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Landeg White<\/a> in the TLS<\/em>:<\/p>\n Not much happens in a Lispector<\/a> novel. In Near to the Wild Heart<\/em>, Joana recalls her childhood, is orphaned and adopted by an aunt, attends boarding school, marries, chats with her husband’s mistress, takes a lover, and loses both husband and lover. But this \u201cplot” is incidental to the life of her mind, where all the real action takes place. In The Passion According to G. H.<\/a><\/em> (A paix\u00c3\u00a3o segundo G. H.<\/em>, 1964), the heroine, known only by her initials, goes to clean the room of the maid who has given notice the day before, and has an apocalyptic encounter with a cockroach. The whole book takes place in the maid’s room, or rather, in G. H.’s thoughts. \u00c3\u0081gua Viva<\/em> (\u00c3\u0081gua viva<\/em>, 1973), has no trace of a plot, being instead a series of rhapsodic fragments, while A Breath of Life<\/em> (Um sopro de vida; puls\u00c3\u00a7\u00c3\u00b5es,<\/em> 1978) explores the purely mental relationship between a character called \u201cthe author” and \u201cAngela”, his creation. All four works are better described as internal dialogues: between Joana and Ot\u00c3\u00a1vio; between G. H. and various interlocutors (her former husband, the doctor who performed her abortion and, of course, the cockroach); and between \u201cthe author” and Angela. Even \u00c3\u0081gua Viva<\/em> is addressed, in combative terms, to a putative reader called \u201cyou”.<\/p>\n