What matters is the magnetic love she inspires in those susceptible to her. For them, Clarice is one of the great emotional experiences of their lives. But her glamour is dangerous. “Be careful with Clarice,” a friend told a reader decades ago. “It’s not literature. It’s witchcraft.” Benjamin Moser
The Complete Short Stories of Clarice Lipsector, published August, 2015, translated by Katrina Dodson, edited and introduced by Benjamin Moser
I have now begun rereading the short stories of Clarice for a second, third or even fourth time. Her work and person has cast the spell her readers are warned about. When I first began reading her stories, eighty six in the collection, I planned to post on all of them, one at a time. Then I decided not really good for my blog, new and even old visitors will be turned away by eightty plus posts on a writer maybe they never heard about. Ok I thought some more, long ago I did seventy five posts on Katherine Mansfield and almost everyday people from all over the world read some of them. One big purpose of The Reading Life is just to be my reading journal. I am now long term planning to reread all Clarice's stories again and do at least a brief post on each one. No set time schedule. I will also, hopefully eventually read her novels. I have read her The Passion According to G. R.
"Pig Latin", with a reading time of under five minutes, is centered on a female English teacher. She is described as not pretty, just ordinary. Part of what we will get deeper into is how women identify with their preceived looks, accepting societies defining of the worth of women by their appeal to men as portrayed in the work of Clarice. The woman is a very well regarded teacher and is on a train going to the airport. Clarice, in the beautiful prose of Katrina Dodson, opens the story perfectly
"Maria Aparecida—Cidinha, as they called her at home—was an English teacher. Neither rich nor poor: she got by. But she dressed impeccably. She looked rich. Even her suitcases were high quality. She lived in Minas Gerais and was taking the train to Rio, where she’d spend three days, and then catch a plane to New York. She was a highly sought-after teacher. She prized perfection and was affectionate, yet strict. She wanted to perfect her skills in the United States. She took the seven a.m. train to Rio."
At first she is alone in her train car. Then two rough to her looking men get in and sit opposite her. They begin to speak in Pig Latin which as an English teacher Cidinha understands. They are talking about how they intend to rape her. She is a virgin. She decides if the men think she is a prostitute from the favelas they will not want her.
She stands up, exposes her breasts and does a samba, in her mind like a prostitute would.
The men say in Pig Latin that she is crazy and leave her alone. But her luck is not good. The conductor saw her dance and has her put off the train and arrested as a prostitute. She ends up spending three days in a jail.
In "Pig Latin" Clarice has shown us the precarious status of single women in Brazil.
The close of the story is very powerful, visually impacting.
"Finally they let her go. She caught the next train to Rio. She’d washed her face, she was no longer a prostitute. What worried her was this: when the two men had talked about nailing her, she’d wanted to be nailed. She was utterly brazen. Andway I’mway away utslay. That’s what she’d discovered. Eyes downcast. She arrived in Rio exhausted. Went to a cheap hotel. Quickly realized she’d missed the flight. At the airport she bought a ticket. And she wandered the streets of Copacabana, she miserable, Copacabana miserable. Then on the corner of Figueiredo Magalhães she saw a newsstand. And hanging there was the newspaper O Dia. She couldn’t say why she bought it. A bold headline read: “Girl Raped and Murdered on Train.” She trembled all over. So it had happened. And to the girl who had looked at her in contempt. She started crying on the street. She threw away that damned newspaper. She didn’t want the details. She thought: “Esyay. Atefay isway implacableway.” Fate is implacable."
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