i love you clarice lispector

unsettling but astute account of poverty via the male gaze directed at a girl. the voyeurism strips naked macabea's existence, making it extremely uncomfortable to experience, and although he does not veer into outrightly sexualising her, the mania through which the unnamed narrator describes macabea might as well be. on the other hand, he handles her as he would a feather. this points to a deeper truth of a strand of obsession, of an unrelenting lust that crumbles into discomfort for the recipient. think: squeezing too tightly and bruising a petal that one wanted to simply gently touch.

the events of the final portion makes clear how individuals can be unaware of their material conditions, and how easily it is to lapse into indignity that appears soteriological

snappy read too! 80-odd pages

this book gave me a raging headache (complimentary)

Maybe self-referential to a fault towards the end, but I have never read a book that takes such gentle, painstaking care of the image of its hero, such assured control over how she will be remembered.

Me peguei lendo A Hora da Estrela meio desprevinida, talvez sem a atenção ou sem o entendimento preciso.

Mesmo assim, Clarice Lispector consegue ser surpreendente e inexperada, com um humor mórbido escondido na vida miserável de Macabéa.

Read it a little too fast because I needed to drop it back off at the library today! I was SO enamored with Lispector’s forward to the book, much more than the book itself. Definitely excited to sink my teeth into some different titles of hers. The experimental prose worked really well at times but at other points it didn’t land for me. I’ll probably revisit this one after reading some more of her work.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Been reading a lot of novellas for the first time this summer and this is the 3rd one in a row I’ve read that ends in death! Is this a thing?? Is novella just 70-100 pages and then boom main character or narrator dies?

Loved the last line so much…

“And now —now all I can do is light a cigarette and go home.

My God, I just remembered that we die. But —but me too?!

Don't forget that for now it's strawberry season.

Yes.”

como é esquisito ser gente

compelling and strange, reminds me of etel adnan’s work. thinking a lot about lyric compression, emotional density, and the vehicular motion of syntax (or syntactical choices)

finished in one sitting but to fully digest it will cost me life time, i suppose. my first lispector’s book and definitely not my last

my first Clarice Lispector's book and definitely won't be the last.

Only a women could author this book

described many emotions i didn’t even know i had. i totally understand the appeal of her prose, and i think i’d like it even more in a setting where characters and stories could be more fleshed out. i am definitely planning on reading one of her longer novels soon.

Oh yes, to have a Mercedes Benz, a yellow one, preferably a Pagoda, 1977 model, would be a dream. Second Lispector I've read. I've always thought Lispector is a master in creating madness from the mundane, and this one I think cements that reputation. Rodrigo S.M. is such an invention, a narrator so unserious yet at some point one might be misled that he's the main character. Told in the perspective of another narrator, telling the accounts of someone else's life, it's as if we're to keep a skeptical outlook on things, to only look at the accounts on a testimonium de auditu basis and second guess every bit of it, or is it the gist of it? The perspective transition went so smoothly it's barely noticeable, and then suddenly like a wrecking ball it went full gonzo and broke the fourth wall. Pretty experimental for my uncultured arse, short, yet dense with obscure references, one of my best reads this year, or is it? Oh well, all I could do now is light a cigarette and go perhaps, ah yes, is it Persimmon season yet?

i’m so back.. and my question is.. AM I A MONSTER OR IS THIS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A PERSON????

5 pages in and i kid you not I am enthralled. Lispector describes the book in a way that's very much about the nuts and bolts of crafting the story it is telling, along with the story itself. As a matter of consequence, the presence of the author is omnipresent, and that's what makes it so captivating. This 80-page book explores an author who created a character he then loved, and he tells the story of her but then is more concerned with himself and his ultimate reasons for writing. Macabea, a girl who lives a miserable, impoverished life in which she makes no impact on the world and never knows love, whose greatest joy is getting to be in a room by herself. Macabea’s happiness, as the author makes himself clear, may be informed by the fact that she doesn’t know how miserable she should be, but it’s none the less very real. The author is secure enough to be unhappy about the lack of meaning in his life whereas Macabea must struggle to obtain the basics of survival and is thus at peace just to have the little she has. As Macabea comments: “Sadness was also something for rich people, for people who could afford it, for people who didn’t have anything better to do.” Lispector’s prose is difficult, but she manages some breath-taking turns of phrase and stunning insights: “Who hasn’t ever wondered: Am I a monster or is this what it means to be human?” “What can you do with the truth that everyone’s a little sad and a little alone.” “They had forgotten the bitterness of childhood because childhood, once it’s over, is always bittersweet and even makes you nostalgic.” The book raises a lot of wonders, does ignorance ever really a bliss? what gives in to the sufferings one has indefinably been perceiving as "not miserable, but romantic"? what aspect enables human to determine which, and what, is sufficient enough to trigger their inability to ignore any longer? But then, we should recognize too each little life’s greatness, the awesome power of just being alive that even the ‘pointless’ Macabea had. And presumably to enjoy the strawberries while we’re still here to do so. It’s all the eerier knowing that Lispector was dying while writing The Hour of the Star, and from what I have read did not know it. She is truly brilliant, a literary goddess if I may be as bold to say so.

really loved this. 4-stars only because the beginning dragged a bit. a tip to avoid spoilers: if you're reading this particular edition, don't read the foreword until after you've finished the book; if you're reading a different edition, and you come across her interview quote about a fortune teller, don't read the quote.

i have never felt so illiterate

does death only come to those who want to live?

Não acredito que li isso tudo p finalmente descobrir pq o livro se chama a hora da estrela🤡

Não sei se algum dia posso me acostumar com a escrita da Clarice, o que não é necessariamente algo ruim. Talvez o incômodo seja justamente por divergir da estrutura e estilo das minhas outras experiências literárias.

Tudo isso pra chegar à conclusão que sim, lerei mais Clarice Lispector daqui pra frente.

i have never seen language be used in such a way wow i think this is objectively like the best book ive ever read

meta af, she writes as if you were reading your own thoughts and emotions were painted into the narrative. Separation through oneness as the relationship between narrator and characters and in between roles blurred to elicit the collective human experience

A classic. I always liked Clarice Lispector but when I was younger I didn't have much patience to read her books, now I'm rereading it and having other opinions about it! The book is short but the reading is a bit sluggish so it took me at least three days to finish it, the narrator – and the protagonist – is very interesting although he's a bit egocentric, the first twenty pages were just about him, him and him even though the story itself should be about Macabea, a few time he even interrupt everything to talk about himself. Despite being a little peculiar and maybe even one-sided, the protagonist is interesting enough to make the reader care about her and even hope that everything gets better. The end was the part that I liked the most, I don't know it's a spoiler but I thought it was good to break expectations! A friend said to read the book with the "mind crazy people" and it makes a lot of sense lmao