I stumbled across my favourite book of all time recently, which is a lovely feeling. It is called "the Hour of the Star", by Clarice Lispector. It left me giggling and a bit in awe. As Rich Bartlett has commented, most contemporary writing seems to be regressesing to the mean, which means, it basically all sounds the same. Mine included. I don't think one can escape this unless you leave society.
But the writing in this book felt so rich, so new—I felt like I was being slapped in the face at the turn of every page. I laughed mostly at the novelty of it all; it felt so refreshing to be reading something so absurd. Apparently Lispector never really read books or old literature, making these words feel purely hers, in a very distinct, alien fashion. I wanted to share some of my favourite quotes from this book because I just loved it so much.
"All the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of the prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes. It was ever so. I don't know why, but I do know that the universe never began."
"Make no mistake, I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort."
"That girl didn't know she was what she was, just as a dog doesn't know it's a dog. So she didn't feel unhappy. The only thing she wanted was to live. She didn't know for what, she didn't ask questions. Maybe she thought there was a little bitty glory in living. She thought people had to be happy. So she was. Before her birth was she an idea? Before her birth was she dead? And after her birth she would die? What a thin slice of watermelon."
"And it so happens that she had no consciousness of herself and didn't complain at all, she even thought she was happy. She wasn't an idiot but she had the pure happiness of idiots. And she also didn't pay attention to herself: she didn't know."
"If she was dumb enough to ask herself 'who am I?' she would fall flat on her face. Because 'who am I?' creates a need. And how can you satisfy that need? Those who wonder are incomplete."
"I'll miss myself so bad when I die."
"She vaguely thought from far off and without words this: since I am, the thing to do is to be."
"Only then did she dress herself in herself, she spent the rest of her day obediently playing the role of being."
"His dream was to have money to do exactly what he wanted: nothing."
"She wasn't crying because of the life she led: because, never having led any other, she'd accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I also think she was crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and even a certain luxury of soul."
"Who was she asking? God? She didn't think about God, God didn't think about her."
"Meanwhile the clouds are white and the sky is all blue. Why so much God. Why not a little for men."
"Well, so what? So what, nothing. As for me, author of a life, I can't deal with repetition: routine divides me from my possible novelties."
"I write because I have nothing else to do in the world: I was left over and there is no place for me in the world of men. I write because I'm desperate and I'm tired, I can no longer bear the routine of being me and if not for the always novelty that is writing, I would die symbolically every day. But I am prepared to slip out discreetly through the back exit. I've experienced almost everything, including passion and its despair. And now I'd only like to have what I would have been and never was."
"I am absolutely tired of literature; only muteness keeps me company. If I still write it's because I have nothing better to do in the world while I wait for death."
"But do not mourn the dead: they know what they are doing."
I find myself reciting some of these lines as I go about my day now, it brings me such joy. And yes, this is where thin-slice-of-watermelon comes from!