The Complete Stories (56 page)

Bibliographical Note

The present volume collects, for the first time, all of Clarice Lispector’s stories. There are many reasons why this has not been done before, even in Brazil. These include a publishing history that created variants of her writings in her lifetime, thanks principally to the author’s habit of recycling her older works for publication in new formats. The instability of the publishing industry and of her own “critical fortune” often forced her to change publishers. Her nine novels had eight different publishers, for example, a number that does not include the reprints of earlier works in her lifetime.

It is much the same with the stories. Stories published in one place show variants with the same story published elsewhere; financial concerns often forced her to recycle earlier material in magazines and newspapers. Other later publications were careless and published without her supervision or approval. For the sake of simplicity, we have generally opted to translate the first editions of these stories as they were published in book form.

This decision, despite its theoretical cleanness, has not always been easy in practice, particularly because many of these stories were never collected in her lifetime and only emerged years—even decades—after her death in 1977.

When she died, she was a cult favorite among artists and intellectuals. Her reputation as the greatest figure of modern Brazilian literature came posthumously. Her acolytes—the word “admirers” is unequal to her obsessive, lifelong enthusiasts—have scoured the archives, discovering much early work. Though more stories may yet emerge (especially from fresh examinations of the periodicals with which she collaborated as a young woman), none have appeared since the discovery of the short first part of “Letters to Hermengardo” several years ago. It is reasonable to expect that the list of works we present here will not be significantly expanded.

Clarice Lispector was no respecter of genres. Many of her writings were presented as journalism but are clearly fictional; many published as fictions might be more comfortably classified as memoirs or essays; and so on. In the interests of making as much of her work available in our language as we can, we have cast a broad net, excluding journalism, essays, and short miscellany.

For these stories in the context of her work and life, see
Why
Th
is World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector
by Benjamin Moser.

FIRST STORIES

The works we have called “First Stories” are the juvenilia of Clarice Lispector, published when she was a law student in Rio de Janeiro, before her marriage and subsequent departure from Brazil. They also predate the spectacular debut of
Near to the Wild Heart
.

These early works come from three sources. The first is Clarice’s earliest known manuscript, which has a note on the first page in her late handwriting: “In 1942 I wrote
Near to the Wild Heart
, published in 1944. This book of stories was written in 1940–41. Never published. Clarice.” (In fact, the novel was published in December 1943, around Clarice’s twenty-third birthday.)

These are: “Interrupted Story,” dated October 1940; “Gertrudes Asks for Advice,” September 1941; “Obsession,” October 1941; “The Fever Dream,” July 1940; “The Escape,” bearing only the notation “Rio 1940”; and “Another Couple of Drunks,” December 1941. They were published in that order in a posthumous volume entitled
Beauty and the Beast
(
A bela e a fera
, Nova Fronteira, Rio de Janeiro, 1979), edited by Olga Borelli, the friend and collaborator of Clarice’s final years. The original manuscripts are kept in the Instituto Moreira Salles, Rio de Janeiro.

The second source for the “First Stories” is another posthumous volume called
Other Writings
(
Outros escritos
, Rocco, Rio de Janeiro, 2005), which preserves some of her early journalism as well as essays, speeches, and interviews. It includes her earliest known story, “The Triumph,” published in the magazine
Pan
on May 25, 1940; “Jimmy and I,” published in the
Folha de Minas
, Belo Horizonte, December 24, 1944, but probably dating from several years earlier; the second part of “Letters to Hermengardo,” published in the newspaper
Dom Casmurro
, August 30, 1941; and “Excerpt,”
Vamos Lêr!
, January 9, 1941.

The third source, for the first part of “Letters to Hermengardo,” is a copy of
Dom Casmurro
from July 26, 1941, preserved in the Museum of Brazilian Literature, Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa, Rio de Janeiro.

FAMILY TIES (“LAÇOS DE FAMÍLIA”)

This work, famous in Brazil, did not appear until 1960, when it was published by Francisco Alves, São Paulo. Several of its stories had been published by the Ministry of Education and Health in 1952 in a now-rare pamphlet called
Some Stories
(
Alguns contos
). These were “Mystery in São Cristóvão,” “Family Ties,” “Beginnings of a Fortune,” “Love,” “A Chicken,” “The Dinner.” At the time, Clarice was living in the United States. Others appeared in the legendary magazine
Senhor
, around the time of her definitive return to Rio de Janeiro in 1959.

The collection is dedicated to Clarice’s psychiatrist, Inês Besouchet. The story “Preciousness” is dedicated to her close friend Mafalda Verissimo, wife of the celebrated novelist Erico Verissimo. She mentions Erico in a stray note following “A Full Afternoon” in
Where Were You at Night
.

THE FOREIGN LEGION (“A LEGIÃO ESTRANGEIRA”)

This work was published in 1964 by the Editora do Autor, Rio de Janeiro. It was divided into two parts: “Stories” and “Back of the Drawer” (“
Fundo de gaveta
”). Subsequent Brazilian editions have included just the 13 selections from “Stories,” all of which we include here—from “The Disasters of Sofia” through “The Foreign Legion.” “Back of the Drawer” is a compilation of mainly occasional pieces, short fictional sketches, and essayistic fragments. Of the more substantial pieces, we have selected the versions more formally collected later in
Covert Joy
, and we also include four additional works here. Two of these illustrate the difficulties in making our selection: “The Burned Sinner and the Harmonious Angels” is Clarice’s only play; and “Mineirinho” is
sensu stricto
journalistic, but its style brings it much closer to her stories. Many of these works, too, were originally published in
Senhor
magazine; many, too, would be recycled.

At the beginning of “Back of the Drawer,” Clarice includes the following note:

This second part will be called, as the never sufficiently quoted Otto Lara Resende once suggested to me, “Back of the Drawer.” But why get rid of things that pile up, as in every house, at the back of drawers? As Manuel Bandeira put it: so that it [death] will find me with “the house clean, the table set, with everything in its place.” Why pull from the back of the drawer, for example, “the burned sinner,” written just for fun while I was waiting for my first child to be born? Why publish things that aren’t worthwhile? Because worthwhile things aren’t worthwhile either. Besides, things that evidently aren’t worthwhile always interested me very much. I have an affectionate fondness for the unfinished, the poorly made, whatever awkwardly attempts a little flight and falls clumsily to the ground.

COVERT JOY (“FELICIDADE CLANDESTINA”)

This collection of twenty-five stories was first published by the Editora Sabiá in 1971. It includes many works that originally appeared in
Th
e Foreign Legion
, two of which Clarice retitled: “Journey to Petrópolis” became “The Great Outing” (“
O grande passeio
”) and “Evolution of a Myopia” became “Progressive Myopia” (“
Miopia progressiva
”).

The thirteen we have included are those that had not been previously published or that appeared, sometimes in a less developed version and with different titles, in the second section of
Th
e Foreign Legion
.

These include: “Eat up, My Son”; “Forgiving God,” formerly “Vengeance and Grievous Reconciliation” (“
A vingança e a reconciliação penosa
”); “Boy in Pen and Ink,” formerly “Sketching a Boy” (“
Desenhando um menino
”); “A Hope,” formerly in a shorter variant as “Hope” (
“Esperan
ça
”); and “Involuntary Incarnation,” which began as the fragment “The Missionary Woman’s Turn” (“
A vez da mission
ária
”).

WHERE WERE YOU AT NIGHT (“ONDE ESTIVESTES DE NOITE”)

Published on April 5, 1974, one of the three original works Clarice Lispector published in that year—the others were
Th
e Via Crucis of the Body
and
Água viva
—at Editora Artenova, Rio de Janeiro.

We have included all but three stories, featured in other collections: “Emptying Out” (“
Esvaziamento
”) appears as “A Sincere Friendship” in
Covert Joy
, which also contains “Waters of the World.” “A Complicated Case” (“
Um caso complicado
”) is translated as “Before the Rio-Niterói Bridge” in
Th
e Via Crucis of the Body
for reasons noted below.

“Report on the Thing” was originally published as “Object: antistory” (“
Objeto: anticonto
”) and given its current title when published in the newspaper
Jornal do Brasil
. There, Clarice included this preface:

Note: this report-mystery, this geometrical anti-story was published in São Paulo’s
Senhor
magazine. In his introduction, Nélson Coelho says that I have killed the writer in me. He cites several writers who attempted suicide of the written word. None succeeded. “Just as Clarice shall not succeed,” Nélson Coelho writes.

What did I attempt with this type of report?

I think that I wanted to write an anti-story, an anti-literature. As if that way I might demystify fiction. It was a worthwhile experience for me. It doesn’t matter that I have failed. It is called:
O B J E C T
.

THE VIA CRUCIS OF THE BODY (“A VIA CRUCIS DO CORPO”)

Published in 1974, this work was composed over the course of a single weekend, as Clarice states in her “Explanation.” The looseness of its style, as well as a certain fatigued defiance in its tone, reflect her frustration, as she neared the end of her life, with her own personal struggles. The reactions to the book reflected the increasingly conservative political mood in the most repressive years of the Brazilian dictatorship. At the time, it was considered pornographic and, as she indicates in the “Explanation,” “trash.”

The story she refers to as “Blue Danube” in the “Explanation” was ultimately published as “Day After Day.”

Though Clarice wrote most of this collection on a weekend in May, she included “Before the Rio-Niterói Bridge,” published the previous month in
Where Were You at Night
as “A Complicated Case.” We have grouped it with these stories to preserve the continuity of Clarice Lispector’s most deliberately arranged collection. In the “Explanation” she states, “This is a book of thirteen (13) stories. But it could have been fourteen.”

VISION OF SPLENDOR: LIGHT IMPRESSIONS (“VISÃO DO ESPLENDOR: IMPRESSÕES LEVES”)

This collection from 1975, the second to be published by Francisco Alves, includes mainly older short pieces. The exception is “Brasília.” She wrote an initial version in 1962, after her first visit to the new capital, published in
Th
e Foreign Legion
as “Brasília: Five Days” (“
Brasília: cinco dias
”). The version here is the expanded version she wrote following her return to Brasília in 1974.

FINAL STORIES

These two stories, left incomplete at Clarice Lispector’s death on December 9, 1977, were published, with the manuscript of her earliest stories, in
Beauty and the Beast
, 1979. They were edited by the great friend of Clarice Lispector’s last years, Olga Borelli. The title for the collection was chosen by her son, Paulo Gurgel Valente. Their incomplete state is reflected by a few inconsistencies: Carla in “Beauty and the Beast,” for example, has three children early in the story, two toward the end; at the beginning she is from a rich family, whereas later she is described as her husband’s former secretary.

Acknowledgments

Katrina Dodson thanks the Brazilian friends who answered endless questions like “Does this sound strange in Portuguese?”: Vanessa Barbara, Ricardo Ferreira, Regina Ponce, Victoria Saramago, and especially Beatriz Bastos, Paulo Henriques Britto, and Brenno Kenji Kaneyasu. Much gratitude goes to those who commented on the English and who generally kept me alive and well: Corey Byrnes, Kathryn Crim, Andrea Gadberry, Hilary Kaplan, Erin Klenow, Adam Morris, Lucy Reynell, Yael Segalovitz, Zohar Weiman-Kelman, Tristram Wolff, and Steve Fiduccia, as well as my family, especially Thao Dodson. And a big, exhausted
abraço
to the demanding, hilarious, and deeply committed Benjamin Moser, without whose energies this would never have been completed in less than a lifetime.

Benjamin Moser thanks Carlos Alberto Asfora, Schneider Carpeggiani, José Geraldo Couto, Cassiano Elek Machado, Eduardo Heck de Sá, and Paulo Gurgel Valente. My introduction is the fruit of long conversations with Honor Moore, to whom it is dedicated; the book in your hands is the fruit of the dedication of Katrina Dodson,
sine qua non
.

Both are grateful to the publishers in New York and London for their unremitting support. At Penguin, to Alexis Kirschbaum and Sam Voulters. At New Directions, to Michael Barron, Laurie Callahan, Mieke Chew, Helen Graves, Clarissa Kerner, Tynan Kogane, Declan Spring, and especially our beloved friend Barbara Epler.

Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1978, 2010, 2015 by the Heirs of Clarice Lispector

Translation copyright © 2015 by Katrina Dodson

Introduction copyright © 2015 by Benjamin Moser

Published by arrangement with the Heirs of Clarice Lispector and Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells, Barcelona.

New Directions gratefully acknowledges the support of

MINISTÉRIO DA CULTURA

Fundação BIBLIOTECA NACIONAL

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First published in cloth by New Directions in 2015

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