Only one, not 400, names today

[Mark Kohut]

Clarice Lispector.

One can make lots
of loose comparisons but her kind
of askew-realism, a near-surrealism
of emotional reactions is

very reminiscent of this list's
famous writer as well as some
of anyone's other famous South American
writers who revolutionized fiction during
the last century.

Why had I never 'found', read her, before?

I wanted to reproduce a long story opening
that reminded me of part of the opening
of Gravity's Rainbow (without in any way
making one think it really influenced Pynchon
except as the cultural style might have) but I'm too
lazy so I will just anchor with one of our/my
steady Pynchon subjects, tropes: coffee.

In an INTERRUPTED STORY, the female
narrator is emotionally (at least) involved
with a guy who might be described as a
nihilist of his own life....there is this:

"in this way the hours passed. Sometimes I'd order a cup
of coffee, which he'd drink greedily and with plenty of
sugar. And I'd think a very funny thought: that if he really did
think he went around destroying everything [he touched], he wouldn't
take such pleasure in drinking coffee and wouldn't order more."

Later there is this perception: "I grabbed a sheet of paper and filled it
from top to bottom:" Eternity. Life. World. God. Eternity. Life World. God.
Eternity..." Those words killed the meaning of many of my feelings and
left me cold for several weeks, so insignificant was I finding myself"

Second paragraph can only have come from a genius. "killed the meaning
of many of my feelings"...wow
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l