13. Ibid.
14. E. Lispector, Exílio, 75.
15. Ibid., 80.
16. Lispector, “Falando em viagens,” in Descoberta, 380.
Chapter 5
1. Clarice was born in December 1920, and they were certainly in Bucharest in January 1922. They left Chechelnik at some time after a birth certificate was issued to her in Chechelnik on November 14, 1921. For this birth certificate, see Nádia Battella Gotlib, Clarice Fotobiografia (São Paulo: Edusp / Imprensa Oficial, 2007), 37. Elisa mentions that they went from Soroca and paused, for some reason, in the tiny village of Vertiujeni, near Soroca on the Dniester. This suggests that they were traveling by boat, for there is no other reason they would have lingered in such an insignificant town on their way to Kishinev.
2. Martin Gilbert, Atlas of Russian History (New York: Dorset Press, 1972), 107.
3. I. Wainstok, Zichrones, 10.
4. E. Lispector, Retratos, 24–25.
5. E. Lispector, Exílio, 82.
6. E. Lispector, Retratos, 25.
7. Ferreira, Eu sou, 32.
8. E. Lispector, Retratos, 24.
9. Ferreira, Eu sou, 29.
10. Howe, World of Our Fathers, 42.
11. E. Lispector, Exílio, 89–90.
12. Jeff Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 7.
13. Moreno Brandão, “Alagoas em 1925,” in Livro do Nordeste (comemorativo do 1. centenário do Diário de Pernambuco), 1925, Recife Secretaria da Justiça, Arquivo Público Estadual, reprint, 1979, 162–63.
14. Francisco Ignacio Marcondes Homem de Mello and Francisco Homem de Mello, Geographia-atlas do Brazil e das cinco partes do mundo (Rio de Janeiro: F. Briguiet, 1912). This excludes the Federal District, the city-state of Rio de Janeiro.
15. Brandão, “Alagoas em 1925.”
16. E. Lispector, Retratos, 24.
17. I. Wainstok, Zichrones, 17.
18. Julio Lerner, Clarice Lispector, essa desconhecida (São Paulo: Via Lettera, 2007), 44–45; “Compaaaa rôpáaaaaa,” interview with Olga Borelli.
19. E. Lispector, Exílio, 96.
20. Ibid., 97.
21. Ibid., 100.
22. Ibid., 102.
23. Ibid., 104.
Chapter 6
1. Undated letter from Tania Lispector Kaufmann, via Zélia Oliveira, to Giovanni Pontiero, in author’s collection.
2. Folha, December 10, 1977: “Pernambuco marca tanto a gente que basta dizer que nada, mas nada mesmo das viagens que fiz por este mundo contribuiu para o que escrevo. Mas Recife continua firme.”
3. Lispector, “Esclarecimentos–Explicação de uma vez por todas,” in Descoberta, 345.
4. C. R. Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 1624–1654 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957); Eleazar Córdova-Bello, Compañías holandesas de navegación, agentes de la colonización neerlandesa (Seville: Escuela de estudios hispano-americanos, 1964).
5. Manoel Calado, O valeroso Lucideno. E triumpho da liberdade: Primeira parte (Lisboa: Por Paulo Craesbeeck impressor & liureiro das Ordões Militares, 1648).
6. Erico Verissimo, Brazilian Literature: An Outline (New York: Macmillan, 1945), 17; Arquivo Histórico Judaico de Pernambuco, Kahal zur Israel.
7. Arquivo Histórico Judaico de Pernambuco, Kahal zur Israel.
8. The Jesuit António Vieira wrote, “The principal motives for the rebellion were that they had taken a lot of money from the Hollanders and could not or did not want to repay them.” Quoted in Pedro Calmon, História do Brasil, vol. 2 (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1971).
9. In E. van den Boogaart, Hendrik Richard Hoetink, and Peter James Palmer Whitehead, Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen 1604–1679: A Humanist Prince in Europe and Brazil: Essays on the Occasion of the Tercentenary of His Death (The Hague: Johan Maurits van Nassau Stichting, 1979).
10. José Honório Rodrigues, Historiografia e bibliografia do domínio holandês no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Departamento de Imprensa Nacional, 1949).
11. Interview with Tânia Neumann Kaufman, Recife, August 15, 2006.
12. Angela Maria de Castro Gomes, Em família: A correspondência de Oliveira Lima e Gilberto Freyre, Coleção Letras em série (Campinas: CECULT Mercado de Letras, 2005), 123–26.
13. Malamud, born in 1908 at Mogilev-Podilsky (Podolia), was an old friend. When they moved to Rio, the Lispector family stayed at his parents’ boardinghouse in Flamengo, and later, as a lawyer, he assisted Clarice in her attempt to attain Brazilian citizenship. Samuel Malamud, Escalas no tempo (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 1986), 112.
14. Avrum Ishie, quoted in Tânia Neumann Kaufman, Passos perdidos, história recuperada: A presença judaica em Pernambuco (Recife: Editora Bagaço, 2000), 197.
15. For the descriptions of the economy, social structure, and geography of Jewish Recife, the author is indebted to Tânia Neumann Kaufman, director of the Arquivo Histórico Judaico de Pernambuco, as well as to Beatriz Schnaider Schvartz, of the same institution.
16. Interview with Nachman Falbel, São Paulo, July 21, 2006.
17. Tania Lispector Kaufmann, quoted in Gotlib, Clarice, 67–68.
18. “Não houve muitas amizades com os pernambucanos.” Undated letter from Tania Lispector Kaufmann to Giovanni Pontiero, in author’s collection.
19. Tânia Kaufman et al., Passos Perdidos, História Desenhada: A Presença Judaica em Pernambuco no Século XX (Recife: Arquivo Histórico Judaico de Pernambuco, 2005), 1: 47–48.
20. “Tentativa de explicação,” interview with Leo Gilson Ribeiro, Correio da manhã, March 21, 1965.
21. Quoted in Gotlib, Clarice, 22.
22. Ibid., 480–81.
23. Lispector et al., Outros escritos, 137–38.
24. Letter from Tania Lispector Kaufmann to Giovanni Pontiero, August 20, 1992, in author’s collection.
25. Letter from Tania to Giovanni Pontiero, August 20, 1992, in author’s collection.
26. Lispector et al., Outros escritos, 138, 139.
27. Lerner, “Última entrevista.”
28. Lispector et al., Outros escritos, 139. Also see Instituto Moreira Salles, Cadernos, 58.
29. Quoted in Gilio, “Tristes trópicos: Con Clarice Lispector en Río.”
30. Letter from Tania Lispector Kaufmann to Giovanni Pontiero, August 20, 1992, in author’s collection.
31. Lispector, “As grandes punições,” in Descoberta, 36.
32. He was also, however, a thief and a liar. Around 1927 he traveled to the United States, where he married the present author’s grandmother, Elizabeth Lurie, then a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Chicago. They traveled to Mexico together for research into the Jewish communities of that country. In Mexico, he was caught stealing rare manuscripts from the National Archive and was expelled from the country. The Yiddish press in Mexico published a note on the subject that was picked up by a Jewish newspaper in New York, which was then picked up by a Jewish newspaper in Buenos Aires, which made its way to Recife, where the first Mrs. Nachbin learned that her husband had illegally married another woman. The second marriage was annulled and Jacob Nachbin expelled from the United States; he was in Spain by 1935 and in Paris by 1938, where he disappeared without a trace. See Nachman Falbel, Jacob Nachbin (São Paulo: Nobel, 1985); Nachman Falbel, Estudos sobre a comunidade judaica no Brasil (São Paulo: Federação Israelita do Estado de São Paulo, 1984).
33. Lispector, “As grandes punições,” in Descoberta, 36.
34. Ibid., 320.
35. Claire Varin and Clarice Lispector, Clarice Lispector: Rencontres brésiliennes (Laval, Québec: Trois, 1987), 69. This quote was originally in the interview with Edgar Proença, “Um minuto de palestra …,” Estado do Pará, February 20, 1944. Clarice repeated the affirmation many years later in an interview with O Pasquim, Rio de Janeiro, June 9, 1974: “Clarice, to what point do you identify with your characters? To what degree are you the Joana of Near to the Wild Heart, a lucid person that o
ne doesn’t meet in reality?” “Well, Flaubert once said: I am Madame Bovary.” Quoted in Lícia Manzo, Era uma vez–eu: A não-ficção na obra de Clarice Lispector: Ensaio (Curitiba: Governo do Estado do Paraná, Secretaria de Estado da Cultura; The Document Company, Xerox do Brasil, 1998), 3.
36. Lispector, “Bichos (Conclusão),” in Descoberta, 363.
37. Quoted in Coutinho, Criaturas, 167.
38. Interview with Luiz Carlos Lacerda, Rio de Janeiro, August 1, 2006.
39. In Instituto Moreira Salles, Cadernos.
40. Varin and Lispector, Rencontres, 138–41. This interview is also published in Lispector et al., Outros escritos.
41. Clarice Lispector, Perto do coração selvagem (Rio de Janeiro: A Noite, 1943), 86.
42. Clarice Lispector, A mulher que matou os peixes (Rio de Janeiro: Sabiá, 1968).
43. Quoted in Gotlib, Clarice, 73.
44. Lispector, “Um encontro perfeito,” in Descoberta, 42.
45. Lispector and Montero, letter to Lúcio Cardoso, July 13, 1941, Correspondências, 15.
46. Interview with Olga Borelli.
47. Lispector, Perto, 54, 155 (1943 ed.).
48. Fernando Pessoa, Heróstrato e a busca da imortalidade, trans. Manuela Rocha, ed. Richard Zenith, vol. 14 of Obras de Fernando Pessoa (Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 2000), 174.
49. Lispector, Perto, 97 (1943 ed.).
50. Lispector, “O vestido branco,” in Descoberta, 80.
51. Lispector, Perto, 181 (1943 ed.).
52. Fragment found among Clarice Lispector’s last notes. See also Varin, Langues, 162.
53. Lispector, Perto, 12 (1943 ed.).
54. Ibid., 181.
55. Clarice Lispector, “A Report on a Thing” in Soulstorm: Stories, trans. Alexis Levitin (New York: New Directions, 1989), 136.
56. “Até que, finalmente envoltas, elas aspiravam o seu brilhante e sufocante ar.” Lispector, Perto, 155 (1943 ed.).
Chapter 7
1. Quoted in Ferreira, Eu sou, 37.
2. E. Lispector, Exílio, 109.
3. Lispector et al., Outros escritos, 137–38.
4. Lispector, “Restos de Carnaval,” in Descoberta, 82.
5. E. Lispector, Exílio, 123.
6. Ibid., 110–11.
7. Ibid., 115–16.
8. Quoted in Ferreira, Eu sou, 37.
9. E. Lispector, Exílio, 132.
10. E. Lispector, Retratos, 19.
11. E. Lispector, Exílio, 133.
12. “Sepultamento de Clarice será simples e discreto,” O Globo, December 11, 1977. See also Olga Borelli, interviewed in Manchete, 1981, quoted in Gotlib, Clarice, 481.
13. Lispector, “San Tiago,” in Descoberta, 62.
14. Lispector, Visão, 19.
15. Varin and Lispector, Rencontres, 191; interview with Marisa Raja Gabaglia, 1973.
16. Quoted in Gotlib, Clarice, 94.
17. Lispector, “O que eu queria ter sido,” in Descoberta, 153.
18. Rachel Donadio, “The Irascible Prophet: V. S. Naipaul at Home,” New York Times, August 7, 2005.
19. Interview with Julio Lerner, quoted in Varin and Lispector, Rencontres, 213.
20. Lispector, Sopro, 11.
21. Clarice Lispector, A maçã no escuro (1961; Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco Alves, 1992), 300.
22. Lispector, “As grandes punições,” November 4, 1967, in Descoberta, 36.
23. Undated letter from Tania Lispector Kaufmann to Giovanni Pontiero, in author’s collection.
24. Lispector, “Lição de Piano,” in Descoberta, 48.
25. Undated letter from Tania Lispector Kaufmann to Giovanni Pontiero, in author’s collection.
26. Fragment quoted in Varin, Langues, 65.
27. Lispector, “Medo da eternidade,” in Descoberta, 309.
28. Quoted in Gotlib, Clarice, 71.
29. Bertha presented the speech in Yiddish. However much Hebrew Clarice learned as a child, she almost certainly forgot much or most of it by the time she was an adult. When Bertha moved to Israel years later, thinking she, too, had forgotten everything, she discovered that with the same amount of Hebrew education as Clarice she was well prepared for a new country. Interview with Bertha Lispector Cohen, Rio de Janeiro, August 3, 2006. There are only two explicit references to Yiddish in Clarice Lispector’s writings. In a late work she wrote, “Capitou? Understood? Farstein? D’accord?”; in a newspaper column she referred to her father’s saying “He is a person,” which, though she does not say so, is a translation of the Yiddish “Er is a mensch,” he is a good man, or a real man. Lispector, Visão, 49. Elisa remembered this same expression in the previously cited Retratos antigos.
30. Quoted in Ferreira, Eu sou, 44.
31. Ibid., 43.
32. Clarice Lispector. Objecto gritante, 1971, 7, Clarice Lispector Archive, Arquivo-Museu de Literatura Brasileira, Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa, Rio de Janeiro (hereafter cited in notes as CLA).
33. Quoted in Gotlib, Clarice, 94.
34. Quoted in Manzo, Era uma vez, 128; Interview with Lícia Manzo, Rio, October 23, 1996.
35. Clarice Lispector, A legião estrangeira (Rio de Janeiro: Editôra do Autor, 1964), 15.
36. Ibid., 21.
37. Ibid., 23–24.
Chapter 8
1. Ferreira, Eu sou, 48.
2. David Wainstok, Caminhada: Reminiscências e reflexões (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Lidador Ltda., 2000), 278.
3. Thomas E. Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930–1964: An Experiment in Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 4.
4. See http://www.getulio50.org.br/textos/gv3.htm.
5. Boris Fausto, Getúlio Vargas (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2006), 128.
6. Skidmore, Politics, 23.
7. Lesser, Welcoming, 59. There were rumors that Barroso’s anti-Semitism came from his own Jewish origins: Barroso was reportedly a Brazilianization of “Baruch.” There is no evidence that this is true.
8. Gustavo Barroso, Os Protócolos dos sábios de Sião: O Imperialismo de Israel. O Plano dos Judeus para a Conquista do Mundo. O Código do Anti-Cristo. Provas de autenticidade, documentos, notas, e comentários. Texto completo e apostilado por Gustavo Barroso (São Paulo: Agência Minerva Editora, 1936).
9. Alzira Alves de Abreu et al., eds., “Gustavo Barroso,” in Dicionário histórico-biográfico brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro: FGV Editora/FGV CPDOC, 2001).
10. Lesser, Welcoming, 61.
11. Interview with Bertha Lispector Cohen, Rio de Janeiro, August 3, 2006.
12. Interview with Samuel Lispector, Recife, August 15, 2006.
13. D. Wainstok, Caminhada, 280.
14. “I. S.,” quoted in Kaufman, Passos, 134–35.
15. D. Wainstok, Caminhada, 280.
16. Ibid.
Chapter 9
1. Samuel Lispector quoted in Gotlib, Clarice, 71.
2. Interview with Tania Lispector Kaufmann, Rio de Janeiro, August 1, 2006; interview with Cecília Wainstok Lipka, Rio de Janeiro, July 29, 2006.
3. Interview with Tania Lispector Kaufmann, Rio de Janeiro, August 1, 2006.
4. Quoted in Gotlib, Clarice, 84.
5. Interview with Tania Lispector Kaufmann.
6. Ferreira, Eu sou, 54.
7. Undated letter from Tania Lispector Kaufmann to Giovanni Pontiero, in author’s collection.
8. Interview with Tania Lispector Kaufmann.
9. Gotlib, Clarice, 83.
10. “Amo a matemática desde os dez anos de idade,” interview with Leopoldo Nachbin, Manchete [ca. 1969].
11. Interview for Museu de Imagem e Som, in Lispector et al., Outros escritos, 160.
12. Interview with Cecília Wainstok Lipka.
13. Arnaldo Franco Júnior, “Clarice, segundo Olga Borelli,” Minas Gerais Suplemento Literário, December 19, 1987.
14. This is pointed out by Varin, Langues, 126.
15. Lispector, Onde, 73, quoted in Varin, Langues, 126.
16. Unpublished not
e reproduced in Varin, Langues, 124.
17. Lispector, Água viva, 37.
18. Ibid., 13. “Continuo com capacidade de raciocínio—já estudei matemática que é a loucura do raciocínio—mas agora quero o plasma—quero me alimentar diretamente da placenta.”
19. Lispector, “A Descoberta do mundo,” in Descoberta, 114.
20. Gotlib, Clarice, 39.
21. Suzana Bernstein Horovitz, quoted in ibid., 99.
22. Clarice Lispector, “Felicidade clandestina,” in Felicidade clandestina (Rio de Janeiro: Sabiá, 1971), 15–18.
23. Lispector, “Escrever,” in Descoberta, 304.
24. Quoted in Lerner, “Última entrevista”; “Tentativa de explicação,” interview with Leo Gilson Ribeiro.
25. Hermann Hesse, Der Steppenwolf (1927; Berlin: G. Fischer Verlag, 1961), 42.
26. “Traktat des Steppenwolfes,” 4, in ibid.
27. “Traktat,” 6, 7, in ibid.
28. Lispector, Sopro, 45.
29. Lispector, “Ainda impossível,” in Descoberta, 437.
Chapter 10
1. Ruy Castro, Carmen: Uma biografia (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2005), 13.
2. Renato Pinto Venâncio, “Presença portuguesa: De colonizadores a imigrantes,” in Brasil, 500 anos de povoamento (Rio de Janeiro: IBGE, Centro de Documentac¸a~o e Disseminac¸a~o de Informac¸o~es, 2000).
3. Lispector, “Viajando por mar, 1a parte,” in Descoberta, 377.
4. Folha, December 10, 1977: “Pernambuco marca tanto a gente que basta dizer que nada, mas nada mesmo das viagens que fiz por este mundo contribuiu para o que escrevo. Mas Recife continua firme.”
5. Lispector, “O manifesto da cidade,” in Visão, 53.
6. Interview with Alberto Dines, São Paulo, July 22, 2006.
7. Interview with Tania Lispector Kaufmann, Rio de Janeiro, August 1, 2006.
8. Interview with Cecília Wainstok Lipka, Rio de Janeiro, July 29, 2006.
9. D. Wainstok, Caminhada, 78.
10. See Beatriz Kushnir, Baile de máscaras: Mulheres judias e prostituição: As polacas e suas associações de ajuda mútua (Rio de Janeiro: Imago Editora, 1996); Isabel Vincent, Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Prostitution in the Americas (New York: William Morrow, 2005).
Why This World Page 54
