An Apprenticeship or a Book of Delights     by Clarice Lispector, Translated by Richard A Mazzara and Lorri Parris Original title: Aprendizagem ou O Livro dos prazeres, Uma Original language: Portuguese Country: Brazil   Published by Univ of Texas Pr Pub. Date: August 1986 Format: Hardcover, 126 pages ISBN: 0292790317 List Price: $8.94 Not available for ordering Published by Texas UP Pub. Date: 1986 Pub. Place: USA Format: Paperback, 126 pages Not available for ordering

Philosophy lecturer Ulysses meets primary school teacher Lori and, observing her unhappiness while falling in love with her, decides he will instruct her in the art of self-knowledge, confidence and being true to herself. She has been living according to rules drawn up by others and must abandon the persona she uses in public in order to find peace and freedom from social convention. Instead of writing lists to structure her life and hiding behind a mask of make-up Lori loses her inhibitions and becomes empowered.

Ironically, this Ulysses stays put while his beloved makes an odyssey of discovery and this Lorelei is not the dangerous siren of German myth but a lonely woman longing for someone to love. The love between the characters draws them ever closer, to a stage where they identify almost completely with one another and she learns not to repress her feelings of desire but to embrace them as part of her identity. Even the language used changes over the course of the novel. From jumbled phrases and streams of consciousness mixed up with staccato sentences and a chapter that is one word long, through dialogue and description, the text becomes balanced and lyrical. On a more cynical note, it could be said that Lori’s initial intuitive feminine language is being progressively erased by Ulysses’ logically structured male language. He is rather pedantic at times and quite rude to Lori in his guidance of her ‘apprenticeship’.

Lispector herself was not completely satisfied with the novel which is, admittedly, unusually upbeat and idealistic for her. Nevertheless the character Lori could be identified with the author, who shared her habit of long walks around the streets of Rio and early morning swims on Leme beach, although Lispector never found a perfect partner as her heroine did.

‘Living,’ she said in the disjointed dialogue that only they followed, ‘living is so out of the ordinary that I’m alive only because I was born. I know that anybody can say the same, but the fact is that I’m the one who is saying it.’

‘You still haven’t become accustomed to living?’ Ulysses asked with intense curiosity.

‘No.’

‘Well that’s perfect. You are the right woman for me. Because in my apprenticeship there has been no one to tell me the obvious in such an extraordinary way. The obvious, Lori, is the most difficult truth to discern.’ And so the conversation would not become too serious he smiled and added, ‘Sherlock Holmes already knew that.’ 62