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A review by art_humaniser
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
4.0
"The trick is to begin suddenly, like plunging into an icy sea and bearing its intense coldness with suicidal courage"
I've always wondered what it would feel like being hit by an all-consuming story that makes you restless - may be this is the life of a fantasy author saying oh yes I began writing this story then it forced me to write because I was the host and it was the parasite.
"Yet I have no intention of adorning the word, for were I to touch the girl's bread, that bread would turn to gold — and the girl (she is nineteen years old) the girl would be unable to bite into it, and consequently die of hunger. So I must express myself simply in order to capture her delicate and shadowy existence".
But who would care about writing a mundane girl. I don't particularly enjoy reading sad stories written for the sake of melancholic porn. Even though the starlight has a miserable life I wanted to know her because she was loved by the narrator. There is no character development either but the narrator accepts her as she is and shares the girl's vulnerability with observations of her own being and of the society she is witnessing.
"Why do I write? First of all because I have captured the spirit of the language and at times it is the form that constitutes the content. I write, therefore, not for the girl from the North-east but for the much more serious reason of force majeure, or as they say in formal petitions by 'force of law'"
The enthusiasm the narrator has for the mundane tragedy without glorifying it is what makes me so at ease with the story. I'll keep this writing style very dear to my heart.
"But who am I to censure the guilty? The worst part is that I must forgive them. It is essential to arrive at an absolute zero so that we indifferently come to love or not to love the criminal who kills us. But I am no longer sure of myself: I must ask, without knowing whom I should ask, if it is really necessary to love the man who slays me; to ask who among you is slaying me. My life, stronger than myself, replies that it wants revenge at all costs. It warns me that I must struggle like someone drowning, even if I should perish in the end. If it be so, so be it."
I've always wondered what it would feel like being hit by an all-consuming story that makes you restless - may be this is the life of a fantasy author saying oh yes I began writing this story then it forced me to write because I was the host and it was the parasite.
"Yet I have no intention of adorning the word, for were I to touch the girl's bread, that bread would turn to gold — and the girl (she is nineteen years old) the girl would be unable to bite into it, and consequently die of hunger. So I must express myself simply in order to capture her delicate and shadowy existence".
But who would care about writing a mundane girl. I don't particularly enjoy reading sad stories written for the sake of melancholic porn. Even though the starlight has a miserable life I wanted to know her because she was loved by the narrator. There is no character development either but the narrator accepts her as she is and shares the girl's vulnerability with observations of her own being and of the society she is witnessing.
"Why do I write? First of all because I have captured the spirit of the language and at times it is the form that constitutes the content. I write, therefore, not for the girl from the North-east but for the much more serious reason of force majeure, or as they say in formal petitions by 'force of law'"
The enthusiasm the narrator has for the mundane tragedy without glorifying it is what makes me so at ease with the story. I'll keep this writing style very dear to my heart.
"But who am I to censure the guilty? The worst part is that I must forgive them. It is essential to arrive at an absolute zero so that we indifferently come to love or not to love the criminal who kills us. But I am no longer sure of myself: I must ask, without knowing whom I should ask, if it is really necessary to love the man who slays me; to ask who among you is slaying me. My life, stronger than myself, replies that it wants revenge at all costs. It warns me that I must struggle like someone drowning, even if I should perish in the end. If it be so, so be it."