chluu 's review for:

Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector

2.5

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“The worst part is that I have to forgive them. We must reach such a nothing that we indifferently love or don't love the criminal who kills us.”

This is a book that I so desperately want to like. Clarice Lispector is evidently a brilliant and multifaceted writer, yet I must admit she stands contrary to what I usually read. Before casting a final judgement, I feel It necessary to acquaint myself to and explore her other literary works more extensively. 

Hour of the Star, despite my ambivalence, possesses such an enigmatic and complex style. Lispector isn’t afraid to manipulate words and syntax, creating a narrative that is layered and compelling in its ambiguity. Definitely a must-read for anybody who — like myself — enjoys deconstructing unreliable narrative lenses, distinguishing the “real” from the fabricated. 

The novella entails the life of Macabéa, a poor northeastern girl characterised by an excessive sense of insignificance. Narrating her story, Rodrigo S.M grapples with cognitive dissonances: perilously yearning to direct her fate while paradoxically defining the necessities of death and despair. It is through these conflicts that Lispector explores some of her most philosophically charged notions: the mystery of individuality, the ever-presence of death, and the interminable complexities of storytelling and perception. 

As I mentioned, Lispector is vastly different from my usual preferences — to judge her based purely on inexperience, I feel, would be a great discredit to her talents. Definitely an author I will be allocating more time to.

“….Just as nobody one day would teach her how to die: yet shed surely die one day as if shed learned the starring role by heart. For at the hour of death a person becomes a shining movie star, it's everyone's moment of glory….”