Chandelier

Clarice Lispector, Magdalena Edwards, Benjamin Moser

Book cover for Chandelier
Book cover for Chandelier

Chandelier

Chandelier

Clarice Lispector, Magdalena Edwards, Benjamin Moser

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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

Critical Reviews

Lispector's signature narrative style, which borders on stream-of-consciousness, is the vehicle for Virginia's existential dilemmas and her observations about a world from which she often seems removed. The Chandelier includes all the earmarks of Lispector's other work, too: a deep anguish, a search for the heart of human existence, and the unbearable weight of a solitude that is imperative to ultimate freedom.--Eric Becker "Americas Quarterly"

It is a lyrical outpouring of sensation and perception...Lispector is up to some extraordinary things.--Martin Riker "New York Times Book Review" (6/8/2018 12:00:00 AM)

The revival of the hypnotic Clarice Lispector has been one of the true literary events of the 21st century.--Parul Sehgal "New York Times Book Review" (3/27/2018 12:00:00 AM)

It's a shaggy stop-motion masterpiece, plotless and argument-less and obsessed with the nature of thought....Every page vibrates with feeling. It's not enough to say that Lispector bends language, or uses words in new ways. Plenty of modernists do that. No one else writes prose this rich.--Lily Meyer "NPR" (4/5/2018 12:00:00 AM)

Lispector's second novel is a breathless, dizzying and multi-sensory dive into the mind...The first English translation of The Chandelier is a major event, offering the anglophone world an insight into Lispector's early grappling with the shapes and rhythms of thought.-- "The Times Literary Supplement"

The Chandelier is an extraordinary book.--Reinaldo Laddaga "4Columns" (3/23/2018 12:00:00 AM)

A vulnerable and moving performance--with a heart-stopping payoff....an undeniable quantity of genius.--Parul Sehgal "New York Times Book Review" (3/27/2018 12:00:00 AM)

Lispector's signature brilliance lies in the minutely observed gradations of her characters' feelings and of their elusive, half-formed thoughts.-- "Kirkus" (3/23/2018 12:00:00 AM)

The Chandelier will reward those who enjoy challenging works about the power of the mind and about how we might grow up--without destroying who we have been, without fearing who we might come to be.-- "Music & Literature" (3/23/2018 12:00:00 AM)

This is a haunting family fable, and will fascinate those seeking a glimpse at Lispector's genius in development.-- "Publishers Weekly" (1/22/2018 12:00:00 AM)

[L]yrical, sensual, philosophical...gorgeous, unsettling prose...-- "The Nation" (1/22/2018 12:00:00 AM)

One of the twentieth century's most mysterious writers.--Orhan Pamuk (1/22/2018 12:00:00 AM)

Better than Borges.--Elizabeth Bishop (1/22/2018 12:00:00 AM)

Utterly original and brilliant, haunting and disturbing.--Colm Tóibín (1/22/2018 12:00:00 AM)

The Chandelier is not a book to be read at a fast pace, but rather one to be slowly sipped and savored, a few pages at a time--one that forces us to find other modes of reading, of approaching literature, committed to finding the pleasures of the text.--Christina Soto van der Plas "The Los Angeles Review of Books" (3/27/2018 12:00:00 AM)

Virginia's memory of the chandelier as an adult is as strange and ambiguous as the rest of the moments in the novel, deeply introspective and without a clear meaning, but the energy and spiritual wonder of her descriptions make the cryptic writing all the more resonant and spiritually urgent for both her character and her reader.--Mike Broida "Electric Lit" (3/27/2018 12:00:00 AM)

Publishing Information

Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Pub date: 2019-05-28
Length: 320 pages

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