I had never heard of Clarice Lispector until I read Lorrie Moore’s review of Benjamin Moser’s recent biography of her in the New York Review of Books. It was a fascinating article on what seems to have been an equally fascinating life, and I decided to explore some of her writing.
The Hour of the Star is a small and intense novella. It takes almost half of its 86 pages to introduce the protagonist, a young girl called Macabéa who comes from the sticks and lives in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The first half of the book is an extended, rambling discussion on how to get the story started.
In many ways, it’s a frustrating book to read, and it’s hard to see how that’s anything other than deliberate. What saves it from the disastrous smugness that plagues so many post-modernist books is the sense of uncertainty, of struggle that is characteristic of Lispector’s writing.
Gradually, Macabéa becomes more and more real, and as she does so we become more and more sympathetic towards her. Lispector maintains a consistently ironic detachment, and a constant air of play.
The Hour of the Star is a strange little book, marvellous and inimitable, and I shall definitely return to it. Lispector is a beguiling author, an author I want to read more of.
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