Hi Romance Studiers,

After taking a day to reflect on what I read in Clarice Lispector’s “The Hour of the Star”, all I could think about was how honest and transparent the narrator/author was the whole time. The book itself is quite short, being only 70ish pages but the characters within the story were so captivating, largely in part due to the narrator seeping her own opinions into the depictions of the characters. The story follows the short-lived life of Macabéa and how her naivety is both her sweetest and most detrimental characteristic. My personal favourite example of Macabéa’s personality bleeding through the page was in a dialogue between her and her ex-boyfriend Olímpico when he is criticizing her for asking so many questions. While there can a greater discussion using a feminist lens on how this illustrates the silencing of women, especially underprivileged women who are unwary of their disadvantages, I find Macabéa’s reaction to the interaction so hilarious. As Olímpico states “I’ll tell you something: you can still get women cheap. You didn’t cost me much, just a coffee. I won’t spend another cent on you, okay?”, Macabéa’s only thought and reaction towards this insult towards her character was “I don’t deserve him to buy me anything because I’ve peed in my pants” (Lispector, 46-47).

While dialogue like this was entertaining, my favourite moments were the paragraphs led by the narrator that was detached from the overall plot. A standout of this was on page 61 where Lispector opens the paragraph with “I am absolutely tired of literature; only muteness keeps me company. If I still write it’s because I have nothing better to do in the world while I wait for death”, which in my notes I highlighted and wrote “your average writer’s Twitter posts” (Lispector, 61). She keeps it so honest throughout the story, letting her biases present themselves as what they are, clear biases towards characters. When describing Olímpico near the start of the book as the audience learns more and more about him, Lispector as if mid-conversation with the reader through the page states, “No, I lied, now I see it all: he wasn’t innocent in the least, even though he was a general victim of the world. He had, I just discovered, inside of him the hard seed of evil, he liked taking revenge, this was his great pleasure” (Lispector, 39). In my mind, this story is an outlet for Lispector to bash her self-created opps and there is nothing wrong with that. This story reads as if you are on a FaceTime with the author, creating a very impersonal and intimate reading. As someone who loves to yip-yap with his friends on the phone and unabashedly let his biases loose within his storytelling, reading this story was like having a conversation with myself in that setting.

Apart from the direct biases and talking to the audience elements of Lispector’s writing, I really enjoyed the little things she added into the writing that gave his style its own personality. The big standout examples of this was writing small or big explosion in brackets depending on the impact of inciting incidents during the latter half of the story. I personally felt that this is something that I would want to write in my own stories and was a cute author touch to an already unique story. While this story was very funny despite being a tragedy, it had moments that I really enjoyed for its philosophical and heartfelt prose (please tell me if I used that work wrong). In my notes, I wrote “that’s called *** bars” in response to Lispector’s prose on page 32: “I know nothing. What can you do with the truth that everyone’s a little sad and a little alone” (Lispector, 32). It felt so raw and real in a book full of silliness, and these juxtaposing moments made me really enjoy my reading experience.

My question for the class is, did you find Macabéa’s naivety an aspect of her character that you enjoyed or disliked, and how come? I’m excited to read your thoughts in the comments and hear more about your opinions in class 🙂