ARGO

I wanted to read this book for a long time after reading the note Clarice Lispector left before I’d begun, ‘I would be happy if it were only read by people whose souls are already formed’. How could I trust Clarice when I can’t know her, just as knowing I’m not ready for a book that I haven’t read yet? Well, funnily enough she was right and I was too in so far as being wrong because its also true ‘this book is like any other book’, for I read The Passion According to G.H. as a breath. I didn’t read it quickly, I wasn’t enamoured by it’s beauty and couldn’t stop, I was calm; enjoying maybe my most easeful reading experience. Simultaneously, I’ve never read anything like this and not because its strange as a book, I’m not sure of what I’ve read but it feels wrong to call it a book, it’s too familiar and neutral. The Passion doesn’t evoke nor invoke discrete memorable moments, wherever I stopped reading I’d forget what I’ve read and when I’d begin again I wouldn’t need to remember anything. I slipped into the words and was never lost.

My first and only thought when reading the text was that what is written is the unspeakable which I tell myself, the things I never hear from others which I tell myself to “become myself”; to be the dark spots of others (the world?) because of the dark spots they put in me. And hearing this from an unknown voice, an object that is not mine (the words of a book) didn’t make The Passion relatable nor normalising, it made me listenable; hearing myself not as myself. Having heard the unspoken in order to speak meant the unspoken was always already spoken by me and so in The Passion I hear nothing because this is said. The language I hear/read in The Passion is silent, speaking of what I wish to say as I hear in those words the unsaid that I have heard. And no wish is granted, I’m not finally given the words to say but the chance not to say them at all, thus no longer having to wish.

I was going to say the writing of The Passion is very close to the reader, but it is the reader which is very close to the writing because it has already begun before it’s read, something’s already in motion. We read something being written, it is ahead of us, and to see it to the end we merely follow from where we left off; the text. If we aren’t invited or incorporated into the text and yet are there, why justify the need to read it for ourselves and not just read it as ourself, keeping ourself secret (to ourself). Like a child curiously listening to their parents fighting through the wall, with both the child not knowing why they fight nor the parents knowing someones listening. Because there is a writer but it isn’t G.H. and if it was it wouldn’t matter because the writer knows nothing about her, we read what is written and what is written is her. One may say we know who G.H. is after having read the text but I don’t like the sound of that, I at least read the text as the question of G.H. (whoever that is). Since we don’t need to (or can’t) know who it’s written to and by, readers don’t to need to believe something is to continue reading; otherwise it’d sound exactly like what is written in The Passion. Belief is anyway a weak word, retaining hints of the possibility of revocation or excuse, if we can leave the text it was pointless to have entered, even if the journey out is a mystery. G.H. is to be left outside of the reader, our belief on her behalf doesn’t make any sense because we can’t believe in our unknowing, that is why it’s read. The reader has already brought something to The Passion without knowing and it is the nothing being addressed, it being complete in incompleteness, which forces “something” out of the reader. A forcing that is not imposing as the text (always) carries and leaves something for the reader. The text forces itself by writing the reader, and lets the readers own “something” return to nothing.

I’ve also heard Clarice Lispector has grown a cult following as a dark writer, which I can acknowledge as this book is hellish in terms of subject matter. Nevertheless, after reading this text it feels pointless to concur with any defining factor of her work. Readers of Clarice Lispector (which is already a weird phrase) don’t need to agree upon anything if they are to discuss the texts. If readers are coalesced by some generality attributable to her novels that is what should be kept secret or non-negotiable to the reader themself. This isn’t a table to bring yourself to, readers are held in the writing and so others don’t affirm our readings, readings are affirmed in us because the text presently affirms us. It may seem ironic that I continue writing, but I assume this is neither what readers would think nor what the text is about, it is what the text thought in me as a reader. Even every “reference” to other supposed readings I include in this piece are mine as I assume my targets (if there are any) don’t agree with me. I cannot take away their readings as a fellow reader, nonetheless they take away from mine. And for clarification the word reader designates the way I as anyone else accesses text as no one reads through themself, rather we (all I’s) become readers with the text. Hence, sharing this came from the necessity to write after reading as I never knew I had to read it, sharing what I couldn’t say about myself that others (including myself) asked until reading. I cannot leave the text out of what I write, as far as I know I am attempting to write the text’s elicitation here.

The Passion According to G.H. is a train the reader takes, mistaken for the train they were supposed ride to reach their appointed destination; lets say a business venture. Yet, it is only until reaching the final stop when the reader realises it’s the wrong train, no longer wanting to go back and take the “right” one. The reader never knew they didn’t want to go for they had already left, the destination missed is their arrival, and so they return.