Name: 🪻's review of The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
Item: The Hour of the Star
Rating: 5
Author: 🪻

Clarice Lispector

The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector's consummate final novel, may well be her masterpiece. Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo S.M., this brief, strange, and haunting tale is the story of Macabéa, one of life's unfortunates. Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a poor living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Cola, and her rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed, sickly, and unloved. Rodrigo recoils from her wretchedness, and yet he cannot avoid the realization that for all her outward misery, Macabéa is inwardly free. She doesn't seem to know how unhappy she should be. As Macabéa heads toward her absurd death, Lispector employs her pathetic heroine against her urbane, empty narrator--edge of despair to edge of despair--and, working them like a pair of scissors, she cuts away the reader's preconceived notions about poverty, identity, love, and the art of fiction. In her last book she takes readers close to the true mystery of life and leaves us deep in Lispector territory indeed.

100th Anniversary Edition

The Hour of the Star

Último livro escrito por Clarice Lispector, A hora da estrela é também uma despedida. Lançada pouco antes de sua morte em 1977, a obra conta os momentos de criação do escritor Rodrigo S. M. (a própria Clarice) narrando a história de Macabéa, uma alagoana órfã, virgem e solitária, criada por uma tia tirana, que a leva para o Rio de Janeiro, onde trabalha como datilógrafa. Em A hora da estrela Clarice escreve sabendo que a morte está próxima e põe um pouco de si nas personagens Rodrigo e Macabéa. Ele, um escritor à espera da morte; ela, uma solitária que gosta de ouvir a Rádio Relógio e que passou a infância no Nordeste, como Clarice. A despedida de Clarice é uma obra instigante e inovadora. Como diz o personagem Rodrigo, "estou escrevendo na hora mesma em que sou lido". É Clarice contando uma história e, ao mesmo tempo, revelando ao leitor seu processo de criação e sua angústia diante da vida e da morte. Macabéa, a nordestina, cumpre seu destino sem reclamar. Feia, magra, sem entender muito bem o que se passa à sua volta, é maltratada pelo namorado Olímpico e pela colega Glória. Os dois são o seu oposto: o metalúrgico Olímpico sonha alto e quer ser deputado, e Glória, carioca da gema e gorda, tem família e hora certa para comer. Os dois acabam juntos, enquanto Macabéa, sozinha, continua a viver sem saber por que está vivendo, sem pensar no futuro nem sonhar com uma vida melhor. Até que um dia, seguindo uma recomendação de Glória, procura a cartomante Carlota, uma ex-prostituta do Mangue, que revela a Macabéa toda a inutilidade de sua vida. Mas também enche-a de esperança, prevendo a paixão por um estrangeiro rico, com quem ela iria se casar.

A hora da estrela

dyonisos.

Via-se perfeitamente que estava viva pelo piscar constante dos olhos grandes, pelo peito magro que se levantava e abaixava em respiração talvez dificil. Mas quem sabe se ela não estaria precisando de morrer? Pois há momentos em que a pessoa está precisando de uma pequena mortezinha e sem nem ao menos saber. Quanto a mim, substituo o ato da morte por um seu símbolo. Símbolo este que pode se resumir num profundo beijo mas não na parede áspera e sim boca a boca na agonia do prazer que é morte. Eu, que simbolicamente morro várias vezes só para experimentar a ressurreição.

Vou fazer o possível para que ela não morra. Mas que vontade de adormecê-la e de eu mesmo ir para a cama dormir.

Estou absolutamente cansado de literatura; só a mudez me faz companhia. Se ainda escrevo é porque nada mais tenho a fazer no mundo enquanto espero a morte. A procura da palavra no escuro. 

Quanto a mim, só sou verdadeiro quando estou sozinho. Quando eu era pequeno pensava que de um momento para outro eu cairia para fora do mundo. Por que as nuvens não caem, já que tudo cai? É que a gravidade é menor que a força do ar que as levanta. Inteligente, não é? Sim, mas caem um dia em chuva. É a minha Vingança.

— Eu sou sozinha no mundo e não acredito em ninguém, todos mentem, às vezes até na hora do amor, eu não acho que um ser fale com o outro, a verdade só me vem quando estou sozinha. 

— Eu vou ter tanta saudade de mim quando morrer. 

Ela: — Desculpe mas não acho que sou muito gente. 

Ele: — Mas todo mundo é gente, Meu Deus! 

Enquanto eu tiver perguntas e não houver resposta continuarei a escrever. 

In a haunting psychological tale of despair and freedom, Macabea is ugly, underfed, sickly, and unloved yet she fascinates Rodrigo because she is unaware of how unhappy she should be

jhet with an h

I write because I have nothing else to do in the world

I've experienced almost everything, including passion and its despair. And now I'd only like to have what I would have been and never was.

Geetu 

“Who hasn’t ever wondered: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?”

“Aku sendirian di dunia dan aku tidak percaya pada siapa pun, semua orang berbohong, bahkan kadang pada waktu bercinta, aku tidak berpikir seseorang bisa berbicara dengan yang lain, kebenaran hanya datang kepadaku ketika aku sendirian.”

Ia bernama Macabéa, seorang gadis naif dari wilayah timur laut Brasil yang miskin. Tinggal di kota Rio de Janeiro yang hiruk pikuk, keberadaan Macabéa ditandai dengan ketidaksadaran akan penderitaannya sendiri. Pertemuannya dengan seorang peramal memberinya pengharapan tentang pergantian nasib, namun takdir mempunyai rencana berbeda. Novel yang menghantui ini merupakan salah satu karya utama Clarice Lispector, merangkai narasi kepolosan yang dihancurkan oleh kenyataan pahit, menantang pembaca untuk menghadapi kesenjangan hidup yang mencolok mata.

Waktu Bintang

madina

[...] Menjadi lebih dari saya, karena diri saya sangat kecil.

Saya menulis karena saya putus asa dan lelah, saya tidak tahan lagi dengan rutinitas menjadi diri saya sendiri dan jika bukan karena tulisan yang selalu baru, saya mati secara simbolis setiap hari. 

sofia 🪆

"Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?"

“…But I want the worst thing of all: life. So let those who read me get punched in the stomach to see if it’s good. Life is a punch in the stomach.”

Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Cola and her philandering rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly and unloved. Yet telling her story is the narrator Rodrigo S.M., who tries to direct Macabéa's fate but comes to realize that, for all her outward misery, she is inwardly free. Slyly subverting ideas of poverty, identity, love and the art of writing itself, Clarice Lispector's audacious last novel is a haunting portrayal of innocence in a bad world.

Hour of the Star

mara

you never forget the person you slept with. The event remains tattooed with a fiery mark on living flesh and all who glimpse the stigma flee in horror

júlia dornelas

- Eu vou ter tanta saudade de mim quando morrer. 

Ele: - Por que esse espanto? Você não é gente? Gente fala de gente. 

Ela: – Desculpe mas não acho que sou muito gente. 

Ele: - Mas todo mundo é gente, Meu Deus! 

Desculpai-me mas vou continuar a falar de mim que sou meu desconhecido, e ao escrever me surpreendo um pouco pois descobri que tenho um destino. Quem já não se perguntou: sou um monstro ou isto é ser uma pessoa? 

Quero antes afiançar que essa moça não se conhece senão através de ir vivendo à toa. Se tivesse a tolice de se perguntar “quem sou eu?" cairia estatelada e em cheio no chão. 

“It’s better for me not to speak of happiness or unhappiness — it provokes that swooning longing and lilac, that violet perfume, the chilly waters of the gentle tide in foam upon the sand. I don’t want to provoke because it hurts.”

maia

In The Hour of the Star, the narrator is a man, Rodrigo S. M., an obvious projection of Clarice herself. In the following sentences, I hear her voice. 

I write because I have nothing else to do in the world: I was left over and there is no place for me in the world of men. I write because I'm desperate and I'm tired, I can no longer bear the routine of being me and if not for the always novelty that is writing, I would die symbolically every day.

bella <3

since there wasn’t anyone to answer she herself seemed to have answered: that’s how it is because that’s how it is. is there another answer in the world? if anyone knows a better one speak up and tell me, i’ve been waiting for years. 

things were so good that they could go very bad. because fully mature things rot. 

because “who am i?” creates a need. and how can you satisfy that need? those who wonder are incomplete. 

how do i know everything that's about to come and that i myself still don’t know because i never lived it? because on a street in Rio de Janeiro i glimpsed in the air the feeling of perdition on the face of a northeastern girl. not to mention that i as a boy grew up in the northeast. i also know about things because i'm alive. everyone alive knows, even if they don't know, they know. so you gentlemen know more than you think. 

🪻

I love the way that Lispector writes like wowowowwww

Reese Claro

Pouco antes de morrer, em 1977, Clarice Lispector decide se afastar da inflexão intimista que caracteriza sua escrita para desafiar a realidade. O resultado desse salto na extroversão é A hora da estrela, o livro mais surpreendente que escreveu. Se desde Perto do coração selvagem, seu romance de estreia, Clarice estava de corpo inteiro, todo o tempo, no centro de seus relatos, agora a cena é ocupada por personagens que em nada se parecem com ela. A nordestina Macabéa, a protagonista de A hora da estrela, é uma mulher miserável, que mal tem consciência de existir. Depois de perder seu único elo com o mundo, uma velha tia, ela viaja para o Rio, onde aluga um quarto, se emprega como datilógrafa e gasta suas horas ouvindo a Rádio Relógio. Apaixona-se, então, por Olímpico de Jesus, um metalúrgico nordestino, que logo a trai com uma colega de trabalho. Desesperada, Macabéa consulta uma cartomante, que lhe prevê um futuro luminoso, bem diferente do que a espera. Clarice cria até um falso autor para seu livro, o narrador Rodrigo S.M., mas nem assim consegue se esconder. O desejo de desaparecimento, que a morte real logo depois consolidaria, se frustra. Entre a realidade e o delírio, buscando social enquanto sua alma a engolfava, Clarice escreveu um livro singular. A hora da estrela é um romance sobre o desamparo a que, apesar do consolo da linguagem, todos estamos entregues. — JOSÉ CASTELLO, Jornalista, escritor e Mestre em Comunicação pela UFRJ

Como a cabeça dessa tal Clarice funcionava?

Heron 

gosh, such beautiful prose, both tragic and comic I don’t know how to explain (like Macabéa). But what a skinny legend this is!!! absolutely floored by her writing—artistic, enigmatic, introspective, quiet but profound. It’s difficult to encapsulate the essence of this book with words, what lies beyond the lines and the true depth it delivers despite it being such a thin novella. it’s literary art, in every page that could only be experienced by the reader. 

maderinn⟢

this book is made of nothing, a meditation on writing that comprises three interconnected layers: the narrator, macabéa, and clarice herself as they challenge each other on how to face the story and the layers that continue to flow throughout the pulses created in the book. it feels like they are all annoyed with each other and i love it. the story intentionally fails here and is being told very poorly as a way to show how language fails people like macabéa.

personality really comes out through the writing i think this book is magnificent. so much questions so much meditations on life that has no answers and no meaning. book feels so unfinished but it feels so intentional as a way to express that a life so small and unseen feels like a moral failure and yet as a writer it must be told no matter how devastating the writer deems it to be — symbolic of what a brutal world does to the story written by a form of humanity who doesn’t believe in it. this is perfect.

this book is made of nothing, a meditation on writing that comprises three interconnected layers: the narrator, macabéa, and clarice herself as they challenge each other on how to face the story and the layers that continue to flow throughout the pulses created in the book. it feels like they are all annoyed with each other and i love it. the story intentionally fails here and is being told very poorly as a way to show how language fails people like macabéa.

personality really comes out through the writing i think this book is magnificent. so much questions so much meditations on life that has no answers and no meaning. book feels so unfinished but it feels so intentional as a way to express that a life so small and unseen feels like a moral failure and yet as a writer it must be told no matter how devastating the writer deems it to be — symbolic of what a brutal world does to the story written by a form of humanity who doesn’t believe in it. this is perfect.

laru

o fato de que eu li tres livros esse ano é chocante #bookaholic

mudou minha vida

toda vez q eu achar q minha vida ta ruim eu vou lembrar dela mds macabea vc sempre viverá nos nossos pensamentos

Doesn't feels like a book, more like a mirror held up to the parts of life we try not to look at. Not feel-good read, yes, since the book will wreck you quietly. If you crave literary that hurts beautifully and philosophical mind spirals this is 1000% for you.

Aksara

on invisibility, on girlhood, on poverty, on denied desires. clarice tells it in this broken, hesitant voice that feels like watching someone breathe for the last time. i’ll keep returning to it.

something this short holds so much.
on invisibility, on girlhood, on poverty, on denied desires. clarice tells it in this broken, hesitant voice that feels like watching someone breathe for the last time. i’ll keep returning to it.

Had to get to page 20 before it was less hard work but very unusual and impressive. She’s a super cool writer and I thought it had a lot of impact. Confusing though 

Saskia Hughes 

This book is a silence. This book is a question.”

sometimes you read a book and can’t help but think, “this is a gift.” the hour of the star is my first book by Lispector, and i feel like i’ve opened a door to my favorite place on earth.

Anyway, it’s true that I too have no pity for my main character, the northeastern girl: it’s a story I want to be cold. But I have the right to be sadly cold, and you don’t. So that’s why I won’t let you. This isn’t just a narrative, it’s above all primary life that breathes, breathes, breathes”

what else can i say but that i loved everything this story had to offer? i can’t decide yet if the star was our main character Macabéa or her narrator, Rodrigo S.M. “

The one who knows too little, or the one who knows too much

i think this piece of metafiction is a powerful example of the idea that 

we don’t see things as they are, but as we are.

 in just 94 pages, it manages to strip the main character of everything that would make her complex, and yet, in that “nothingness,” we still find a deep resonance of the human spirit. it also offers a social critique of poverty, particularly the distant gaze with which the privileged class views said poverty. because only those who have never lacked knowledge could think ignorance is real freedom. furthermore, it’s a story that challenges the narrator’s authority and invites us into the process of a writer’s creation of their characters, showing how they will forever be interlinked.

“If the girl knew that my own joy also comes from my deepest sadness and that sadness was a failed joy.”

oof, i just want to read every literary analysis out there on this book because the language, the structure, and the intention held all my attention; and now have all my praise.

i really can’t wait to continue reading more of Lispector’s work.

“This book is a silence. This book is a question.”

sometimes you read a book and can’t help but think, “this is a gift.” the hour of the star is my first book by Lispector, and i feel like i’ve opened a door to my favorite place on earth.

“Anyway, it’s true that I too have no pity for my main character, the northeastern girl: it’s a story I want to be cold. But I have the right to be sadly cold, and you don’t. So that’s why I won’t let you. This isn’t just a narrative, it’s above all primary life that breathes, breathes, breathes”

what else can i say but that i loved everything this story had to offer? i can’t decide yet if the star was our main character Macabéa or her narrator, Rodrigo S.M. “The one who knows too little, or the one who knows too much.”

i think this piece of metafiction is a powerful example of the idea that we don’t see things as they are, but as we are. in just 94 pages, it manages to strip the main character of everything that would make her complex, and yet, in that “nothingness,” we still find a deep resonance of the human spirit. it also offers a social critique of poverty, particularly the distant gaze with which the privileged class views said poverty. because only those who have never lacked knowledge could think ignorance is real freedom. furthermore, it’s a story that challenges the narrator’s authority and invites us into the process of a writer’s creation of their characters, showing how they will forever be interlinked.

“If the girl knew that my own joy also comes from my deepest sadness and that sadness was a failed joy.”

oof, i just want to read every literary analysis out there on this book because the language, the structure, and the intention held all my attention; and now have all my praise.

i really can’t wait to continue reading more of Lispector’s work.

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 

Ghee

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

First ever Clarice Lispector read and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Is it worth it to want? To desire? I envied Macabéa at some points; she possessed true freedom   

tomika

this book gave me a raging headache (complimentary)

abi a

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. 

Alex Noble

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.

soir

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.

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? 

“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.

Annie Millman

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.”

unconventional prose. i fear i may not have completely understood what she was trying to say (the fault is on my end). this is one of those stories where you just know the main character would not live "happily ever after"; her story starts in tragedy and in tragedy it will end.  

Ren 

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

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. 

01010111 01000010

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?

deva

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

Clarice Lispector died of cancer at the age of fifty-six on 9th December 1977. 'The hour of the star' was published that same year and acclaimed by the critics as 'a regional allegory' of extraordinary awareness and insight. Lispector herself defined 'The hour of the star' as a book 'made without words...a mute photograph...a silence...a question'. The tale of Macabea can be read at different levels and lends itself to various interpretations. The book's subtle interplay of fiction and philosophy sums up Lispector's unique talent as a writer and her lasting influence on contemporary Brazilian writing.

jess

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.

iamazoo

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.

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The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector

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