You’ve seen her before. She’s in Mary Janes, a long skirt and a coquette top, or perhaps jeans and a band tee. The outfit may vary. But one thing doesn’t: No matter what she’s wearing, she’ll always have a book in hand.
Growing up, the media I was exposed to only ever depicted girls who liked reading as nerdy. So, when I noticed a trend of cool, stylish and bookish it-girls, I instantly became obsessed. As I was scrolling through the Instagram accounts of some of these it-girls, I encountered a familiar name: “Água Viva” (The Stream of Life) by Clarice Lispector.
In my home country of Brazil, Ukrainian-born Brazilian Jewish writer Clarice Lispector is a household name. Her novel “A Hora da Estrela” (The Hour of the Star) is mandatory reading in most high schools, and its 1985 movie adaptation by Suzana Amaral might have become as much of a cult classic as “Amélie” (2002) if it had been an European production.
But what’s the allure of Lispector’s literature?
Some say it’s the clash between her soft literary self, who contemplated feelings like pity, shame and guilt, and her severe interview side, who always had a cigarette between her fingers. Or it might be the ironic contrast between her writing self, who wrote eloquently in a free stream of consciousness, and her speaking self, who talked slowly with a lisp. Sharing his speech impediment, Clarice bears a mystical resemblance to Moses; an improbable interlocutor with a powerful prophetic message.
Many, though, say that the beauty of her writing lies primarily in her distinctive use of the Portuguese language. Do words have fixed meaning, or could we bend them to create new meanings? Lispector combines words in a way that empties them of their original connotations and attaches new meaning. She challenges us: If humans were the ones who originated language, couldn’t we be the ones to modify it on command?
Lispector proved that we could rework language by inventing terms such as instante-já . A combination of the words instante (instant, moment) and já (now, already), she never explicitly explains what an instante-já is — the interpretation is up to the reader.
To me, an instante-já is a fleeting moment that seems eternal, a split second in which you see clearly and feel with every nerve in your body. To my other Brazilian friend, however, an instante-já is “the most present moment,” a now that’s so now, so immediate, that you only start thinking about it after it’s already gone.
Even though it’s our own language, we still have many debates about the meaning of Lispector’s words. That’s why, when I saw her name on that Instagram page, I thought, “if she still mystifies Brazilians decades after publication, how could a foreigner possibly understand her in translation?”
And so I reread “Água Viva,” one of my favorite works by Lispector, for the third time. But this time, I read it in English.
“The novel seemed inherently Brazilian, somehow. That’s Clarice’s doing.”
My first vexation was with the translation of the title. Água viva means “lively water,” or “water that’s alive.” That would make “The Stream of Life” a plausible yet distant translation. Why “stream” and not “water”? The choice could’ve been a reference to Clarice’s trademark stream of consciousness. However, the original Portuguese title has another meaning to it: While água viva literally translates to “lively water,” água-viva means “jellyfish,” which gets completely lost in translation.
As I was reading, specific words caught my attention: the haphazard translation of “alimentar”(feed) into “eat” (comer), for instance. These mistranslations also brutally changed the rhythm of the original version, disrupting Lispector’s fluid poetic prose. “Escrevo-te toda inteira” sounds totally different from “I write you completely whole,” yet the translation is technically accurate.
Having said all of this, I still want you to read Clarice Lispector’s translated works. Even with all of those annoyances, the more I read The Stream of Life, the more enveloped I felt by it. It’s a strange feeling, but while I was reading in English, this language that’s still foreign to me, my mother-tongue, Portuguese, felt extremely present and close. The novel seemed inherently Brazilian, somehow. That’s Clarice’s doing.
I finally understood why all the bookish it-girls suddenly love her: Lispector’s voice is so powerful that not even a translation can bring it to a halt. So I say, dip your toes into the stream that is Clarice Lispector, and let her take you away.
Did I translate that right?
Anna Ripper Naigeborin PO ’28 is from São Paulo, Brazil. She’s recently been into watching Éric Rohmer movies.