Behind Thought, Mere Existence: Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) and Life as Pure Immanence

Abstract

This essay raises questions about an area of Clarice Lispector’s work considered to be one of the most complex: the ability of writing to account for life, but a life that often escapes rational thought, and remains exposed there, in its mere existence. Based on the analysis of certain stories and chronicles and, particularly, of her texts Água viva (1973) and A hora da estrela (1977), we revisit Gilles Deleuze’s approach to life as pure immanence, pure power. A life which unfolds, in essence, as undifferentiated from a holistic world, and in communion with other non-human beings