Claire. Hello. Um, I'm so pleased. Um, you're here with.
Been talking about Kafka and the kind of traces that he leaves in all kinds of different cultures.
Uh, and you're here to talk about Brazilian, um, literature, which is just fascinating and brilliant,
and particularly Clarice Lispector, who is someone I hadn't really read and had always wanted to.
So I'm really glad I got the opportunity. Can you tell us a little bit about, um, her and then we'll think about the work?
So, yes. Um, so Clarice Lispector, um, was born in 1920, in the Ukraine to a Jewish family.
And, um, they escaped, uh, the pogroms to to Brazil.
A lot of, uh, Jewish people escaped from Ukraine and Eastern Europe at that time in the 1920s.
Um, and the family settled in northeastern Brazil and then moved to Rio when the mother died and goes to study law like Kafka.
Um, and then in 1943, um, she'd worked a little bit as a journalist, one of the first journalists in Brazil.
But she married, um, a former classmate who became a diplomat.
Um, 1943, she published her first novel, and with her diplomat husband, she travelled first to Italy, where the war was coming to an end.
Then they lived in Bern, in Switzerland, um, London, very briefly during the GATT talks after the war.
Uh, and then he was posted to Washington, DC. Um, uh, and so she was away from Brazil for 16 years.
Um, and she kept, uh, sort of one foot in the press, uh, and in the publishing industry by,
uh, by bringing out short stories, um, uh, and writing for various magazines.
And then she returned definitively in 1959 and started to work more seriously as an author.
She couldn't work full time as an author because, uh, it was very difficult to to be to, to make one's living just as an author.
So she did a lot of journalism as well. And translations. Um, and in 1964 she published this novel, The Passion According to G.H.,
which was her fifth novel and the first one that she wrote in the first person.
Um, and it's a novel that has kind of minimal plot, um, in which the character, the protagonist, who we only know by her initials, G.H.
Um, it's it's a a day when she has nothing to do.
She takes the phone off the hook. She. There's nobody else in the house.
And she decides she's going to clean her maid's room.
Um, she's just. The maid has left. She's been, um.
She has the maid has left, and she decides that she's going to clean the room, ready for the next maid to come.
Um, and when she gets to the maid's room, she finds, uh, an unexpected mural on the wall.
She finds, uh, lots of surprises.
Tiny things. Um, which which spark off a kind of existential crisis in her.
Um, and one of the things that she finds when she opens the wardrobe door is a cockroach crawling out.
And this, I think, is a clear reference to to the creature in metamorphosis.
Um, and all sorts of emotions go through her mind because she.
This is the insect, the creature that she fears the most.
She has, uh, like a phobia of cockroaches. And so she builds up the strength, and she slams the wardrobe door on the cockroach.
And then the rest of the novel is sort of her looking at the dying cockroach looking out of the window, vomiting, falling asleep.
But the narrative is, is also it's all first person.
And it's it kind of goes in spirals as different things come into her mind about death, existence, um, femininity, subjectivity.
Um, and she sort of starts to think of herself, uh, in a completely new way.
So it's it's almost like her, her character, uh, dissolves and she rebuilds herself.
Um. That's fascinating. Um, you said there's a clear reference to Kafka.
Um, and when I was sort of thinking about this, to me it seems completely obvious since there's a clear reference to Kafka,
but I don't think it's generally acknowledged. And she didn't write about it in those terms.
Or, um, so is it is it a Kafka story?
I think there are lots of things in common. I think we can say, you know, there's. As an insect.
There's a, um. Most of the action takes place in a very small enclosed room.
Um, it's about, uh, a metamorphosis, a change, a transformation that takes place over the course of the of the novel or the or the short story,
but at the same time, there's no when I said a clear reference, uh,
what I meant was she mentions metamorphosis several times, and she also talks about.
So the the woman when she's kind of gazing at the cockroach, uh, almost falling in love with it,
identifying with it, and, um, uh, she, she sort of becomes the cockroach, um, although she doesn't.
So it's it's not like Gregor, who wakes up and has become an insect.
She is kind of divesting herself of her humanity to to try and understand what it might be like to be this prehistoric creature that survives,
uh, earthquakes that's been here since, uh, that's been on the Earth for millennia.
Um, and is a female creature.
So, uh, in Portuguese, Bharata is a feminine noun, um, and she imagines this, this creature, um, the cockroach having hundreds and hundreds of babies.
And, uh, she looks at it in minute detail and sees the hairs on its legs, um,
and particularly the white oozing goo that comes out of the cockroaches back where it's been smashed.
Um. I'm sorry. I've got, uh, distracted by the by the, um, the disgusting part of the story, but, um, some people, I mean,
I've seen references to her being described as Brazil's Kafka,
which I think is a very reductive, um, description because she's so much more than just that.
I think there are references to, um, the metamorphosis in this novel, but it is not meant to be a rewriting of it.
I think anyone who links the insect and the sort of communing with the insect in both stories can see,
can see there are links, but it's not an exercise in rewriting that story.
I mean, I guess in a way Kafka makes the the younger who is, um, could see for the monstrous vermin.
I mean, he doesn't actually call it necessarily an insect and not a cockroach and, you know, not a specific insect.
Um, so he uses that. He uses that as a sort of metaphor for looking at humanity that, doesn't he?
And then in a sense, she's doing the same, but it's not her. It's it's that sort of part from her.
There's a distance. Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely.
Um, so she sort of transfers her feelings onto it and, and tries to understand its life and kind of repents of,
of killing it, but also repents of all the, uh, the sort of the shallowness, the the frivolity of her life.
She is she starts to sort of do accounts, as it were, and trying to understand all the things that she's all the way she's gone wrong.
Um, another thing that she does is to link the cockroach to the maid who's just left, and there's a whole, uh,
sort of question about race there because the the maid is Afro-Brazilian, and,
um, uh, G.H. first can't remember her name and then can't remember her face.
And this sort of shows a portrait of very kind of, uh, blasé, um, middle class life where the maids are disposable, they come and go, um,
but by linking the cockroach, which is sort of becomes almost an all powerful symbol, a scarab beetle that survives, that has lots of children.
Um, uh, she links that to the maid, um,
and gives them gives the maid a kind of autonomy that she didn't have when she was present in, um, in the apartment.
And it's sort of creepy that in a way that the maid has created this world within the woman's apartment that she doesn't know about,
which will challenge her. Very cool.
And of course, in the Kafka, it's the maid that gets rid of dry clothes almost at the end and from his dirty little room.
Um, so there's a power in that subservient role as well, isn't there?
Yes, yes. Um, so the maid Jenny has, uh, has left the room completely clean.
Not not as, uh, expected.
Dirty, unkempt. Um, she's cleaned it and she's left, uh, a mural on the wall.
She. Storm. Three figures which are not sort it, not hieroglyphics, but they're facing the viewer they're facing.
And she is completely shocked by this. I always think of, um, you know, the outlines, the white outlines.
When you see, when you've seen the dead, a dead body, a crime scene kind of image.
But it will be a crime scene. Yes it will.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.
So, yes, the maid has this. She's a kind of ghost that haunts the story as well.
I want to ask you about the, um, the sort of the first person voice as well, because you said it's a sort of interior, uh,
monologue focussed on this dying creature, um, but spanning kind of time and space and, uh, and and undoing herself in Kafka.
I mean, it's all very deadpan, it's very brief, it's very deadpan, and we're aware of the human within the insect and and so on.
But but this is a much more, um, expansive, complicated language.
I found it quite hard, going to be honest. Sometimes I think we're supposed to I think she's she's working through a lot of problems there.
It's to use a kind of psychoanalytical, um, jargon.
She's she's she's thinking through things. She's asking so many questions, and she's sort of as well, she's, um, she's kind of questioning language.
So she asks lots of questions, like, who am I? Why am I here?
But she's also trying to find the words to to say who she is, uh, and to say who she wants to be.
Um, so the the language is sometimes it sounds philosophical, sometimes it sounds and psychoanalytical.
Sometimes she, she needs to talk to someone.
So she's created a two, um, an interlocutor who's a a you and she, and she says, I can't narrate this without holding someone's hand.
And she's telling this sort of build up in the first few sections where she's, um,
getting up the strength to talk about this traumatic experience that happened yesterday.
So it's very fresh in her mind. And we knowing that we know that she has survived this traumatic experience.
But we think, what could it possibly be? And I think we probably don't think it's going to be something as maybe as trivial as killing an insect.
But the way that the story is built up, we we feel the drama of it as well.
Um, and the way it's constructed, it's 33 sections and it's sort of takes this.
I keep doing this, these gestures because it's a sort of looping form.
So it's a short they're short sections, but the last line of one section becomes the first section of the next.
So again, we're sort of swept along in, in these, uh, jerking, um, stages as she moves towards the,
the, the actions, which are first of all, to, to kill the cockroach.
And then I don't want to spoil what she does next, but she, um,
there's another kind of moment of, uh, of of reckoning, um, which is what cleanses her.
Uh, and then she's able to move towards a sort of calmer, um, finale, as it were.
And another thing about the the narrative, it begins with dashes, six dashes, and it ends with six dashes,
as if we're sort of being sewn into a story or dropped into this, this, uh, account that's being told to someone.
And we like to sort of think it's being told to us, but it's something that she's, she's she's speaking to an audience.
She needs to tell this story. Um, but, um, but because there are so many questions, I think we, we get lost among the questions.
Yeah. Can I ask, um, also about biblical allusions because, um, metamorphosis is often, um, interpreted in a kind of religious way.
Uh, the father throws an apple into the back of Gregor where it rots.
And when he's nailed somewhere, isn't it? Yes. Exactly as if you were nailed.
That's right. And, uh, and, uh, he dies, you know, with, uh, three strikes in a sort of elevated tone,
with three strikes with the strikes of the of the of the, um, sorry, the strikes of the clock.
And, um, so it's often been interpreted in a kind of religious way that he might represent guilt,
which is a short death, or guilt is a key word, but it's a very different kind of relationship.
With religion, perhaps because of the very different context in this, in this, in the passion, according to G.H.
Yeah. I mean, right from the title we can see that there's a biblical allusion, uh, and that and we recognise the, uh, the similarity to the Gospels,
the, the passion according to, um, Matthew, Mark or Luke or John or the Saint John Passion, which is, um, a wonderful, uh, piece of choral music.
Um, so we recognise that formula and think, oh, this is, this is somebody relating a very important event that involved,
um, suffering because the root of, uh, of passion, um, is, uh, is suffering, undergoing an experience.
Um, so we know that it's according to G.
H. But she's also the one that is undergoing the the experience.
Can I take you in a completely different direction and say, when you were telling me the plot, um, you were laughing and I was laughing?
Um, we've just been thinking about humour and Kafka.
How much humour is there in this? Not much, but it's interesting the way you presented it.
It was with humour. Yes, yes, perhaps I, I tend to be quite ironic about, uh, a lot of things, but it's, it's the idea, I suppose, of trying to.
What I ask students to do sometimes is to summarise. If can they summarise the novels that they've been studying in one line?
Um, what would you say is the story of this book?
And, you know, if you say if you try and express that to someone else and say it's about a woman who kills a cockroach,
they can laugh and say, but that doesn't that doesn't constitute a plot.
But there is a sort of absurd weight to it, isn't there? Which can be quite funny, maybe, I don't know.
Well, then, let me ask you a different final question, which is how much does it matter that she's an artist?
Uh, I think I think that's to do with the construction and deconstruction of the self.
She starts at the beginning. She's moulding these little bowls, and she she thinks about how she likes to put order into chaos,
which is another way of the sculpting that she does.
Um, and I suppose her her greatest work is, is herself while cutting a slice through the,
the poor cockroach, but also sort of cleansing herself of what she used to be and adopting a new self.
So she's, she's she realises that she's been to, um, she depends upon what others think of her.
And, uh, she's been playing a role and that's where the, the, the, um, initials come in as well because she, she talks about how, who is she?
She is her initials on which are embossed on her suitcases.
Um, she's reduced to these sort of two letters rather than having a name.
Um, I think that's part of the depersonalisation and the the dehumanisation.
So it's liberation rather than punishment? Yes, I think it is.
Liberation rather than punishment is a kind of redemption.
Um, another crime which takes place, which is also linked to the femininity, is the fact that she's, well, a crime.
Um, it's sort of portrayed in terms of guilt that she had a, uh, an abortion at some time in her life,
which links her to the the cockroach, because that's been squashed in its in its middle.
Um, and so she, she's, she's kind of rationalising that.
And that's another part of what she's, um, working through.
And of course, in Kafka, um, the family is deeply entrenched in this idea of, uh, liberation and, uh, and punishment.
Um, how what's the role of the family in this one in this time?
They're completely absent. Um, so indeed, she has terminated the pregnancy, so she she's completely alone.
Um, and that was something that I noticed as well, that in Kafka, it's all about how at the end, they're actually better off without him.
Um, and I think is is all about solitude.
Um, she she needs an interlocutor to speak to, but she doesn't have any family structure around her.
She's. She's an independent working woman, independently wealthy.
So she's in sort of financially, um, uh, independent.
So she doesn't need to rely on anyone. But I think that's another thing that she learns through the experience with the cockroach that she does.
Need someone to talk to. Brilliant.
And it's been great fun talking to you. So thank you very much, Claire.
Thank you.