The Hour of the Star

Posted on 10 May 2017 by Clarice Lispector

The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector s consummate final novel, may well be her masterpiece Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo S.M., this brief, strange, and haunting tale is the story of Macab a, one of life s unfortunates Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a poor living as a typist, Macab a loves movies, Coca Cola, and her rat of a boyfriend she would like to be like Marylin Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed, sickly, and unloved Rodrigo recoils from her wretchedness, and yet he cannot avoid realization that for all her outward misery, Macab a is inwardly free She doesn t seem to know how unhappy she should be Lispector employs her pathetic heroine against her urbane, empty narrator edge of despair to edge of despair and, working them like a pair of scissors, she cuts away the reader s preconceived notions about poverty, identity, love, and the art of fiction In her last book she takes readers close to the true mystery of life and leaves us deep in Lispector territory indeed. Free Read Kindle ePUB The Hour of the Star author Clarice Lispector – kino-fada.fr What a delightful surprise I didn t know anything about Clarice Lispector when I picked up this slim novel, and started reading She had me in her dedication already, starting with the ir reverent sentence I dedicate this thing here to old Schumann and his sweet Clara who today alas are bones Nothing drags me into a story like such an opening What can I expect Irony, sarcasm, cultural reflections on music, a novel or a thing of some other definition Absolutely brilliant One short sen What a delightful surprise I didn t know anything about Clarice Lispector when I picked up this slim novel, and started reading She had me in her dedication already, starting with the ir reverent sentence I dedicate this thing here to old Schumann and his sweet Clara who today alas are bones Nothing drags me into..., , , ,, , , , , ,, ,, , , , , ,, ,, ,,,, ,,,, , ,, ,, , ,, , ,, , ,, ,, ,, , , , , ,,At times known as the greatest Jewish writer since Kafka, Clarice Lispector was one of the foremost Brazilian writers of the 20th century Born Chaya Pinkhasovna, her family emigrated from the Ukraine to Recife, Brazil when young Chaya was a littlethan a year old It was in the northeastern corner of South America s largest country that Lispector found the inspiration for her life s work writing The Hour of the Star is called by many to be her greatest work, published within a year of he At times known as the greatest Jewish writer since Kafka, Clarice Lispector was one of the foremost Brazilian writers of the 20th century Born Chaya Pinkhasovna, her family emigrated from the Ukraine to Recife, Brazil when young Chaya was a littlethan a year old ...Every once in a while she wandered into the better neighborhoods and gazed at the shop windows glittering with jewels and satin clothes just to mortify herself a bit Because she needed to find herself and suffering a little is a way of findingOne of these days, I m going to put out a list of 100 most iconic book characters I have read and Macabea of this little book is going to be one of them She is beautiful, she is healthy, she is confident, she is clever, she is witty, she is ...Lately I find myself in the frustrating position not uncommon among booksellers of being surrounded by farbooks than I can read Not only are there books in the shop, but in my spare moments at work I browse Goodreads, Abebooks and my local library system, and so have a constant stream of books passing through my hands, many of which I can do nothan glance at before returning them or putting them away for later In...Everything in the world began with a yes One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was bornThus opens the The Hour of the Star Published just before Clarice Lispector s death, reading it you could wonder if there is little of the intimate Lispector of Near to the Wild Heart However, she betrays herself from the start If in her first novel it was by its title, here we discover it in her opening lines However, it goes much deeper than the mere allusion to Joyce If here we finEverything in the world began with a yes One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was bornThus opens the The Hour of the Star Published just before Clarice Lispector s death, reading it you could wonder if there is little of the intimate Lispector of Near to the Wild Heart However, she betrays herself from the start If in her first novel it was by its title, here we discover it in her opening lines However, it goes much deeper than the mere allusion...I swear this book is made without words It is a mute photograph This book is a silence This book is a question Benjamin Moser s translation of Clarice Lispector s final work is extraordinary He preserves her unusual word order and her way of bringing new meaning to ordinary words, and the result is an absorbing work that brings the reader right up against existential questions of language and life, questions Lispector was confronting as she completed this novella shortly ...A deceptively short novella with a minimal story which has an underlying philosophical intensity that belies the simple plot It is the story of Macabea narrated by the rather mysterious Rodrigo SM he plays a slightly ambiguous role in the story his asides are amusing and he appears sympathetic However I suspect he is a rather unreliable and deliberately male narrator Macabea has moved to Rio from Northern Brazil and is now alone in the world strictly brought up by her aunt she is portrayed A deceptively short novella with a minimal story which has an underlying philosophical intensity that belies the simple plot It is the story of Macabea narrated by the rather mysterious Rodrigo SM he plays a slightly ambiguous role in the story his asides are amusing and he appears sympathetic However I suspect he is a rather unreliable and deliberately male narrator Macabea has moved to Rio from Northern Brazil and is now alone in the world strictly brought up by her aunt she is portrayed as one of life s casual...I ve been putting off any attempt at writing on this one because A it s rather a challenge without spoilers although, depending on how one reads the title, the very idea of spoiler is rather silly and B this is one I would expect casual readers to dislike intensely Which leads me toYou have confused the true and the real A line that Elizabeth Hand, in Fantasy Science Fiction calls Dhalgren s minatory epigraph I m not a reader of FSF or Ms Hand, but, dammit, they both dese I ve been putting off any attempt at writing on this one because A it s rather a challenge without spoilers although, depending on how one reads the title, the very idea of spoiler is rather silly and B this is one I would expect casual readers to dislike intensely Which leads me toYou have confused the true and the real A line that Elizabeth Hand, in Fantasy Science Fiction calls Dhalgren s minatory epigraph I m not a reader of FSF or Ms Hand, but, dammit, they both deserve credit for use of the word minatory Rodrigo S.M., an annoyingly intrusive narrator, presents the story of Macab a I say presents because at times he seems to be relating events in her life as they occur, and at other times, he presents them as if he s creating that life Think intr...Because there s the right to scream So I scream A pure scream and without begging alms. 4.5 stars.In Clarice Lispector s The Hour of the Star, I met a girl who wasn t there Was she a young typist from the slums of Rio, as the back cover of the book relates Well, yes and no For Macab a was so wispily not there, such athin slice of watermelon,that I m not sure I d know her if I saw her again Or is it that she, with her weirdly vaBecause there s the right to scream So I scream A pure scream and without begging alms. 4.5 stars.In Clarice Lispector s The Hour of the Star, I met a girl who wasn t there Was she a young typist from the slums of Rio, as the back cover of the book relates Well, yes and no For Macab a was so wispily not there, such athin slice of watermelon,that I m not sure I d know her if I saw her again Or is it that she, with her weirdly vaporous translucence, was in fact able to seep into and permeate my existence, to take up residence quietly somewhere just behind my eyes Is she so insidiously insubstantial that she will never really fade away You see, Macab a was someone whowas only vaguely beginning to know the kind of absence she had of herself inside herEvery morning,she dr...

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10 May 2017

Clarice Lispector