockroach and space becomes time as she enters a pre-human state of being?
iii)She kills a bug, dies and is reborn?
iv)Someone dropped LSD into Lispector's coffee just before she went back to her typewriter.
In short, G.H. has a series of epiphanies, not revelations, and these lead to a new acquaintance with the world and with her place in it. Exactly what happens to her can only be guessed at, and in order to do that you must read The Passion According To G.H.
As with her other books, I found much in Lispector's writing that was wise and perceptive and good; she is at once authoritative and humble, her philosophy is in question, the listener invited to share in her musings rather than nod along and accept some sort of lecture. In an effort to achieve clarification, she risks verbiage, ridicule, deadends, as her ideas find expression and then are abandoned or modified. The stream of consciousness style tempts one to laugh or make an ironical remark, but Lispector's / G.H.'s character invites confidence, even affection. Read this and you'll have more empathy the next time you hear some arts pundit describe a new work as 'extraordinary': in other words, "It had an effect on me; it touched me but I can't say whether for good or ill."
Not extraordinary. FASCINATING. Buy it and put it next to your copy of Plato's Symposium.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
GH becomes very deeply disconcerted when she enters her maid's room, finds the interior has been reworked, sees an image the maid has drawn on the wall, and has an encounter with a cockroach.
I found this very hard going. Existential crisis I can accept - Patrick Susskind's The Pigeon I would strongly recommend. Philosophical reflection is also fine with me in a novel. But somehow this failed to jell, for me.
One factor may be the translation. This does not seem to be to be written in idiomatic English. Perhaps it is better in Portuguese.
Approach with caution!
I found this very hard going. Existential crisis I can accept - Patrick Susskind's The Pigeon I would strongly recommend. Philosophical reflection is also fine with me in a novel. But somehow this failed to jell, for me.
One factor may be the translation. This does not seem to be to be written in idiomatic English. Perhaps it is better in Portuguese.
Approach with caution!
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