Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Amsterdam De Arbeiderspers 2017
Library's review
Geniale novelle over een schrijver die met veel moeite en tegenzin een eenvoudig verhaal over het lot van een arm, hulpeloos en lelijk meisje schrijft.
User reviews
LibraryThing member A_musing
This is really a very serious Nietzschean essay on Ontology, sans the uber-machismo but with a deft and well-meant humour, masquerading as a simple little story. Clarice Lispector, our author, is facing her death, and, working through a narrator who may or may not exist, looks into the eyes of a
Set aside the Sartre, the Heidegger, the Wittgenstein, with all their big words (her narrator emphasizes repeatedly that he has banned big words). Forget about all the twisted logic used to figure out how we know about our own existence and what its purpose may be. If there is a reason, something more than pure brute instinct, for an ugly little waif from the poorest part of Brazil to exist, perhaps even to live, there is a reason for all of us to live. And so, in the midst of life in the mud, and, quite literally, death in the mud, Clarice gives us reason to live. And while she does this, she struggles to release us from the trap of a language that defines us. Each reader can figure out whether she succeeds. Success may or may not be important.
All of this is done through a style dominated by simple aphorisms (thus the Nietzschean - it's the only comparison I can think of) and a straightforward story line. No big words. Individually, her aphorisms are banal. Combined, they are profound.
Clarice Lispector weaves together metaphorical rags.
All I can say about the result: Wow.
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trod upon and anonymous young woman who may exist as an individual or a type and who may or may not be in the narrator's literal or figurative employ, and sees in those eyes her best answer to the questions of being and nothingness that so trouble the philosophical. Set aside the Sartre, the Heidegger, the Wittgenstein, with all their big words (her narrator emphasizes repeatedly that he has banned big words). Forget about all the twisted logic used to figure out how we know about our own existence and what its purpose may be. If there is a reason, something more than pure brute instinct, for an ugly little waif from the poorest part of Brazil to exist, perhaps even to live, there is a reason for all of us to live. And so, in the midst of life in the mud, and, quite literally, death in the mud, Clarice gives us reason to live. And while she does this, she struggles to release us from the trap of a language that defines us. Each reader can figure out whether she succeeds. Success may or may not be important.
All of this is done through a style dominated by simple aphorisms (thus the Nietzschean - it's the only comparison I can think of) and a straightforward story line. No big words. Individually, her aphorisms are banal. Combined, they are profound.
Clarice Lispector weaves together metaphorical rags.
All I can say about the result: Wow.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
Wow.
This story is so beautiful and so sad. It's the fundamental tension between futile rage and cold comfort, and the way that push-and-pull wears you out, and the bone weariness and disgust it gives rise to in Lispector's narrator. He is telling the story of Macabea, who is young, and dumb, and
Stylistically, this is such a sweet tapestry, in the sense of warp and weft, following out the threads, flush of recognition and surprise when one manifests in a novel fashion (bang). Wow again, and specifically:
Wow, the sudden intermittent inthrust of visual objects in this progression of concepts, the nature of perceiving, and the interrelation between the human self and the vicious, necessary other. Meaning, "A narrative . . . from which blood surging with life might flow only to coagulate into lumps of trembling jelly". Meaning, "grass is so easy and simple". Meaning, "It's as good as saying a healthy dog is worth more".
Wow, the writhing of the narrator faced with the massive greyness underlying the bright Brazilian patina, the refusal of this story to be sublimated or brought to cathartic Aristotelian heel. Meaning, "But why am I bothering about this girl when what I really want is wheat that turns ripe and golden in summer?" Meaning, "How I should like her to open her mouth and say: --I amalone in the world". Meaning, "I could resolve this story by taking the east way out and murdering the infant child, but what I want is something more: I want life.Let my readers take a punch in the stomach to see how they enjoy it. For life is a punch in the stomach."
Wow, unavoidably and dismally, the obscene vividness of the glimpses into Macabea's life, and our inability to believe in her self-sustaining capability, or that she's anything but an accident waiting to happen. Meaning, "the one luxury she permitted herself was a few sips of cold coffee before going to bed. She paid for this luxury by waking up with heartburn." Meaning, "(t)his is like flying in an airplane," just before the shocking unfairness of humiliation and blood. Meaning, "as a little girl, because she had no one to kiss, she used to kiss the wall." I could cry about that last one for the rest of my life if I let myself.
The hot dogs she eats. That fucking Mercedes.
In summation? Wow.
This story is so beautiful and so sad. It's the fundamental tension between futile rage and cold comfort, and the way that push-and-pull wears you out, and the bone weariness and disgust it gives rise to in Lispector's narrator. He is telling the story of Macabea, who is young, and dumb, and
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ignorant, and rachitic, and . . . happy? Or just completely stunted, unaware of the unbearable fullness of beaing? But no, man, she gets it. She cool. Life is hard, but she has an inner okayness. Why does that feel so sad?Stylistically, this is such a sweet tapestry, in the sense of warp and weft, following out the threads, flush of recognition and surprise when one manifests in a novel fashion (bang). Wow again, and specifically:
Wow, the sudden intermittent inthrust of visual objects in this progression of concepts, the nature of perceiving, and the interrelation between the human self and the vicious, necessary other. Meaning, "A narrative . . . from which blood surging with life might flow only to coagulate into lumps of trembling jelly". Meaning, "grass is so easy and simple". Meaning, "It's as good as saying a healthy dog is worth more".
Wow, the writhing of the narrator faced with the massive greyness underlying the bright Brazilian patina, the refusal of this story to be sublimated or brought to cathartic Aristotelian heel. Meaning, "But why am I bothering about this girl when what I really want is wheat that turns ripe and golden in summer?" Meaning, "How I should like her to open her mouth and say: --I amalone in the world". Meaning, "I could resolve this story by taking the east way out and murdering the infant child, but what I want is something more: I want life.Let my readers take a punch in the stomach to see how they enjoy it. For life is a punch in the stomach."
Wow, unavoidably and dismally, the obscene vividness of the glimpses into Macabea's life, and our inability to believe in her self-sustaining capability, or that she's anything but an accident waiting to happen. Meaning, "the one luxury she permitted herself was a few sips of cold coffee before going to bed. She paid for this luxury by waking up with heartburn." Meaning, "(t)his is like flying in an airplane," just before the shocking unfairness of humiliation and blood. Meaning, "as a little girl, because she had no one to kiss, she used to kiss the wall." I could cry about that last one for the rest of my life if I let myself.
The hot dogs she eats. That fucking Mercedes.
In summation? Wow.
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LibraryThing member ChocolateMuse
I finished reading this book late at night, just before going to sleep, which may have been a bad idea. Whether this was directly related to my subsequent bad dreams or not I do not know for sure - but I did dream that a friend of mine had been given 91 days to live; and then I woke at 3am and
When she woke up she no longer knew who she was. Only later did she think with satisfaction: I'm a typist and a virgin and I like coca-cola. Only then did she dress herself in herself, she spent the rest of her day obediently playing the role of being.
My experience of postmodernism is limited, but I do believe this is an example of it, with experimental (though as it repeatedly reminds us, simple and unadorned) language, and very little by way of plot. Metafictive too, being written by a male narrator - Lispector herself is a woman - who is terrified of his own story, because it brings home to him (explosion) all too plainly the emptiness and pointlessness of his own life. It's self-conscious of necessity, but done rather exquisitely for all that. This narrator has seen briefly in the street a young typist from the northeast, a girl who has no idea she's alive - a nonentity of a girl without any real thoughts, or hopes, or happiness, and who has no idea that she's even unhappy. The sight of this girl has torn the padding off the narrator's life too, and he must write her story down to purge himself of its horror.
...there are thousands of girls scattered across the tenement slums... They don't even know how easily substitutable they are and that they could just drop off the face of the earth.
The real pathos of it is that Macabea is simply a girl without any opportunities. She has an insatiable fascination with the facts she hears on Clock Radio, but no one to talk to about it. When she once hears Caruso sing on that radio, she cries, which she's never done before.
She wasn't crying because of the life she led: because, never having led any other, she'd accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I also think she was crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and even a certain luxury of soul.
She collects ads and pastes them in an album. She is sensuous and doesn't know what to do with it, and sometimes kisses the wall (that last image was one of the more painful ones).
And just as soon as an experience comes which teaches her how to live, how to hope, she dies - and though this happens at the end I do not consider it a spoiler (apologies if you disagree) - because it's almost inevitable, and certainly the only possible 'happy' ending. Her death is the hour of the star. As for her life, it only serves to point to that idea of the uselessness of people's lives in general, and makes the reader feel for a time that this is practically universal. As I said, a cruel, bleak little book.
What was the truth of my Maca? As soon as you discover the truth it's already gone: the moment passed. I ask: what is? Reply: it's not.
A word on the translator - brilliant work, I think. It's always hard as a reader to know which of the good and bad is due to the translator - but it's clear that Benjamin Moser had an original text of great unusualness and difficulty to work from, and he translates it here with a blend of oddness, simplicity and power which I suspect is all there in the original Portuguese.
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faced my own mortality with all the padding torn off. All the day since has been grey and sad. If these things and the reading of The Hour of the Star aren't related, then it is something of a coincidence - because this is a cruel, bleak little book, for all its extraordinary language (and, may I say, its bright florescent cover). When she woke up she no longer knew who she was. Only later did she think with satisfaction: I'm a typist and a virgin and I like coca-cola. Only then did she dress herself in herself, she spent the rest of her day obediently playing the role of being.
My experience of postmodernism is limited, but I do believe this is an example of it, with experimental (though as it repeatedly reminds us, simple and unadorned) language, and very little by way of plot. Metafictive too, being written by a male narrator - Lispector herself is a woman - who is terrified of his own story, because it brings home to him (explosion) all too plainly the emptiness and pointlessness of his own life. It's self-conscious of necessity, but done rather exquisitely for all that. This narrator has seen briefly in the street a young typist from the northeast, a girl who has no idea she's alive - a nonentity of a girl without any real thoughts, or hopes, or happiness, and who has no idea that she's even unhappy. The sight of this girl has torn the padding off the narrator's life too, and he must write her story down to purge himself of its horror.
...there are thousands of girls scattered across the tenement slums... They don't even know how easily substitutable they are and that they could just drop off the face of the earth.
The real pathos of it is that Macabea is simply a girl without any opportunities. She has an insatiable fascination with the facts she hears on Clock Radio, but no one to talk to about it. When she once hears Caruso sing on that radio, she cries, which she's never done before.
She wasn't crying because of the life she led: because, never having led any other, she'd accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I also think she was crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and even a certain luxury of soul.
She collects ads and pastes them in an album. She is sensuous and doesn't know what to do with it, and sometimes kisses the wall (that last image was one of the more painful ones).
And just as soon as an experience comes which teaches her how to live, how to hope, she dies - and though this happens at the end I do not consider it a spoiler (apologies if you disagree) - because it's almost inevitable, and certainly the only possible 'happy' ending. Her death is the hour of the star. As for her life, it only serves to point to that idea of the uselessness of people's lives in general, and makes the reader feel for a time that this is practically universal. As I said, a cruel, bleak little book.
What was the truth of my Maca? As soon as you discover the truth it's already gone: the moment passed. I ask: what is? Reply: it's not.
A word on the translator - brilliant work, I think. It's always hard as a reader to know which of the good and bad is due to the translator - but it's clear that Benjamin Moser had an original text of great unusualness and difficulty to work from, and he translates it here with a blend of oddness, simplicity and power which I suspect is all there in the original Portuguese.
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LibraryThing member solla
It's a very short novel, only about 80 pages long, and the story within it is shorter still as much of the beginning tells of the writer inventing the story (although the writer is also fictional, being a different gender than Lispector at least). One of the questions that I have for myself is
As a writer, I've sometimes though that it takes a lot of arrogance to believe that your thoughts and experiences are of such importance to be of interest to other people enough to read an entire book. But then I've countered that with the thought that there is something about everyone that is distinct and incredible and it is a matter of revealing it. [The Hour of the Star] is about the process of imagining someone who seems of utter insignificance, not appealing, and finding the beauty of her life. It adds another dimension to know that Lispector was dying of cancer as she wrote it and was perhaps using it as a vehicle to question or to find the meaning of her own life.
She definitely succeeds in showing meaning in the guise of seeming insignificance. I'm still not sure I wouldn't have enjoyed it more as a simple story but it is a gem of a book.
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whether I wouldn't like it better if it didn't have the self-consciousness of the writer in it. The first time through I was impatient with the beginning, which goes on for 10 pages or so before saying anything about the main character. However, the second time through I appreciated it more. I think that my impatience the first time through was a worry that when the story came it wouldn't be worthy of the build up to it. The second time through, when I knew that there was a good story there, I was much more appreciative.As a writer, I've sometimes though that it takes a lot of arrogance to believe that your thoughts and experiences are of such importance to be of interest to other people enough to read an entire book. But then I've countered that with the thought that there is something about everyone that is distinct and incredible and it is a matter of revealing it. [The Hour of the Star] is about the process of imagining someone who seems of utter insignificance, not appealing, and finding the beauty of her life. It adds another dimension to know that Lispector was dying of cancer as she wrote it and was perhaps using it as a vehicle to question or to find the meaning of her own life.
She definitely succeeds in showing meaning in the guise of seeming insignificance. I'm still not sure I wouldn't have enjoyed it more as a simple story but it is a gem of a book.
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LibraryThing member anna_in_pdx
This very short novel was disturbing and engrossing. One character basically invents another character (based on a girl he has only seen once on the street) and creates a sad and poignant tale about her, though he constantly protests against doing any such thing. The girl is self-effacing to the
I found it very hard after reading this book to get up and go about my business. It was unsettling. I am relieved to settle back and read uncomplicated simple novels - I feel that this book was a lot of work, not because it was hard to read - in fact it was very easy to read - but because it was very hard to take. I don't think I will read more of Clarice Lispector's work in the very near future, because I am not strong enough to handle it. I hope to be able to come back to her some time in the future, though, because she has something important to say that makes me uncomfortable, and I realize this is a mark of great fiction.
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point of almost complete invisibility to the people around her and her inner life has a disturbing lack of affect. The narrator reminds me a lot of the narrating character in Lawrence Durrell's Justine, in that he is fond of making over the top statements about the people he's imagining, but then becomes painfully self-aware and starts turning against himself both as a character and as a narrator.I found it very hard after reading this book to get up and go about my business. It was unsettling. I am relieved to settle back and read uncomplicated simple novels - I feel that this book was a lot of work, not because it was hard to read - in fact it was very easy to read - but because it was very hard to take. I don't think I will read more of Clarice Lispector's work in the very near future, because I am not strong enough to handle it. I hope to be able to come back to her some time in the future, though, because she has something important to say that makes me uncomfortable, and I realize this is a mark of great fiction.
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LibraryThing member Talbin
The Hour of the Star, by Clarice Lispector, is a short novel (86 pages) exploding with ideas about creativity, art, spirituality, creation and philosophy. It is unlike any novel I've read before.
The first one-third of the book features the narrator, Rodrigo S.M., telling the reader why it is so
In The Hour of the Star, Lispector has created a many-layered tapestry. It is a book that can be read on many levels: as an indictment of poverty, the process of writing, the creation of art and perhaps life itself, the meaning of being human, the idea of spirituality and/or God, the meaning of The Word (on all incarnations). For me, right now, I read it as a discussion of the process of writing and the weight of creating a fictional world that reflects reality, as much as it can.
I plan to read this again before I return it to the library because I know I've only begun to dig under the surface of Lispector's amazing prose.
The first one-third of the book features the narrator, Rodrigo S.M., telling the reader why it is so
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difficult to write the story he is about to tell. Once he finally tells his story - about the brief life of Macabea, an orphaned, rural girl come to the big city - the narrator continues to interrupt himself, commenting on the events and his ideas about what is happening. In The Hour of the Star, Lispector has created a many-layered tapestry. It is a book that can be read on many levels: as an indictment of poverty, the process of writing, the creation of art and perhaps life itself, the meaning of being human, the idea of spirituality and/or God, the meaning of The Word (on all incarnations). For me, right now, I read it as a discussion of the process of writing and the weight of creating a fictional world that reflects reality, as much as it can.
I plan to read this again before I return it to the library because I know I've only begun to dig under the surface of Lispector's amazing prose.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
This is billed as Lispector, a Brazilian pyrotechnician of words, writing her last novel. It's about 80pp long, so I am hard pressed to see how it's anything but a novella as defined by length. Its content, the descent and fall of one of life's losers, places it firmly in novella territory as well.
But it's brilliant, and it's beautiful, and it should form a part of your mental furniture. It's fascinating in its presumptive male narrator's chill and malign distance from the heat of life that makes Macabea, the protagonist, both unfurl and wither seemingly simultaneously.
The relationships that Macabea, immigrant to the cold cruel city from the cold cruel countryside, forms are classics of naive toxicity. She's seemingly unable to judge anyone around her...even herself...on any level deeper than the most glistening surface. She's not a bright girl, she's not a pretty girl, and she's got no discernable talent for anything. She's destined to come to a bad end. SPOILER FOLLOWS And she does, under the wheels of a Mercedes (isn't that a subtle way of accusing the haves of killing the have-nots?). END SPOILER
But Lispector, the creatrix, pulls the Oz-curtain aside periodically, dropping the rudimentary and nugatory male narrator into the bin when she has something important to say: "Will I be condemned to death for discussing a life that contains, like the lives of all of us, an inviolable secret? I am desperately trying to discover in the girl's existence at least one bright topaz."
Could it be, I wonder at the end of the story, that there is no bright topaz in some lives? That the brightest sparkle in some humans is just the mineral potential of bones waiting for death to free it? Macabea, "female Maccabee" for those interested in looking for some Biblical enrichment of the tale, makes me think...unwillingly, reluctantly, but honestly...that the answer is Yes.
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Its beauty and grace of language mark it as a poetic novella. But it's not a complex, nuanced, developed story, so not what I'm willing to call a novel.But it's brilliant, and it's beautiful, and it should form a part of your mental furniture. It's fascinating in its presumptive male narrator's chill and malign distance from the heat of life that makes Macabea, the protagonist, both unfurl and wither seemingly simultaneously.
The relationships that Macabea, immigrant to the cold cruel city from the cold cruel countryside, forms are classics of naive toxicity. She's seemingly unable to judge anyone around her...even herself...on any level deeper than the most glistening surface. She's not a bright girl, she's not a pretty girl, and she's got no discernable talent for anything. She's destined to come to a bad end. SPOILER FOLLOWS And she does, under the wheels of a Mercedes (isn't that a subtle way of accusing the haves of killing the have-nots?). END SPOILER
But Lispector, the creatrix, pulls the Oz-curtain aside periodically, dropping the rudimentary and nugatory male narrator into the bin when she has something important to say: "Will I be condemned to death for discussing a life that contains, like the lives of all of us, an inviolable secret? I am desperately trying to discover in the girl's existence at least one bright topaz."
Could it be, I wonder at the end of the story, that there is no bright topaz in some lives? That the brightest sparkle in some humans is just the mineral potential of bones waiting for death to free it? Macabea, "female Maccabee" for those interested in looking for some Biblical enrichment of the tale, makes me think...unwillingly, reluctantly, but honestly...that the answer is Yes.
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LibraryThing member thiagofali
This is the only book of Clarice Lispector by which she discusses a social/political issue: Brazilian social gap and poverty. Even so, this tale is told in a very intimate way. Clarice Lispector is well-known for being, to a certain degree, hermetical/ mystical. It is not an easy read. Nothing in
Anyway, Lispector is a great read for those who likes Sartre, Virginia Woolf, Kafka, etc...
Do not expect to find a conventional plot-based novel. There is much more to this books than meets the eye.
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this book is done without an underlying reason. I don't agree, as it was said by other member reviews, that this book is about the creative process. Clarice Lispector decided to write this book after seeing a poor woman under a motorway. Lispector herself, is from a poor background and, through the effort of her father, she was well educated and reached a better life. Macabea personifies all poor, uneducated Brazilians, which, even though living under terrible standards, are unaware of the injustice they suffer and keep a smile on their faces. Clarice decided to write this book as a shout for justice, as the voice of those poor people. Of course, she wrote it in her unique, intimist style. All the other books from Lispector focus entirely on the psychological side of the characters, most of them being narrated in the 1st person. "The hour of the star" is written in the 3rd person and this might have been very difficult for Lispector, therefore, the narrator "Rodrigo" describes the difficulty in doing so. The reason for choosing the 3rd person is due to the incapability of Lispector of understanding how can someone accept so humbly his/her unjust fate. Her previous books mostly narrates the lives of women who do not fit in this world, by being too strong and not accepting moral values and defying society's expectations of them. (Lispector is also labeled as feminist) Macabea is the very opposite.Anyway, Lispector is a great read for those who likes Sartre, Virginia Woolf, Kafka, etc...
Do not expect to find a conventional plot-based novel. There is much more to this books than meets the eye.
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LibraryThing member JimmyChanga
An animal of a human that lives among humans does not reflect as humans do, does not know that she is happy or unhappy, stubbornly she goes on. An animal of a human and the one-way relationship of the God who created her, the God who is capable of self-reflection and the God who, by creating,
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questions God."I think about Macabea's vagina, minute, yet unexpectedly covered with a thick growth of black hairs-her vagina was the only vehement sign of her existence." Show Less
LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
This is the story of Macabea, "one of life's unfortunates," a person who is "incompetent at life." She is described as ugly, sickly, stupid, poor and wretched. But she also lacks the self-awareness to know any of this, and accepts what life hands her. The pleasure of this book is the innovative
I'd long heard of Clarice Lispector, but this is the first book by her that I have read. I will be seeking more of her books to read.
Recommended. 4 1/2 stars
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nature of the narration. Macabea's life is described by Rodrigo, with many digressions and asides about where the story will end up and the nature of telling the story of a life. At the beginning, Rodrigo says, "Will things happen? They will. But what things? I don't know that either." Rodrigo also tells us, "I know everything about Macabea because I once caught a glimpse of this girl with the sallow complexion from the northeast. Her expression revealed everything about her."I'd long heard of Clarice Lispector, but this is the first book by her that I have read. I will be seeking more of her books to read.
Recommended. 4 1/2 stars
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LibraryThing member MSarki
So Mr. Moser does the Lispector biography which I plan on reading soon as it arrives in my waiting hands, but then I read this here thing that Moser himself translated and he is making his comments of gushing praise for it saying that the book was the very first exposure he had to Lispector's
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genius and I am at the very same time finding myself getting a little bit sick to my stomach with all this loving on her, though I do realize she was beautiful in a Marlene Dietrich sort of way, and I also know her writing has been compared to Virginia Woolf and all that, and it makes it even more enticing for me in a sexy sort of way, but gees oh peaty it doesn't seem at all fair when I am smack in the middle of this The Hour of the Star affair and thinking this novel isn't any good and she is writing as she goes and she hasn't a clue for where she is going anyway and she is doing far too much talking out loud and saying too much about what a bore this writing is and how she does or doesn't like her characters and I am agreeing with her all the way even though the narrator speaking is supposed to be a man who for some reason sounds like Clarice herself if you want to know the truth of what I think about it all. Moser is lucky I gave this book even one star, but then, did I even have a choice in the matter? It's not like I could give it a half or even a quarter. "I didn't like it" is my honest rating. So there. Also proves I am not much of an expert when it comes to what I should like, but I know what it is when I see it. Show Less
LibraryThing member poetontheone
A compact yet deep metafictional narrative that magnifies a mundane woman, that digs at her being without desperation or effort, simply revealing her as is to reveal a portrait of classism, poverty, and alone-ness. All the while the narrator is trying not to betray his impartiality, his coldness,
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he is often endeared to or annoyed by this tragic and pitiful woman. A bare bones character study of the invisible woman that reveals the full ripeness of femininity and sensuality by showing its absence and the hidden desire for it to manifest. Show Less
LibraryThing member Lady_Lazarus
Touching yet hilarious. One of the rare books that changed my world and will haunt me until I die; it leaves a feeling of not quite understanding something profoundly humaine or reaching some ultimate truth about life - and it's not a nice feeling.
LibraryThing member V.V.Harding
The Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector's name is among the many Hispanic authors Roberto Bolaño's yearning young writers -- who live only to become writers themselves – put on their lists of sacred names – and so one wants to get to know these inspirational artists. For Lispector, though The
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Hours of the Star was perhaps not a good place to begin: it was her last work, and very short, so more reading is needed to get a real feel for her work.The Hours of the Star, however, is attractively transparent in the modern way about the fiction project it embodies, and about what will happen, as the title's meaning comes early on. In lieu of a plot, the story unfolds in a series of vignettes from the protagonist's life, sparsely punctuated with the author's thoughts. Despite the squalor and apparent hopelessness in her life, the character of girl from the country the book chronicles creates in the end an effect of peculiar exhilaration.
I'm looking forward to longer works, perhaps more expressive of Clarice Lispector's full range. For now, The Hours of the Star stands as an intense meditation on a short, obscure life.
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LibraryThing member StevenJohnTait
I liked it and want to read more of Lispector's work
LibraryThing member bell7
Our narrator, Rodrigo S.M., is writing a story about a young woman named Macabea, a typist from northeastern Brazil who has migrated to Rio; she is poor and ugly and has nothing going for her.
This novella has a postmodern flavor, with the narrator-writer being very much a part of the story, and he
This novella has a postmodern flavor, with the narrator-writer being very much a part of the story, and he
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very conscious of his creation even when its inevitability is running away with him and he's sick of his characters. I tend to find this type of story admirable but not enjoyable (I prefer a more traditional, linear narrative that I can sink into and "believe" for a short while instead of being constantly reminded of the fact that it's a story). Words and language were so important in the short narrative that I couldn't help but wonder how much of the nuance I was missing for reading it in English. Recommended if you enjoy experimental writing. Show Less
LibraryThing member berthirsch
I had read a lot of hype on Clarice Lispector and my expectations were high as I started this novella. I found the narrator's introduction to be long winded and a bit confusing yet once the story introduced the main characters it moved quicker with meaning and sensitivity.
The nature of beauty, of
The nature of beauty, of
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wanting to belong to a relationship and how this plays out for the lower classes of Brazil are well illustrated in this short,, simple tale. Show Less
LibraryThing member Lindoula
This just didn't appeal to me in any way.
LibraryThing member le.vert.galant
A perfect book.
LibraryThing member ReneePaule
Such a curious little book with a somewhat disturbed narrator. Well worth a read.
LibraryThing member streamsong
Clarice Lispector is one of Brazil's iconic writers. Born in 1920 in the Ukraine, she moved at an early age with her family to Brazil. She was only the third women to go to law school in Brazil and the first Jew. This book is the last published before her death in 1977.
Lispector often uses
This is an unusually styled book. The first character is an unnamed male narrator who is writing the story of a young impoverished woman in Rio de Janero; a woman not only living in physical poverty, but in spiritual and emotional poverty. She ekes out a daily living, living almost anonymously in the huge city and so beset by each day that she cannot imagine a future.
The male narrator steps out of his character several times to chide himself that he must not become sentimental and 'write like a woman'. There's a bit of humor, a large measure of pathos and a story line that will stick with me.
Lispector often uses
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nonconventional syntax and grammar. This can make it quite hard to translate; previous translators have often given in to the urge to 'clean' up her writing.This is an unusually styled book. The first character is an unnamed male narrator who is writing the story of a young impoverished woman in Rio de Janero; a woman not only living in physical poverty, but in spiritual and emotional poverty. She ekes out a daily living, living almost anonymously in the huge city and so beset by each day that she cannot imagine a future.
The male narrator steps out of his character several times to chide himself that he must not become sentimental and 'write like a woman'. There's a bit of humor, a large measure of pathos and a story line that will stick with me.
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LibraryThing member stillatim
Thus ends my attempt to get interested in Clarice Lispector. I can't see it getting any better for me than this book, in which she seems to have discovered self-consciousness (maybe all this writing is a little excessive? A little too pat?) and, thank all that is holy, irony. The meta-narrative
So, given that this is the best Lispector novel for me, I'm admitting defeat. I see that all of my friends love her, but I can't, I just can't. No more sentences like these for me:
"With her dead, the bells were ringing but without their bronzes giving them sound. Now I understand this story. It is the imminence in those bells that almost-almost ring. The greatness of every one."
No more sentence fragments. No more sentences about bells that sound like meat cleavers (despite the loveliness of 'almost-almost.') Is this Lispector, or her translators? I will never know. Farewell, you heavily marketed ostensible genius. Fare thee well.
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works, since the contrast between the narrator/author and the character lets us think something other than "oh my god this shit is genius" or "what a pretentious irritant this is," i.e., lets us consider the relationship between literary existentialism and the conditions of actual suffering and happiness. It's also occasionally funny, which is rather astonishing given my previous attempts to read Lispector have generally made me feel the urge to sit on a whoopy-cushion just to lighten the mood a little. So, given that this is the best Lispector novel for me, I'm admitting defeat. I see that all of my friends love her, but I can't, I just can't. No more sentences like these for me:
"With her dead, the bells were ringing but without their bronzes giving them sound. Now I understand this story. It is the imminence in those bells that almost-almost ring. The greatness of every one."
No more sentence fragments. No more sentences about bells that sound like meat cleavers (despite the loveliness of 'almost-almost.') Is this Lispector, or her translators? I will never know. Farewell, you heavily marketed ostensible genius. Fare thee well.
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LibraryThing member b.masonjudy
Lispector's last work evokes pathos in a truly bizarre and entertaining way, through the narrator's own frustration and angst, at dealing with his love for the character of the novel. I experienced the a pleasure when reading this book akin to the spectacle of watching my body morph to grotesque
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measures in a house of mirrors. Show Less
LibraryThing member jentifer
This short novel starts out a bit slow with a lot of metaphysical rambling. The narrator serves as a rather transparent figure for the voice of the author, who works through many of her feelings about writing and permanence. Ms. Lispector wrote this novel in the last year of her life, when she knew
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she was dying. The novel is the story of an awkward young woman living in the city; her life is stark and tender and beautiful and absolutely dismal. I loved it. Show Less
LibraryThing member zasmine
I'm surprised how long it took me to read this book. The beginning was extremely slow, but then it became more and more interesting. The writing style is definitely 'bold'. Somehow more than the characters in the book, I think about Clarice Lispector herself more after finishing the book. She must
And at the end of the book- there's an almost very 'reverent' note by the translator- Benjamin Moser.
While I've read some of her poetry translated and its wonderful, something tells me this must be her best book- her prima donna.
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have been an awfully interesting woman. She lived in Switzerland and called it a 'cemetery of sensations'. She used this crazy style of sentences, finishing/ not finishing- unbound by punctuation. And of course, her style of narration- this is really, really something.And at the end of the book- there's an almost very 'reverent' note by the translator- Benjamin Moser.
While I've read some of her poetry translated and its wonderful, something tells me this must be her best book- her prima donna.
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Awards
Language
Original language
Portuguese
Original publication date
1977
1986 (Pontiero translation)
Physical description
128 p.; 20 cm
ISBN
9789029510707