Wild experience reading this. Reads like a surrealist bell jar. They never mentioned the comparison to sylvia plath but even the surrealist ending/spiritual awakening with “rebirth” as a theme reminds me of lady lazarus “Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air”. i definately think it is autobiographical since joana wrote poetry when she was young like clarice did. I think the learning curve to her writing is kind of steep in the first couple pages, but once you grasp it since the timeline isn’t linear and it jumps back and forth, it gets easier once you orient yourself. I think following what is happening in each chapter is not easy but the jumpiness of the fragments, but so far I can make out the existentialist questioning of happiness and the meaning of life, and growth /loosing childhood innocence/sexual awakening. I think reading it as a bunch of chained prose poems makes it easier since I don’t have to focus so much on a coherent “plot” and just appreciate the prose and descriptions and concepts. Getting into the mind of someone who is growing developing in a stream of consciousness surreal style.Don’t think I’m smart enough ti understand a lot of the philosophy and spiritual aspects of this novel but I could pick out the struggle for wanting connections but not wanting to be tied down and being reclusive. Womens rights in Brazil at the time. Interesting to read it as semi autobiographical and maybe a window into Clarice's mind. That’s insane that she wrote that in her early twenties.1932, the president guaranteed women’s right to vote.
My brain hurts
