Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H.

Hi everyone!

This week I will be reflecting on Clarice Lispector’s novel The Passion According to G.H. Initially, I chose this text because of  Professor Jons description of it: “…you won’t forget it, and will be telling everyone about it for years to come. It’s about race, class, and cockroaches”. It was specifically the last sentence that really intrigued me. I wanted to know why and how, along with race and class, the novel was also about cockroaches. It almost seemed silly to group those together, however, now having read the novel, it makes perfect sense haha!

I really enjoyed reading this text, up until about four or five pages in at which point it then started to frustrate me a little. In the beginning, I truly found it to be very captivating. The style of writing –when it still felt new and not overused– was a very interesting and attention grabbing perspective to read. It almost felt like I was reading my diary from when I fall into my own spirals of “what is the purpose of life” and “where do I belong/fit in within this whole mess”. I especially liked Lispector’s symbolism of the third leg. I liked how G.H’s character kept referring to it whilst trying to make sense of what it was that made her scared and held her back from experiencing life –this was not only relatable, but I genuinely loved the symbolism.

However, after the first few pages, Lispector’s style of writing started to get on my nerves. This overthinker’s stream of consciousness, although initially relatable and intriguing, when it just kept going on and on it started to feel far too incoherent and meaningless. Especially sections like “And without giving it a form, nothing can exist for me. And – and if it’s really true that nothing existed?! maybe nothing happened to me? I can only understand what happens to me but things only happen that I understand –what do I know of the rest? the rest didn’t exist. Maybe nothing ever existed!” (pg. 6) made me feel like the more I read, the less anything made sense. Also, the fact that sections like this show up ever so often (the next one following this example only being a sentence or two away) made reading these ramblings so frustrating as the words were simply going over my head and I wasn’t able to process anything.

Loosely, in this sense, my experience of reading The Passion According to G.H. felt very similar to that of reading Paris Peasant  or even Swann’s Way [Part one: Combray].  To me, in order to read all three of these novels, you must be content with the idea of not understanding. If you were to struggle and try and make sense of anything, it would completely backfire. Moreover, the stream of consciousness, although presented slightly differently in each novel, was a factor that connected the three.

Overall, I am really glad I read this novel because, like Professor Jon mentioned, it is something I will never forget, and I can definitely see myself thinking back to it and sharing my thoughts on it for many years to come (despite it not being a novel I particularly enjoyed. However, I reckon it is this idea that although I didn’t really enjoy it, I can still see myself talking about it in the future that shows you how powerful and well-written of a text it truly is)!

And lastly, for the question of this post: What did you make of Lispector’s use of repetition? Like me, did it seem overused to you? Did you also find it stripped the meaning of the words? Or did you notice some other use/purpose for it that I didn’t notice?

: )