A Breath of Life, Clarice Lispector
A Breath of Life was the last book written by Clarice in text fragments organized by her friend Olga Borelli. Clarice, who maintains her intimate style with a certain disregard for facts, expresses these thoughts within the narrative. In the book, Clarice, as the real author, creates a character simply known as “the author,” who in turn creates Ângela, a character, as a sort of extension of himself.
To understand certain novels and dive into their narratives, exploring their details that make classics seem endless, it is necessary to have knowledge of the author or at least some understanding of their style. In A Breath of Life, by Clarice, it is not necessary to understand what happens in the 1970s to enter the nuances of her dialogues; rather, it requires an interest in what is more intimate, intrinsic, and profound within a person. One must have an interest in discovering the “self” and, along the way, the disappointments inherent in the process. In the case of Clarice’s writing, in this specific book, it is crucial to observe her final years before her death; this death that frightens, but for those who delve into her intimacy, may also express a breath of life.
Thus, beyond the deeper roots that the book initially titled Pulsations brings, it is also socially interesting to highlight the creation of a man who speaks of a woman. For how many centuries has literature, in a very broad sense, been constituted by this mold? What still explains the pseudonyms adopted by women so that their books can be sold in certain areas? Perhaps Clarice didn’t intend to suggest such a question in the creation of her characters in this work specifically, but it is a pertinent approach in the search for explanations.
By creating an author to speak of Ângela, perhaps there would be more legitimacy in addressing issues that go beyond what is considered purely feminine. Perhaps it is as an author that the author feels at certain moments, or even, more sadly, perhaps this is how she, as a woman, had to position herself to be taken seriously. Clarice doesn’t make any of these social statements clear; they serve at this moment only as speculations, allowing for the interpretative nature of appreciating a literary work.
Moving forward, after the work is located, it is necessary to approach concepts in a way that delimits the present work. Here, the category of character is adopted for the analysis of the posthumous novel by Clarice, with this category still referring to the protagonist, Ângela. Based on concepts brought by Antônio Cândido and collaborators (1967), there is a certain simultaneity between character and plot in a work. From this point, one can speak of the transmission of meanings and values, these three elements, elaborated together through technique.
According to the referenced work, the character involves the reader’s intellectual and emotional adherence—not to be confused with mere liking for them. A great character can be defined as one in whom the feeling of complexity is maximal. In any case, it is important to remember that, with all its grandeur, a character only acquires meaning in its context. The character, according to Antônio et al. (1967), is the most vivid element in the novel, and it is also crucial that the reader accepts its truth.
Returning then to Clarice’s posthumous narrative, in the initial pages, the author—the character created by the author—unfolds his questions for creating Ângela in revelations such as: Ângela is a mirror (p. 28), I don’t know what to expect from her: will I just have to transcribe her? I have to have patience so I don’t get lost in myself (p. 28-29), By the way, maybe I am also a character of myself (p. 29). Later, in a phrase that may be central: Ângela is everything I wanted to be and was not (p. 30).
In this first part of the book, which is not even divided linearly into chapters, the author discusses with himself about his creation, which will unfold freely to emerge and express his own speech throughout the rest of the excerpt. In the next moment, as Ângela’s musings continue, the author admits that he has no control over her because, in reading, if Ângela is a mirror, an intimate thing that has exteriorized itself, something he wanted to be and was not… there is no reason to control her again, as it is done with himself in life. Wanting Ângela to have a continuous, non-contradictory meaning is to strike her at the beginning of her creation.
Thus, Ângela continues, at many moments, without direct logic. In apparent nonsense. The meaning of any expression in itself is not what the work seeks, nor is it Ângela’s role. However, certainly, the lack of necessity for meaning, including not surviving through facts, may be the very meaning of the character. The author does not care about linearity; Ângela is not created by linearity, as the author would first express: Being born is hard… I will teach her to start in the middle (p. 36). The character does not aim for regularity of ideas, and continues in the same way with a certain disregard for facts in the next fragment.
Continuing in another chapter with no name, the author states: I will write here towards the air, without responding to anything because I am free (p. 71). It is once again necessary to highlight that, in this moment, the author attempts to construct Ângela. In another manifestation, the author questions: What is real life? Facts? No, real life is only attained by what is dreamlike in real life (p. 76). On this same page, according to the author, imagination precedes reality.
In the following two pages, Ângela appears in parentheses, in the depth of somnambulism, speaking in ways that defy comprehension, ending the paragraph: What I write now is for no one: it is directly for the writing itself, this writing consumes the writing… what I write is autonomously real (p. 78). The author manifests through Ângela and, later, still claims: Wanting to understand is one of the worst things that could happen to me (p. 79). The author constructs Ângela in his freedom and accuses her of being a projection when, more perceptibly, it is he who projects himself.
In Clarice Lispector’s emphatically intimate writing, one can observe the ability to go beyond conventional conceptions, using her words in the work. Through the character of the author, again contextualized, there is the acknowledgment: she (Ângela) is the immaterial substratum of me (p. 84). In other words, attributed to Ângela herself, there is a connection that manifests the idea: I used to be a woman who knew how to distinguish things when I saw them. But now I’ve made the grave mistake of thinking (p. 84); once again, in this speech, the character reveals herself intimately with the author, in the same way trying to discover her own inner self. Ângela’s speech stands out, however, revealing the potential immediate identification of readers who may seek the most intimate meanings of things. The meanings are no longer exactly pre-established, and Ângela unfolds her discoveries, just as quickly as she retracts them.
Later, there is a short excerpt where the question is asked: How to make everything a waking dream? (p. 93). The first expression here is the author asserting that more important than the text is the fact; however, in the next line, he states that facts get in his way. With facts hindering the author, he decides to write about non-facts, about things and their fantastical mysteries. Ângela continues: I don’t care to be understood, I want the impact of dazzling syllables (p. 95).
Thus, once again, Ângela is noticed as a character who writes, created by an author-character who writes her. She continues, within everything she can say: I wish, however, that I didn’t have this wrong desire to write. I feel that I am driven. By whom? (p. 95). In the following writings, an unexpected moment arises, where Ângela doesn’t know—and perhaps cannot know—that she is just a character from another author’s creation. In this moment, where they discuss what is real and what is a dream, there is merely a parallel conversation between two writers. Ângela, who still considers the writing of her chronicles mediocre.
Finally, we come to Ângela’s book, perhaps the most dangerous thing for her. In this fragment of the excerpt, Ângela has the freedom to speak about objects in a haphazard manner, as this itself constitutes the narrative. Ângela, again, is not concerned with the direct logic of things, and speaks about them as they fit her at that moment. Ângela makes her discontinuity continuous, just as she returns to the logic of her supposed freedom to be.
However, in her book and in her self-discovery, there remains something problematic—did she herself exist? Near its conclusion, what becomes somewhat more comprehensible resurfaces: the dialogue about what it means to be God, a dialogue with death itself, which is outlined early on in Ângela’s words. If, at the beginning, the character who transcends the author knows she is alive because she knows she will die, and thus emanates her pain—I write almost without convulsion and feel torn apart as in a farewell goodbye (p. 36)—by the end of the book, she states once again: And death can no longer touch me because I AM NO LONGER AFRAID! (p. 136).
Ângela’s words, despite their apparent evolution, when emphasizing in capital letters the absence of fear, might, for an introspective reader, actually reinforce the full existence of fear—perhaps even a greater and more emphatic existence of it. If Ângela did not fear death, she would not feel the need to question it, much less require such a forceful reaffirmation. Ângela fears death; she knows it is near. Being intuitive and given the circumstances of her birth—without concrete facts—she somehow knows that she is very close to death.
Ângela is pure discovery—of herself, of the author, of the intimate reader who discovers themselves in the same way. Perhaps Ângela is what Clarice herself could not be—Clarice, who paints, writes, but as a human being was still subjected to facts, who, as a survivor, had to have her usefulness. Ângela, on the other hand, exists in the greatest of her possibilities, as the author outlines: to serve no purpose is freedom. To have meaning would diminish us; we exist freely, for the sheer pleasure of being (p. 141).
Through the lens of literary hermeneutics, within the framework of concepts brought forth by Antônio Cândido and collaborators, Ângela surpasses the complexity of a fictional character. With the intention of writing pure movement, she materializes the breath of life. Ângela possesses the complexity of the one who writes her, who, in turn, is written by someone else—leading to the possible suspicion that the reader themselves might be written without knowing it. Ângela embodies the values of what expands beyond itself—she is expansion itself.
A breath of life can be the result of approaching death. A breath of life as a book can be an awareness of the pulse of existence. A pulse that overflows as pure being. Ângela fits into no order, no linearity, no singular meaning beyond the freedom that this character demands. There is no space where Ângela fits more fully than in life itself, as long as life exists.
In the end, one could say of the character: A happy person is the one who has accepted death (p. 148). To accept death, from a reader’s perspective, is to allow oneself to live. The greatest value in the entire construction of the character is life itself—life that refuses to be contained. And so, Ângela ends: in ellipses…
REFERENCE
Lispector, Clarice. A Breath of Life. Translated by Johnny Lorenz, New Directions, 2012.
