Clarice Lispector, renowned brazilian writer and poetress, with simple phrases wrote a little masterpiece. The phrases (a version into English) she used are shown below, but not in order. Once you realized the proper order youīll find out the beauty of what she wrote because, if you read it downwards, itīs the end of a love affair, and if you read it upwards, itīs a confession of a great passion. Can you just rearrange the phrases below to achieve this? You canīt add anything and the punctuations already made belong to the phrases where they are. All the initials I capitalized deliberately to make it not too easy, but in the original only those who start a phrase are capitalized.

           I still want you, as I always did.
           I`m sure that
           I feel inside that
           I already forgot you!
           I`ll be lying if I say that
           And Iīll never use again the phrase
           Nothing was in vain.
           Sorry, but I must tell you the truth:
           You donīt mean anything to me.
           I love you!
           I couldnīt ever say that
           Itīs too late...
           I donīt love you anymore.
           I preserve a great love.
           I feel more and more that                      

One line that has me stumped is:
    And I'll never again use the phrase

We can't change the punctuation, so this can't be the last line in the poem (or the first) as it has no punctuation at the end. This is assuming the poem has an even form of punctuation.

So what phrases are there in the above lines? This must be a phrase that the speaker has actually used during the love affair. We have:
    I love you!

I can't find any other phrases that seem to fit what a lover (in denial or not) would say (as distinct from what they would write). eg:
    I still want you, as I always did.  (bit awkward, not a phrase
                                                       to use every day)
    I already forgot you!                  (wrong tense)
    Nothing was in vain.                   (wrong tense)
    It's too late...                             (wouldn't make sense)
    I don't love you anymore            (wrong tense, or comma
                                                       needed before 'anymore')
    I preserve a great love.              (bit awkward for
                                                        conversation)

    You don't mean anything to me    (actuallually this one COULD work, but am I right to reject all the other lines?)

Am I being too poetically pedantic, or was something lost from one of these lines in translation?

How picky should we be?

Posted by Amber on 2005-09-15 03:17:43