{"product_id":"the-besieged-city","title":"The Besieged City","description":"\u003cp\u003eAuthor: Clarice Lispector\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher: New Directions Publishing (2019)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003csection class=\"my-8 prose lg:prose-xl max-w-none\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRich with visions, miraculous horses, and linguistic ecstasy,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Besieged City\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003estars Lucrécia. Clarice Lispector’s heroine is a materialistic girl free of the burden of thought: “Behold, behold, all of her, terribly physical, one of the objects.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The object—the thing,” Lispector once remarked, “always fascinated me and in a certain sense destroyed me. In my book\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Besieged City\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eI speak indirectly about the mystery of the thing. The thing is a specialized and immobilized animal.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLucrécia Neves is ready to marry. Her suitors—soldierly Felipe, pensive Perseu, dependable Mateus—are attracted to her tawdry not-quite-beauty, which is of a piece with São Geraldo, the rough-and-ready township she inhabits. Civilization is on its way to this place, where wild horses still roam. As Lucrécia is tamed by marriage, São Geraldo gradually expels its horses; and as the town strives for the highest attainment it can conceive—a viaduct—it takes on the progressively more metropolitan manners that Lucrécia, with her vulgar ambitions, desires too. Yet it is precisely through this woman’s superficiality—her identification with the porcelain knickknacks in her mother’s parlor—that Clarice Lispector creates a profound and enigmatic meditation on “the mystery of the thing.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/section\u003e","brand":"W. W. Norton","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44028635316323,"sku":"9780811238502","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/8655\/1139\/files\/besi.jpg?v=1772226055","url":"https:\/\/woodlandpatternbookcenter.com\/products\/the-besieged-city","provider":"Woodland Pattern","version":"1.0","type":"link"}