The Chandelier
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
Clarice Lispector's masterly second novel, now available in English for the first time
'She found the best clay that one could desire: white, supple, sticky, cold ... She would get a clear and tender material from which she could shape a world'
Like the clay from which she sculpts figurines as a girl, Virginia is constantly shifting and changing. From her dreamlike childhood on Quiet Farm with her adored brother Daniel, through an adulthood where the past continues to pull her back and shape her, she moves through life, grasping for the truth of existence. Illuminating Virginia's progress through intense flashes of image, sensation and perception, The Chandelier, Lispector's landmark second novel, is a disorienting and exhilarating portrait of one woman's inner life.
'Utterly original and brilliant, haunting and disturbing' Colm Tóibín
Translated by Benjamin Moser and Magdalena Edwards
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Never before translated into English, Lispector's mysterious second novel tells the story of two siblings and the secrets that bind them together. As children, sensitive Daniel and precocious Virginia live at the parochial Quiet Farm in the principality of Upper Marsh; Daniel keeps a collection of spiders, and Virginia spends her time making clay figurines. They witness a drowning and form the Society of Shadows to explore the forest around their home and spy on their sister Esmeralda. As a young adult, Virginia leaves the farm and attempts to fit in with a ravishing crew of aesthetes led by the vain Vicente, who becomes her lover but her thoughts are always turning back to Daniel, whose engagement breaks Virginia's heart, leading her to question her identity; she wonders if she isn't like the family's chandelier, above everything and swinging first one way, then the other. Told mainly through Virginia's associative, stream-of-consciousness thoughts, which are occasionally interrupted by dialogue and plot developments, the novel clearly precedes Lispector's artistic breakthrough with books like 1964's The Passion According to G.H. This is a haunting family fable, and will fascinate those seeking a glimpse at Lispector's genius in development.
