A review by casparb
The Besieged City by Clarice Lispector

MORE Clarice this is a new one to me it’s not fireworks like AV or GH but I’m developing the sense that this is a novel incredibly central to her approaches to the material world, the collective, and Seeing. Three threads. Apparently City was one of the most tortured compositions for her & this is rare sometimes they’d just spin out. One can sense the consideration here but it’s difficult to say how - there’s a slight sense she’s clipping herself, resisting the fireworks for the overarching aesthetic, the precise articulation of objects and the elucidation of something terrifyingly close to A Normal Novel-ish form.

OBJECTS are particular here I was reminded of The Rape of the Lock’s approach and to a great extent Stein in Tender Buttons. These are aspects of looking there’s a passage about the shadow side of objects which if I recall chimes with Heideggerian views (ha) of Looking. These themes interweave very nicely because with OBJECTS and SEEING we have Mirrors there’s a Cocteauism to it but the book pre-dates Orphée.

Generation of city, collective & perspective. Delicious and so instructive for her other works this isn’t something she details elsewhere there are no skeleton keys in literature but we get gleams & I think City is one of those. also her most horsey book