Existing vs. Living? A Take on Poverty and Storytelling from “The Hour of the Star”

What a nice and short book this week :))

“The Hour of The Star” by Clairice Lispector was very interesting for me to read. Although at times I did not understand the experimental writing style of the book, it very quickly became the highlight of this reading for me. It felt a lot like the the Narrator was having a conversation with me and spit-balling his thoughts at me rather than him telling a story. I found this aspect of the book very refreshing and interesting.

One of the things that stood out most to me in the book were the characters. More specifically, the idea of what a character is and how they relate to the author and the reader. This book is written in the perspective of and author writing about a girl, so in a way we have two “layers” of story in the book.  I thought that the narrator was the most interesting part of the book and found his dialogues and thoughts about his writing very entertaining to read. From my perspective, he saw the character he was writing as a person who already has a story that has been completed. Rather creating events for the character or creating personality of the character, he was doing something more akin to introducing us to his character and telling us about the life that this person lives. I think that this style of writing comes from the idea that people like Macabea, who live in mundane poverty in Brazil, already exist in The World and rather than creating a character to represent them, The Narrator is merely informing us about the reality that they are living in

Another theme that stuck out to me was poverty. Poverty in this book was described in a way that was very different from the popular discourse in media. When I read things about poverty or hear music that talks about the experience of poverty, they always revolve around “THE GRIND” or the work that needs to be done to get themselves out and live among the bourgeoise class of society. Lispector’s description of poverty is a lot more visceral in my opinion. Rather than having large ambitions break out from the chains of poverty, like her boyfriend Olimpico, Macabea has learned to exist in poverty and has developed an almost eerie indifference to it and it’s effects on her life.

It was interesting to me that the narrator states that she lives for the first time right before she is about to die, which suggests to me that she was not living before, but simply existing. This contrast between living and existing is something that comes to my mind very often as I often find myself falling into the routine of simply existing rather than living and enjoying the life I have. I think that this idea of existing is a commentary from Lispector on how poverty effects people and the reality that people in poverty in Brazil live in. I think that Lispector is shedding light on the fact that the reality for most people in poverty is that they must simply exist until death comes to take them and that they must endure this mundanity because there’s a good chance that nothing else is waiting for them.

This book is a commentary about how one should go about commenting on and telling these delicate stories and how to do justice to the people who live these sad realities.

My question: Do you find that you disassociate from your day to day life often, and what things remind you to live rather than exist?