Week8: The Hour of the Star

Hi, everyone. Welcome to my week 8's blog. I read the book "The Hour of the Star" this week and have many thoughts to share with you. 

This book is written by Clarice Lispector. This book was written shortly before her death. Although it is not an autobiographical novel, some of the things that happened in the book also reflect Lispector's life, such as the poor life of the heroine Macabea. It is very similar to Lispector's childhood life. At the end of the book, the heroine goes to visit a fortune teller, and Lispector also visited a fortune teller before.

The initial impression this book gave me was one of confusion and strangeness. I feel like I often use the word 'confusion' when writing blog posts, but sometimes I really don't understand why the author chose to write this way, so I can only use the word 'confusion' to describe it. At the beginning of the book, it describes a girl through the eyes of a writer. The girl depicted by the writer has a very tragic life, which makes me feel very sorry for her. However, the author believes that even if the girl in his writing is abandoned by the whole world, he still loves her because he is her author.

At the beginning of the story, the name of the protagonist is not revealed. It's only later when a boy asks for her name that we come to know it. However, when she mentions her name, she hesitates because she feels her name is like a skin disease, although I don't quite understand why. Their relationship isn't as beautiful as I imagined. Olimpico looks down on Macabea for her lack of education, and they can't connect at all, but Macabea is very fond of Olimpico. Eventually, Macabea witnesses Olimpico cheating on her with someone else, which disgusts me. Not only does Olimpico cheat, but he also speaks ill of Macabea. I feel even more sorry for Macabea; being betrayed by a loved one must be very painful. However, I also can't understand why later Macabea still continues to associate with the person Olimpico cheated with; it's truly unimaginable. Even at this point, I still feel confused, and I find Macabea's life truly tragic. What surprises me the most about the whole story is Macabea's death; it's unbelievable that her life ends like this. However, I'm not sure if Lispector intended to merge Macabea into herself at this point, perhaps she sensed something about her, leading to such an ending.

Question: Do you think Macabea's death elevated the story? Do you think Macabea's life was tragic?

Comments

  1. Jon Beasley-MurrayMarch 6, 2024 at 8:12 PM

    "such as the poor life of the heroine Macabea."

    I'm not so sure about this. If anything (apart from the obvious), there's probably more overlap between Lispector and the narrator, Rodrigo SM.

    "Not only does Olimpico cheat, but he also speaks ill of Macabea."

    But pretty much everyone speaks ill of Macabéa, no? Even the narrator.

    As to whether her life is tragic... I'm sure if depends in part on how we define tragedy. But as we are repeatedly told: in some ways, she doesn't know any better.

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