Clarice Lispector is far from being Brazil's best writer

Someone posted this in another thread:

>>Clarice Lispector, Brazil's finest author of the 20th century

I was going to reply to that person individually. However, I've seen this belief getting so widespread around this board that I decided to make a thread in order to clarify one thing: Clarice Lispector was not our finest writer, and not even our finest novelist of the past century. I understand that someone might argue she was near the top, but calling her the best is expressing a very radical opinion which is by no means shared by the majority of Brazilian critics (although, curiously enough, it is very popular among Brazilian teenage girls who are also fans of Paulo Coelho).

If you do not know any Portuguese, you should refrain yourself from engaging in this discussion.

Now, so as to illustrate what I am saying, here are ten 20th century Brazilian authors who are better than her: Guimarães Rosa; Carlos Drummond de Andrade; João Cabral de Melo Neto; Murilo Mendes; Jorge de Lima; Manuel Bandeira; Bruno Tolentino; Gerardo Mello Mourão; Cecília Meirelles; Euclides da Cunha. One could also include Cyro dos Anjos, Lima Barreto, or even the Campos brothers (both), depending on one's aesthetic vision. Or Machado de Assis: he published Esau e Jacó in 1904, and O Memorial de Aires in 1909. And Ferreira Gullar could be added to the bunch too. Not to mention Oswald de Andrade, if one's into experimentalism. And there's also Érico Veríssimo, who wrote a gigantic novel which I haven't read yet, but is considered the very magnum opus of Southern Brazilian literature. Raduan Nassar's prose is probably as personal and touching as Clarice's. And what about the poor Alberto da Cunha Melo, whose poetry develops the style of João Cabral into something a lot more real and contemporary, but has been unjustly forgotten due to the relative isolation in which he lived? If one thinks literature should have a social purpose and believes in left-wing ideals Jorge Amado is also a possible choice. If translators are to be counted, what can we say of Carlos Alberto Nunes, who translated the complete works of Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, as well as the Aeneid of Virgil? Or Jenny Klabin Segall with her beautiful renderings of Goethe's Faust and a whole bunch of French plays?

Please note that this has nothing to do with colour-based or any other sort of prejudice, which I know you are going to accuse me of: Lima Barreto and Machado were black, Cecília was a woman, Cunha Melo and Mello Mourão were mixed, and Jorge de Lima wrote many black-inspired poems. Most of them were from the Northeast too, which stands to the rest of Brazil as Southern Italy stands to Lombardy and Tuscany. But none of these great writers, of course, had the glamour, mystery, beauty and femininity of Clarice Lispector's physical body - Cecília was old and ugly. As such, they couldn’t exert the fascination which Clarice’s image has exerted upon the minds of young undergraduates.

Just to finish: I think it’s very sad to see the status which Clarice has gained among foreigners (Americans, that is) as the 'best Brazilian novelist' of the past century. She is not. No one in Brazil thinks so, and it's been only in recent years that foreigners have elevated her work to a status which it doesn't really deserve - they deny it to Os Sertões and Claro Enigma -, mainly because of political reasons and because it’s easy to turn her into a feminist icon. They couldn't do that with the old, Catholic Cecília, a great poet, and much less with Adélia Prado, so they had to choose Clarice instead. And it doesn’t stop with her: now Brazilians are doing the very same thing with that laughably untalented carioca junkie from the 80's whose name does not deserved to be mentioned. Very soon she's going to be translated and looked at as 'the best Brazilian poet of the second half of the 20th-century' (after Chico Buarque, of course). It's ridiculous. And they’ve been doing the same to Hilda Hilst too, although, like Clarice, she at least had some talent. What's next? Gregório Duvivier? Somebody kill me before it happens!

Meanwhile, conveniently thrown ‘’nos aguaçais dos Igapós dos Japurás e dos Purus’’, Mello Mourão, a better poet than many of the Anglo-American masters, remains drowned in the waters of oblivion, beautifully untranslated, waiting to be found by those who know enough to seek him.

(And I haven’t even mentioned Otto Maria Carpeaux).

is everyone in brazil this angry

Who cares about modernist writers, anyway?

And not without justification. Everyone seems to ignore our best writers in favor of Paulo Coelho, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Amado.

>Everyone seems to ignore our best writers
Same.
MUH EVOLA AND UMBERTO ECO

but two of those are actually very good
besides you are acting a bit contrarian
>hur a woman? good? must be le feminist conspiracy to keep my literal whos down!
also that you imply cazuza is bad because he was a degenerate says a lot. grow up nigger

>those are actually very good

I speak Portuguese, but I barely speak it as I left Brazil at the age of one. Should I just read the original works?

Opinião válida arruinada por um argumento retardado sem profundidade, favor continuar a passar vergonha apenas em inglês, obrigado

>And there's also Érico Veríssimo, who wrote a gigantic novel which I haven't read yet, but is considered the very magnum opus of Southern Brazilian literature.
What novel is that?

The Hour of the Star is very good

Yes, of course.

Are you going to say her physical presence isn't one of the reasons which attract university students towards her? I think it is. It's a pop-culture phenomenon which often takes place in the literary world too. I've already noticed it with DFW.

Thanks for writing this.
Errado.

Cazuza was bad but him being gay has nothing to do with it, Ney Matogrosso is gay too and a fucking god.

O Tempo e o Vento. Actually, it's a series. It has some 2000 pages or so.

She's very good, but not enough to deserve a fame ten times higher than that of Euclides da Cunha.

see degenerate as in "AIDS ridden junkie"

No such implication whatsoever.

I mentioned Bruno Tolentino, who was ten times the degenerate Cazuza was. The difference is this: Tolentino was also much more than that, and a very good poet.

O "junkie" seria Cazuza?

Ana C., mate.

Good post, and a valuable point about the limited, sophomoric view of literature on this board. I always find it bizarre when, on the question of my country's literary output, both foreign and native posters will name the same two, three enormously famous, fundamental writers, usually accompanied by assertions that there's not much else going on. I don't know the first thing about Brazilian literature, but clearly it would be ridiculous (and worthless) to post "well, if you want Portuguese writing, look no further than Pessoa."

This isn't really about Anglocentrism either, because discussion about American and British fiction is just as superficial.

>One could also include Cyro dos Anjos, Lima Barreto, or even the Campos brothers (both), depending on one's aesthetic vision.
Could you elaborate on this, OP? And the first ten writers, what are their relationships to each other and Brazilian literature of the 20th cent. (say, in terms of schools and stature)?

You must judge Cazuza not as a poet but as a lyricist, wich I think he's a fairly good one.

*which

>Could you elaborate on this, OP? And the first ten writers, what are their relationships to each other and Brazilian literature of the 20th cent. (say, in terms of schools and stature)?
I'm not OP, but i'll try to explain it in a simple manner. Mind you that it's very late here in Brazil right now and i'm sleepy as fuck.

The main branch of Modernism in Brazil officially began on 1922, in the Semana de Arte Moderna, a series of expositions that were mainly intended to shock the cultural elite and open the way for brazilian modernist artists to come. The artists who were associated with that group were of the 1st generation of modernists. Their works were very rebellious, creative, and impactful. The main 1st generation writers were Oswald de Andrade, Mario de Andrade, and Manuel Bandeira. About 10 years after this generation, came the 2nd one, more mature, and tackling social issues rather than questioning the meaning of art and shit like that. It's main writers were Murilo Mendes, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Cecília Meireles, Jorge Amado, Érico Veríssimo, Vinícius de Moraes, Graciliano Ramos, and some others. Some more 15 years later, the 3rd generation came about. They were basically like the 2nd generation writers but with much more attention to a e s t h e t i c s.

As to what the OP said about Lima Barreto and the Campos Brothers, it's because they aren't exactly modernist like all the ones previously mentioned. Lima Barreto was a pre-modernist and Haroldo de Campos and Augusto de Campos came after modernism. They were the main proponents of concrete poetry. Don't know who Cyro dos Anjos is, to be honest.