Books · January 23, 2025 0

Água Viva: A Psychedelic Exploration of Time, Art, and Being

The Unnameable Pulse of Clarice Lispector

Água Viva is like trying to catch a river in your hands—an uncontainable stream of thought and feeling that rushes past, leaving you drenched in its wake yet unable to say what exactly you’re holding. It’s a burst of light at the edge of your vision, dazzling and fleeting, inviting you to follow without knowing where it leads. Reading it feels like hearing a song without structure, a symphony composed of stray notes, silences, and crescendos that somehow coalesce into something greater than the sum of its parts. It refuses to be pinned down, to be anything other than what it is: alive, pulsing, and infinite in its immediacy.

From the very first lines, Lispector makes it clear that Água Viva isn’t meant to be read in the conventional sense. It isn’t a story—it’s a state of being. It flows, unbound by linearity, defying the artificial order of plot or narrative. And yet, in its refusal to adhere to form, it becomes something entirely its own: a shimmering, hypnotic meditation on time, art, and existence itself. For me, it was less like reading and more like standing in the middle of a storm, letting her words whip through me, untethering thoughts I didn’t even know I had.

This is the kind of book that resonates deeply with anyone who’s ever tried to capture the unnameable—the fleeting impressions, the aching beauty of moments that slip through your fingers even as you hold them. As someone who lives for the exploration of language as art, Lispector’s prose felt like a mirror of my own creative aspirations: to wander beyond structure, to trust the chaos, and to find meaning in the inexpressible.

What struck me most about Água Viva was how it seemed to echo the very ethos I hold as a language artist. Lispector’s style feels like a defiant, unspoken manifesto against linearity, against the tyranny of meaning tied up in neat little bows. She invites language to break free from its shackles, to revel in its contradictions and ambiguities, to become a living force—organic, wild, and untamed. It’s a kind of creative freedom that resonates deeply with my own approach to writing: treating words not as tools to convey information but as materials to sculpt experience, texture, and emotion.

Reading Água Viva reminded me of the postmodern thrill of fragmentation, where the instability of meaning isn’t a flaw but a feature—a fertile ground where new connections can emerge. Lispector doesn’t just write; she paints with language, crafting ephemeral strokes that fade even as you notice them, much like the surrealists who left space for chance and dream to guide their work. In her hands, prose and poetry dissolve into one another, creating something that feels profoundly alive and unbound, much like the fluid, recursive loops I strive for in my own writing.

Her words don’t explain; they evoke. They spiral inward, reflecting and refracting, making the reader an active participant in the creation of meaning. This is the space I love to inhabit as an artist—the place where language becomes more than communication, where it becomes an encounter. Like Lispector, I’m not interested in telling stories that “make sense” in the traditional way; I want to build spaces where readers can wander, lose themselves, and emerge transformed, even if they can’t quite articulate why.

Lispector’s refusal to confine her writing to form or structure feels like an affirmation of everything I’ve sought to explore in my work. She writes as if the act itself is sacred—as if language is a ritual, a summoning of the ineffable. In her words, I see the kind of creative courage I aspire to: the willingness to let go of control, to embrace chaos and intuition, and to trust that meaning will arise not from what is said but from what is felt. In this way, Água Viva isn’t just a book—it’s an artistic philosophy, a mirror reflecting the possibilities of what writing can be when we stop trying to force it to be anything at all.

The Form: Writing as a Living Organism

Água Viva doesn’t so much have a structure as it has a pulse—a living, breathing rhythm that defies the boundaries of conventional storytelling. It’s not a novel in the traditional sense. There is no plot to follow, no characters to track, no timeline to unravel. Instead, it feels like stepping into the mind of an artist mid-creation, where thoughts emerge, dissolve, and re-emerge in an endless dance. Reading it is like watching a jellyfish float through water: graceful, shapeless yet perfectly formed, existing in a state of perpetual motion.

The book flows with an intuitive rhythm that mirrors the way thoughts arise and fall away in our minds. Lispector doesn’t impose order on this process; she lets it unfold naturally, as if writing itself is a living organism, something organic that grows and changes in real-time. Her sentences coil around themselves, looping back, leaping forward, and lingering in moments that feel less like words on a page and more like sensations passing through the body. There’s a sense that the act of writing is inseparable from the act of living—an endless improvisation rather than a deliberate composition.

This free-flowing style rejects the tyranny of narrative conventions. There’s no beginning, middle, or end in Água Viva—only the eternal now. The book pulses with the immediacy of existence, capturing the texture of life as it happens: fragmented, fluid, and endlessly shifting. It’s as if Lispector is saying, “Life isn’t linear, so why should writing be?” In her refusal to conform, she creates something startlingly honest, something that feels closer to the truth of being than any neatly structured story ever could.

This lack of structure can feel disorienting at first, but that’s part of the magic. You’re not meant to follow Água Viva; you’re meant to experience it. It invites you to surrender your need for coherence and let the text wash over you like waves. Each sentence feels alive, crackling with energy, as though Lispector’s words are not just describing life but embodying it.

In this way, Água Viva transcends its form to become a kind of linguistic organism—always changing, always alive. It’s a reminder that writing doesn’t have to be static or contained. It can move, breathe, and evolve, just as we do. It’s a philosophy of creation that feels as vital and freeing as the text itself, and it’s one that continues to inspire me as I explore the boundaries of language in my own work.

Lispector captures the fleeting, visceral nature of thought and sensation as though she’s transcribing the untranscribable—grasping at the ephemeral and turning it into something tangible, if only for a moment. Her prose doesn’t seek permanence; instead, it revels in impermanence, in the slippery, transient quality of life as it is lived. Each sentence feels like a breath, a heartbeat, a flicker of light—present and vivid, but gone the moment you try to hold onto it.

Reading Água Viva feels like stepping into the inner workings of a mind untethered from logic but deeply attuned to the raw immediacy of experience. Lispector doesn’t describe sensations; she embodies them. The rhythm of her words mirrors the rhythm of thought itself: fragmented, nonlinear, and alive with contradictions. One moment, the text lingers on the colour of a flower; the next, it spirals into an existential meditation on time, only to pivot again to a fragment of a memory or a sudden, visceral emotion.

This approach evokes the way thoughts and sensations actually occur—fluid, uncontrollable, and deeply connected to the body. Lispector captures that strange, liminal space where an emotion rises before you can name it, where the texture of a moment is felt more than understood. Her words land not in the mind, but in the gut, the skin, the breath. It’s as if she bypasses the intellect entirely, speaking directly to the part of you that knows things without knowing why.

In this way, she invites you to inhabit the present moment fully, to experience the text as a living sensation rather than a collection of ideas. She writes of a flower “that doesn’t exist but blooms vividly,” or of time as “a thing I touch but can’t see.” These are not abstractions—they are attempts to pin down the unpinnable, to hold the texture of existence in her hands, even as it slips through her fingers. And in reading, you feel that same impossibility, that same beauty.

For me, this is where Lispector’s genius lies: in her ability to make the intangible tangible, if only briefly. She reminds us that life isn’t lived in grand narratives or carefully constructed meanings, but in fleeting, visceral moments—moments that pulse and shimmer and disappear before we can fully grasp them. Her prose feels like a mirror to those moments, reflecting their impermanence and their strange, undeniable power.

Post-Language

Lispector’s work in Água Viva embodies the very essence of what I see as post-language—a space where language ceases to function merely as a tool for communication and instead transforms into a living, evolving entity. In this space, words are not fixed symbols pointing to rigid meanings; they are alive, dynamic, and in flux, like particles in constant motion. Lispector writes as if she’s aware of language’s limitations but refuses to let those limitations confine her. Instead, she pushes against the edges of meaning, letting her words shimmer with possibility, ambiguity, and life.

Her sentences are not structured to inform or even to persuade. They are constructed to evoke, to provoke, to exist as raw phenomena in their own right. It’s as though her prose breathes—it stretches, contracts, and shifts shape, refusing to settle into a singular form. This aligns perfectly with the post-language ethos, where language is no longer a passive medium but an active participant in the creative process. Lispector treats words as though they are sentient, as though they hold secrets she is merely channelling onto the page.

In this context, Água Viva feels less like a text and more like an organism—a self-contained world that grows and evolves with every sentence. The boundaries between writer, reader, and language dissolve. As a reader, you’re not just absorbing her words; you’re entering into a relationship with them. Her prose demands that you engage intuitively, that you meet it halfway, allowing meaning to arise in the spaces between the words rather than being handed to you. This is language as a collaborative act, a living thread that weaves itself anew with every reading.

Lispector’s rejection of linearity also mirrors the way post-language views time and structure. There is no past, present, or future in her writing—only the ever-unfolding now. Words become untethered from grammar and narrative convention, freed to express the rhythm and texture of life itself. This is not language as a system; it’s language as energy, as movement, as pure potential. It’s an approach that challenges us to stop seeing words as containers of meaning and start experiencing them as forces—forces that can shape, shift, and transform the way we perceive the world.

For me, this is the most exciting aspect of Água Viva. It’s not just a book—it’s an experiment in what language can become when it’s liberated from function and allowed to be. It invites us into a space where words transcend their own boundaries, becoming not static signifiers but living things that pulse with the immediacy of existence. This is the heart of post-language: a realm where meaning is not fixed, but emergent—a co-creation between writer, text, and reader. And in Lispector’s hands, that realm becomes an exhilarating, uncharted frontier.

Themes: Time, Art, and the Transcendent Now

Time as Eternity

In Água Viva, time is not linear. It’s not a progression of seconds marching dutifully toward some inevitable conclusion. Instead, Lispector renders time as something fluid, infinite—a continuous unfolding that can only ever be truly experienced in the now. She writes, “I want the present because it’s all I have and it’s all I can own. The present is eternal.” This idea permeates the text, dissolving past and future into a single, eternal moment where existence pulses with immediacy.

Lispector’s prose constantly circles around this theme of the now, treating it not as a fleeting point on a timeline but as the only place where life truly happens. She observes: “This instant is. It is so much that it is an eternity.” Here, she turns the conventional understanding of time inside out. Eternity isn’t something distant and unattainable, a concept we associate with timelessness or immortality. For Lispector, eternity is the fullness of the present—the richness of being alive in this moment, where every sensation, thought, and breath exists in its completeness.

This dissolution of linearity resonates deeply with my own reflections on living in the moment as an artist. Creation, for me, is an act of presence. It’s about stepping out of the constraints of past and future—the anxieties of what has been or what might be—and grounding myself in the raw, unfiltered now. When I write, when I create, I feel this same energy Lispector captures in her prose: a sense that time stretches and expands in the act of making, that the present becomes a vast, timeless space where ideas flow freely.

In Água Viva, the act of writing itself becomes an embodiment of this philosophy. Lispector’s sentences often feel like spontaneous bursts, fragments caught mid-flight, rather than carefully premeditated constructs. She writes, “Now is an instant that is always, and it is nothing. It is a gust of air in my mouth, it is the emptying of my lungs. It is a nothing that is all.” This is the art of capturing what cannot be held—the ephemeral essence of life itself, alive and vibrating in the present.

For me, this perspective isn’t just about art—it’s about how to live. Too often, we are preoccupied with the weight of the past or the endless striving for the future, forgetting that the only place we truly exist is here, now. Lispector’s writing reminds me to anchor myself in this truth. As an artist, I try to cultivate this state of presence—not chasing after meaning or structure, but allowing my work to emerge organically from the moment. Like Lispector, I see creation as a way of stepping into eternity, not by transcending time but by fully inhabiting the now.

In dissolving time into the present, Lispector offers us a radical reimagining of how to exist. She reminds us that the only thing we truly have is this instant, and in that instant lies infinite possibility. As she writes, “The present? It is so alive that it is vibrating.” And perhaps this is the greatest gift of Água Viva: it doesn’t just describe the eternal present—it invites us to live in it.

Being and Becoming

In Água Viva, selfhood is not a fixed state but a fluid, ever-evolving process—a perpetual becoming rather than a static being. Lispector approaches identity as something that resists definition, something that shifts with every breath, every thought, every moment of existence. She writes, “I am. But I am also the absence of being. I am the silence before I am spoken.” Her words capture the paradox of selfhood: the tension between what we are and what we are always in the process of becoming.

Throughout the text, Lispector dissolves the boundaries of the self, portraying it as fragmented and kaleidoscopic. The narrator isn’t a singular, cohesive voice but a constellation of shifting thoughts, sensations, and emotions. This fragmentation isn’t a flaw—it’s the essence of being alive. She writes, “I’m a body that feels and is felt. I’m in fragments that come together in an instant only to fall apart again.” In this view, identity isn’t a stable core but a mosaic of experiences and impressions, each piece momentarily glinting in the light before transforming into something new.

This exploration of selfhood resonates deeply with my own ideas about personal mythology and identity as an artist. I see identity not as something fixed or singular, but as a story we are constantly rewriting—a narrative shaped by the interplay of memory, imagination, and experience. In my creative work, I embrace this fluidity, allowing my sense of self to unfold and expand with each project, each moment of inspiration. Like Lispector, I don’t seek to define who I am; instead, I’m interested in the process of discovering who I am becoming.

For me, this idea of being and becoming is at the heart of personal mythology. Personal mythology is not about carving out a rigid identity or adhering to a static archetype; it’s about embracing the chaos and multiplicity within us. It’s about seeing our lives as stories in motion, where every choice, every encounter, every creative act adds a new thread to the tapestry. Just as Lispector’s narrator exists in fragments, so too do we contain multitudes—shifting personas, conflicting desires, and evolving dreams.

Lispector’s fluid selfhood also aligns with my belief that art is a way of navigating this ongoing transformation. When I write, I’m not just expressing who I am; I’m exploring who I might become. Creation is an act of becoming—a way of stepping into the unknown, of letting the self dissolve and reassemble in new, unexpected ways. This is why Lispector’s words feel so alive to me: they mirror the creative process itself, with all its unpredictability, its chaos, and its potential for revelation.

She writes, “I am in the moment of metamorphosis.” This line speaks directly to the artist in me—the part of me that thrives in the in-between spaces, the moments where identity and meaning are still taking shape. It’s a reminder that selfhood, like art, is not a destination but a journey. To exist is to transform, to fracture and rebuild, to dance in the tension between being and becoming. And in embracing that tension, we create not only our art but also ourselves.

Reading as Participation

Reading Água Viva felt less like consuming a book and more like being drawn into an intimate, almost hypnotic dialogue. It wasn’t a passive experience of words flowing into my mind; it was active, visceral—a trance where I wasn’t just a reader but a participant in the unfolding of the text. Lispector doesn’t let you sit back and observe from a distance; her words reach out, press against your skin, and whisper directly into your soul. It’s as though the book breathes with you, adapting to your thoughts and emotions as you read.

From the opening pages, Lispector dissolves the traditional boundaries between author, narrator, and reader. She writes in the second person, addressing you directly, pulling you into her orbit: “I write to you because I don’t understand myself. And because I need you to help me.” These words don’t feel like they’re directed at a faceless audience—they feel personal, like an invitation to co-create meaning in the space between her words and your imagination. The effect is startling, almost disarming, as though you’ve entered a conversation that was already underway, and now it’s your turn to respond.

But this is no ordinary dialogue. It feels more like stepping into a dream where logic dissolves, and you’re left navigating by instinct and emotion. Her prose moves with a rhythm that’s as erratic as it is hypnotic—looping, spiralling, doubling back on itself, as if testing your willingness to surrender to its flow. At times, it felt as if the book was speaking a language I didn’t fully understand but still felt. It bypassed the analytical part of my brain and spoke directly to something deeper, something primal and intuitive.

The trance-like quality of the text is heightened by its unpredictability. Lispector’s thoughts seem to arise spontaneously, with no regard for conventional structure or linear progression. One moment she’s reflecting on the nature of time; the next, she’s marvelling at the colour of a flower or the texture of silence. The effect is disorienting, but also liberating—it’s as if the book is teaching you how to let go of the need for coherence and simply be in the moment with it.

What I found most striking was how alive the text felt, as though it were evolving with every page turn. It’s not a static work to be consumed and filed away; it’s a living, breathing entity that demands your presence. You don’t just read Água Viva—you commune with it. The act of reading becomes a kind of collaboration, where your own thoughts, memories, and emotions intermingle with Lispector’s words, creating something entirely unique to you.

By the time I closed the book, I didn’t feel like I had finished it. If anything, I felt as though it had finished me—unravelling some part of my mind and leaving it forever changed. Lispector’s writing lingers like a sensation you can’t quite name, a faint echo of a voice that continues to whisper long after it has fallen silent. Reading Água Viva isn’t just an experience; it’s an encounter. And like all true encounters, it leaves you different than you were before.

How Água Viva Impacted Me Emotionally and Creatively

Água Viva didn’t just leave an impression on me—it unsettled me, cracked something open in the best way possible. It felt like Lispector’s words slipped past my defences, bypassing the logical pathways of my mind to speak directly to my innermost self. Emotionally, it was both grounding and disorienting, like standing in the middle of a storm and realising that the chaos isn’t outside you—it is you. The book stirred something raw, something restless, and reminded me of how alive language can be when it refuses to conform.

Creatively, it was like a spark thrown into a dry forest. Lispector’s approach to writing as an organic, living force reminded me to loosen my grip on structure and control. It challenged me to trust my intuition more—to embrace the chaos of creativity and let it lead me to places I couldn’t plan or predict. Her ability to weave together contradictions and hold them in tension opened new pathways for me to explore, both in my writing and in how I think about art as a whole.

One of the most profound shifts was how the book made me rethink my relationship with time in my creative process. I often feel pressure to write toward an endpoint, to move linearly from idea to execution. But Lispector’s insistence on the eternal now—on the richness of the present moment as a creative space—helped me see my work as less about completion and more about engagement. She showed me that the act of creation itself, messy and unresolved, is where the real magic happens.

The fragmented, nonlinear nature of her prose also gave me permission to lean further into my own love for fragmentation and recursion. I’ve always been drawn to writing that loops back on itself, that spirals and shifts like a living organism, but Água Viva took that to another level. It made me want to experiment more with form, to write pieces that feel like they’re breathing—alive with contradiction and unpredictability, where the reader isn’t just a passive observer but an active participant in shaping meaning.

On a deeper level, the book reminded me why I create in the first place. Lispector’s writing isn’t concerned with answers or resolutions—it’s about asking questions, about capturing the texture of being alive in all its messy, beautiful complexity. That’s something I’ve always aspired to in my own work, but Água Viva made me realise how much more I could push myself to embrace that ethos. It encouraged me to step further into the unknown, to trust the process even when it feels like I’m flailing in the dark.

Emotionally, it also gave me a sense of freedom—freedom to explore, to create without needing to justify or explain, to let my work exist in the world as its own evolving entity. Reading Água Viva was like being reminded of a truth I’d forgotten: that art, at its core, isn’t about control or mastery—it’s about surrender. And that realisation has stayed with me, sparking new ideas, new visions, and a renewed sense of curiosity about what I can create when I let go of the need to define it.

Conclusion: An Invitation to Dive In

Água Viva isn’t a book you read—it’s a book you enter. It’s an experience, an encounter, a mirror held up to the restless, pulsing essence of being alive. Clarice Lispector’s words don’t offer answers; they invite you to let go of your need for them. This is not a novel in the conventional sense with its tidy arcs and resolutions. It’s more like stepping into a river, letting its currents carry you where they will, trusting that the journey itself will leave you changed.

If you decide to read Água Viva, I urge you to approach it as an experiment in surrender. Don’t try to pin it down, analyse it, or make sense of it in a linear way. Let it wash over you, flowing through your mind and body like water. Embrace its rhythm, its chaos, its beauty, and its contradictions. There is no right way to read this book—only the way it feels to you in the moment. And that’s the magic of it: every reading is a unique experience, shaped as much by who you are as by what Lispector wrote.

This isn’t a text that sits neatly on the shelf of your mind. It spills out, leaks into your thoughts, and finds its way into your creative spaces. It’s a book that dares you to embrace the raw, unpolished energy of creation, to let your own work—whatever form it takes—be messy, fluid, and alive. Allow its wildness to inspire you, to loosen the constraints you place on yourself, and to remind you that the act of creating is as much about discovery as it is about expression.

Dive into Água Viva not to reach a destination but to revel in the journey. Let it challenge you, unsettle you, and expand your understanding of what language—and art—can be. And most importantly, let it remind you to be present in your own creative process, to find the eternity in the now, and to surrender to the beauty of becoming.


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