April 2018 book review

AGUA VIVA, by Clarice Lispector
A young Brazilian woman sits in her apartment contemplating the eternal verities: time, memory, love, and whatever else springs to her extremely adroit mind.
          What emerges in this mercifully short book (it runs to only 90 pages) is an extraordinary stream of consciousness writing which is unique in my limited experience. I say mercifully because it is scarcely light reading. I could only manage 20 pages at a time, less than half of my usual intake, such is the density of her prose. With application, however, what emerges is a strange, surrealistic journey through the mind of one of Brazil’s most acclaimed writers. Dying much too young (she was barely 47) she could have gone on to far greater things. Go for it if you enjoy a challenge.

SWANN’S WAY, by Marcel Proust
A boy is growing up in a small rural town in northern France. There are two walks the family likes to take on a Sunday afternoon. One is the Guermantes way, a longish ramble that necessitates checking the weather first, lest they be caught in the rain. On that route they may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Duke of Guermantes’s family, local landowners and serious nobility.
           The shorter route is the way by Swann’s, not a noble but a very well connected and wealthy man. There our hero might espy Swann’s beautiful young daughter Gilberte, with whom he is hopelessly in love, though she is barely aware of his existence. On either route, he can divert himself with such delights as the hawthorn blossom when in season, or an array of other bucolic delights to be found in the French countryside. Later in the book, Swann, the man in full, is described, with particular reference to his love for a Parisian coquette named Odette
         Swann’s Way is the first in the six volume series of Proust’s masterwork A La Recherche du Temps Perdu (“In Seach of Lost Time”) which is described by some as the greatest novel ever written. As each book is over 500 pages long, it will not be a quick read, but oh my goodness, what a delight awaits!
          I first read this book in 2005 and 2006 and determined immediately it deserved a re-read at some later stage. I have waited long enough to treat myself, and the time has arrived!