Eventually, her eyes land on the old, battered wardrobe, warped by the constant sun, and coming to her senses, she decides to start cleaning it. As she walks into the room, she encounters a sun-drenched (sun-scorched) rectangle of light, one she barely recognises, and her sense of disorientation is heightened by the discovery of some crude drawings on the wall. However, what awaits her in this little-visited part of her realm shocks her. With no demands on her time, she decides to clean the room her maid (who has just quit) has lived in for the past six months, slowly walking through her flat and opening the door to the room, expecting to see a dark squalid mess. After an initial confused monologue in which the narrator hints at an experience from the previous day that has shattered her world view, the novel looks back twenty-four hours, with the woman (known only as G.H., after the initials on her suitcases) enjoying a leisurely breakfast. (translated by Idra Novey, published by Penguin Modern Classics) is certainly not a book for those in search of a meaty plot. You see, whereas our Korean friend was constrained by his body, this is a story of the pressures of the mind – or perhaps I should say the soul…Ĭlarice Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H. Both novels have a rather claustrophobic feel, but this tension has different roots. We’re moving on from Korea to Brazil on our Women in Translation Month travels, and while today’s book is very different from the last one, they do have something in common.
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