The Living Sentence: On Writing That Feels Alive by Lara Lowinski

I am a very picky reader. By that I mean that most books I read I put down after just a few pages because they just lack a certain something. In a way, I feel like this makes me weirdly qualified to give book recommendations because you know they have undergone a very strict filtering process. There is a certain kind of writing that touches my soul like nothing else can; prose that feels alive, there is no better way to put it. The two authors that I will present to you here write as if they are drawing from something deep within the earth.

I want to start with Clarice Lispector. I was first introduced to her through a really cool professor I met at Oxford summer school. Naturally, I followed all of her book recommendations. I almost feel bad for introducing this author to you because at least for me, after reading Lispector, nothing will ever come close. The first book I read from her was Agua Viva which, translated to English, means jellyfish. More often than not, we feel jellyfish before we see them. Similarly, this book is first and foremost meant to be felt, not understood. It is a book with no plot, no characters, no start, and no ending. The stream of consciousness style reads almost like a prayer, which is very fitting, since, to me, reading her prose is close to a religious experience. If I were to sum it up in a few words, it would be that the book deals with the fleetingness of a moment. Lispector does this by carefully walking the line between writing and being, desperately trying to capture the now. In this pursuit, she is confronted with the limits of words, which she hopes to go beyond. She tries to push writing beyond its own boundaries and reaches toward something that feels almost higher than language itself, beyond articulation. To me, her work feels almost transcendental. Like it uncovers ancient ungraspable wisdom and abstract knowledge that is above what we humans can reasonably know. I think the best way to put it is that her writing feels organic. It feels as though it has existed for a thousand years, and Lispector is not so much writing it as she is unearthing it. Believe me, as much as I am trying my best, there is no way to accurately describe this piece of work without betraying at least some of its gravity. 

“Every thing has an instant in which it is. I want to grab hold of the is of the thing. These instants passing through the air I breathe: in fireworks they explode silently in space.”

“As if ripping from the depths of the earth the knotted roots of a rare tree, that’s how I write to you.”

The other author I want to mention is Khalil Gibran. While I read his work in English, he originally wrote in Arabic, and it almost feels fitting that his prose is so beautiful, because Arabic is often described as an especially rich and musical language, with layers of meaning that English can only partially capture. As a sidenote, the fact that I have read both Lispector and Gibran in translation and still prefer their prose to that of many native English writers speaks to how extraordinary their writing is. I can only imagine how much is lost and how much remains unreachable in translation. The book I want to talk about here is The Prophet. I don’t remember exactly how I came across it, but it arrived at precisely the moment I needed it most. The story follows Almustafa, a wise mystic who stands before the people of Orphalese and offers advice on love, friendship, marriage, joy, and pain. When I read this book, I was at a particularly lost point in my life. It healed something in me, not by denying my pain, but by revealing what it could hold. Like Lispector, Gibran’s prose carries something distinctly religious in tone. His use of nature imagery is unlike anything I have encountered elsewhere; nature is not merely metaphor, but almost a living presence within the text. One passage that particularly stayed with me is the one on pain. We often ask what pain is for, whether it carries any higher meaning, or whether it is simply something to be endured. Almustafa reframes it differently: pain is “the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding,” suggesting that every painful experience is also an expansion of consciousness. I would recommend this book to anyone who is not religious, but is looking for something that feels close to a Bible. It is truly a transformative piece of writing.

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”