Fiction, 1977
In a touching act of kindness, my roommate gifted me an English translation of one of her favourite books, Clarice Lispector’s Hour of the Star. For all those whose focus cannot be sustained beyond 80 pages, and who yearn for the satisfaction (and bragging right) of finishing a novel in a day, this one is for you. The novella is smaller than the width of my pinky, and you should know I do not have stubby fingers.
We follow Rodrigo’s account of a woman he has never actually met, Macabéa. Rodrigo’s backstory, or reliability, is irrelevant. All we are supposed to know is that Macabéa exists, suffering through a tedious and violent life where she is simultaneously invisible and the star of the show. Technically, Rodrigo captures her entire life, starting from the moment of her birth. Yet more accurately, he illustrates shades of it; key interactions, smells, and colours. It’s a feat that he manages to do considering the first third of the novella consists of pages upon pages of him talking about his inability to write—while he writes.
It’s contradictions like this that make up the meat of the novella. Life as death, death as life. Existence is something that can only be validated by others, yet something that can never be fully legitimised externally. For fans of literary theory (like me), this was a feast. Dialectics! Abjection! The failure and simultaneous undeniable sustenance of structuralism! Sign and symbol me up.
Song - Vera - Pink Floyd
Film - Lipstick Under My Burkha (because hope is a luxurious emotion)
wow gm I will be thinking about your comment on hope for the rest of the day