La Joana viu amb al pare perquè ha perdut la seva mare, però ben aviat també mor el seu pare, va a parar a casa dels oncles però la tia no la pot soportar, per això va a parar a una institució. Coneix l'Otavio i es casa amb ell. Ell però continua relacionant-se amb la seva antiga nòvia a la qual deixa embarassada. La Joana ho sap i el deixa fer, es busca també un amant. Però un dia els dos homes l'abandonen. Tot això és la història però no té cap importància, l'autora es recrea amb la manera d'explicar-ho, amb les sensacions que experimenta i que vol transmetre. Aquesta novel.la fou la seva primera novel.la i es va publicar l'any 1943. Realement no hi he acabat d'entrar i m'ha costat molt llegir les 225 pàgines que té. ( )

This is one of those books that will be described as evocative, introspective, vivid.

It is all of those things, yet somehow unsatisfying - a journey of self-discovery which never reaches its destination. More accurately, it is a journey on which self-discovery happens every page or few, and the narrative ends rather abruptly, without a realization or conclusion of any import.

So while the prose is a pleasure to read, as well as being Deep and Meaningful, it provides no incentive to keep reading, and the book thus gathers dust (or whatever the Kindle equivalent is). It is probably best to read the book in one sitting, or not at all.

Alternate take:

There's a certain type of French film, where the actors sit there in silence, absolutely still, staring at each other or studiously ignoring one other, and one says "oui" and five minutes later the other says "non", and after ten or fifteen minutes the woman says "where did it all go wrong" or "what became of us", and then after looking off into space while finishing the world's longest-lived cigarette the man says "you bitch".

Near to the Wild Heart captures what those characters are probably thinking the entire time, and which neither the director nor the actors are able to convey effectively, because really this sort of thing does work a lot better in a novel than in a film. ( )

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Lispector-Pres-du-coeur-sauvage/10945
> Esprit, No. 230/231 (9) (SEPT.-OCT. 1955), pp. 1635-1639 : https://esprit.presse.fr/article/juin-hubert/clarice-lispector-pres-du-coeur-sau...
> Bibliographie : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/035774ar

As this slips in and out of consciousness it stays at the bottom of a dreary pool of misery. An enduring dissatisfaction pervades throughout the novel where the unconventional woman in focus, Joana, is anchored down by existential anguish. And perhaps like most of us drift from one “life milestone” to another: at times to be in touch, tethered with our own being, on others to be in an “acceptable” headspace of living. It rides the same train of life’s cyclic clichés. But the dissatisfaction of marriage and relationships glare and glimmer without hope and further tumbles down when indifference shadows them into obscurity and neglect. The minimal encounter with other women (or lack thereof) are somehow fraught with negative feelings that there is a sense of isolation in Joana’s thoughts and views which are so often interspersed with others’. It is all very grim and infectiously so.

Near to the Wild Heart is chipping cold on its edges and doesn’t beat for anything but in its bouts of unanswered questions on one’s purpose and reason. Here, mortality is never fully grieved whilst love lost is willingly misplaced. Yet the most embittered turn to these underwhelming circumstances, of burrowed emotions and apathetic reactions, is the belief that an exterior alteration is causal to contentment. Motherhood is similarly treated as such—both as a product of female rivalry and societal expectations born out of the “patriarchal womb.” Beyond all of this I can say Near to the Wild Heart only nearly sadly hits. It is most often than not near to the wildest delusions to cope. ( )

$600 mxn