"One Hundred Years of Forgiveness" by Clarice Lispector (1971)

"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 

My Prior Posts on Clarice Lispector 

"In Recife there were countless streets, rich people’s streets, lined with mansions set amid extensive gardens. A little friend and I would often play at deciding whose mansions they were. “That white one’s mine.” “No, I already said the white ones are mine.”  From "One Hundred Years of Forgiveness"

"One Hundred Years of Forgiveness" is about a poor young girl running the streets of Recife in North Eastern Brazil, just like Clarice once was.  The narrator would run through the rich parts of town, with her best friend.  They would fantasize that they owned the mansions.  Every day she would see beautiful roses at one of the houses and one day she got up the nerve to steal one.  The experience exilirated her and she began stealing roses everyday.  It brought a winderous beauty to her humble home.  

There is no big conclusions, no revelations but maybe realizing that you can steal a rose and bring it home was a big revelation to a poor young girl in Recife.  

Clarice (for better at worse, everyone in Brazil calls her that and I will from now on also) made me feel I was on the streets of Recife.  I think it is about the existential reality of poverty,  how  thievery can liberate.  

"It felt so good that I simply began stealing roses. The process was always the same: the girl on the lookout, while I went in, broke off the stem and fled with the rose in my hand. Always with my heart pounding and always with that glory that no one could take away from me."