Near to the Wild Heart opens with a scene of the child Joana playing in the garden, making up poems for her father. Joana's wildness and barely suppressed violence, along with her linguistic creativity, are her most notable features. She is frequently compared to animals: over the course of the book Lispector compares her to a bird, a snake, a wildcat, a horse, and a dog. She commits transgressive acts—as a child she throws a book at an old man's head, for example, and as a married woman she leaves her husband, Otávio, and greets the news of his adultery—he has made another woman, his
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil The Life and Loves of a She-Devil The Life and Loves of a She-Devil is a 1983 novel by British feminist author Fay Weldon about a highly unattractive woman who goes to great lengths to take revenge on her husband and his attractive lover. The book, Weldon insists, is about envy, rather than revenge. Ruth is an abnormally tall and ugly housewife whose husband, Bobbo, considers their relationship an open marriage based on convenience alone and he only married her because he got her pregnant when they were both teenagers. Bobbo only truly loves his mistress, a famous, wealthy romance