A Literary Pilgrimage: In The Footsteps Of Clarice

“Love is now, is always. All that is missing is the coup de grâce - which is called passion.” ― Clarice Lispector.

A Starting Note

I began this essay intending to write about observation - writing down paragraphs, sentences, thoughts, and ideas in a notebook every day for a month. My goal was to explore my curiosity about those who observe the world actively and well. By well, I mean with passion, clarity, generosity, and an awareness of both the expansiveness and the limitations of language.

Then I started reading Too Much of Life, and every paragraph of this essay became about Clarice.

Clarice Lispector

What makes an observer—specifically, a writer—good, generous, and transformative?

Some words never reach me, no matter how often I return to them. I read articles, essays, thoughts, questions, scattered notes here and there, and it’s as if they pass through me, leaving nothing behind.

But some words deepen their way into me, and I carry them as a conversation throughout my life. And then I came across Clarice Lispector, and I became more aware of the words I want to carry.

“Clarice has a passion for the void,” I read these words in The Paris Review, in an essay titled Madame of the Void, written by José Castello. I write down in my notebook: “utter nonsense.” I don’t normally dismiss an idea so quickly, but after having read Clarice’s crônicas, that sentence feels like a careless attempt at trying to understand. Some words obscure for obscurity’s sake, or perhaps we are simply afraid to go deeper.

I think that great, active observers, like Clarice, tap into something that makes language a little hard to use, some things cannot be contained, words don’t clarify but inform, they spill out more awareness that language has a threshold. Clarice tried with words and active observations to go beyond the limits of a language, still bound to it, but using it as she herself described it “a fourth dimension”.

Clarice Lispector was born on December 10, 1920, in the town of Chechelnyk, which was then part of the Soviet Union (in present-day Ukraine). As a child, she left her homeland with her family and ultimately settled in Brazil. Throughout her life, she lived in various countries, but she felt most at home, understood, and free in the Portuguese language. For her, the language was a profoundly personal realm, something she made abundantly clear in her reflections.

I am glad that I continued reading José Castello’s essay, as the more I read, I noticed that he was determined to go beyond the often-thrown description of Clarice’s writing: “It’s not literature. It’s witchcraft.” José Castello is generous and honest, observing and sharing some of his past interactions with Clarice:

“Christmas Eve. The phone rings and a low, raspy voce identifies itself.“Clarrrice Lispectorrr,” it says. She gets right to the point. “I’m calling to talk about your story,” she proceeds. The voice, faltering at first, now grows firm: “I have just one thing to say: you are a very fearrrful man”—and the r’s of that “fearrrful” claw at my memory to this day. The deafening silence that follows leads me to believe that Clarice has hung up the phone without even saying goodbye. But then her voice reemerges:

“You are very fearrrful. And no one can write in fear.”

At first, I wanted to start this essay with this question: what observers unburden me? Great observers feel the language. Great observers bring clarity. Great observers are generous. But there’s something more, beyond language, awareness, clarity, and generosity - something that feels uncomfortable and exciting to articulate, to admit.

“Poised to decipher Clarice’s oeuvre, Claire had taken this sentence as a point of departure and developed what she calls a “telepathic method.” Its basis is as simple as it is disorienting: one can only read Clarice Lispector by taking her place—by being Clarice. “There’s no other way,” she assures me.”

“I ask whether this method could in fact work. Claire answers by reading a passage from one of Clarice’s crônicas, brief literary sketches collected in Discovering the World: “The character of ‘reader’ is a curious character, a strange one. While completely individual with particular reactions, the reader is also terribly linked to the writer, since, in fact, the reader is the writer.” Clarice had already taken it upon herself to inform us.”

- José Castello, Madame of the Void

Clarice was an extraordinarily generous observer. She conveyed the one truth she knew - her truth - and shared a profoundly specific human experience: that of being Clarice. That’s what draws us in - the compelling mystery of a singular human experience, raw, honest, clear, intimate, and riveting.

I gather my thoughts and rewrite my notes once again here, striving to understand, to peel back more layers: Great observers deepen our awareness. Great observers offer honest generosity. Great observers reveal and share clarity.

There’s also something mystical about great observers, something that leads some to view their insights as "otherworldly," "witchcraft," or even "dangerous." We don’t merely share their language; we share their consciousness. That’s the only way their words can reach us.

Great observers unsettle time.

Clarice Lispector in front of Mt. Vesuvius in 1945. Credit: New Directions.

A Literary Pilgrimage In Four Countries

Every time I feel a close connection with a writer, I find myself opening Google Flights, searching for possible dates to visit the city where they spent most of their lives. I want a full literary immersion, a literary pilgrimage.

Clarice Lispector lived in Rio de Janeiro, Naples, Bern, and Washington, D.C., among other cities throughout her life. By chance, I already have a trip to D.C. planned for next spring, in March, serendipitously arranged before this idea took shape, as I was invited to the Emergent Ventures Unconference. That leaves Naples, Bern, and Rio de Janeiro as the next destinations for my journey in 2025 and 2026.

I do not know where this pilgrimage will lead me or what I will write about in the essays to come. What I do know is that lived experience will guide my writing, just as my writing will guide my lived experience. That, in itself, feels like one of the best kinds of adventures.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your emails, stories, and notes. In the coming weeks, I will be traveling to Hungary and Romania, and I might have another essay or post to share before the year ends.

Patricia-Andra Hurducaș