The Hour of the Star (New Directions Paperbook)

"The Hour of the Star" is special because it works on all levels. The story is compelling. We feel we know the characters and we want to know what happens to them.

But the use of words is Lispector's genius-lyrical, evocative, and perfect.

This is the book I lend to artist friends to show them a masterpiece of words. Any aspiring author will find in "The Hour of the Star" proof that-yes! One can achieve writing in its highest form.

God bless my college professor who assigned this work. It provided me with my most inspired term paper ever, and it has benefited my personal and professional life.

(Because the book is so short, I was able to spend one afternoon on the beach with my future husband, reading it to him in its entirety. At least one of us wept.)


COULD YOU GIVE ME SOME MORE BOOK?   September 29, 2002
Sesho (Pasadena, TX USA)
9 out of 18 found this review helpful

You know you're not stepping into a utopian novel when the main character's summation of thoughts on her identity are "I am a typist and a virgin, and I like coca-cola." That's it. No more. No great ambitions or passions, well, except for wanting to look like Marilyn Monroe, but she's ugly. People try to ignore her. This is the main character, a young loser named Macabea, whose happiness is the happiness of an idiot.

This novel, or really novella, since it only consists of about 70 odd pages, is at once a throwback to the naturalism of writers such as Zola, and also an example of post-modern metafiction.

The narrator of the tale is a disaffected aristocrat who seems to be making up the character of Macabea to console his own misery. In other words, it is thrown in our face again and again that he is making up this story, so dont believe it. Here we have the failure of post-modern writers. They believe that readers are not aware that the story they are reading is make-believe, so they have to show their cleverness and go "Aha, look, this is fake, I'm making it up!!! ha ha!!!". Basically in doing this, the author is saying his or her readers are nimrods who have no grip on reality.

Once the narrator gets out of the way and allows Lispector to tell a story, it is quite good. The book was too short to make a judgement of it. I do have a vague feeling of disquiet upon finishing it though. Pity? You see, Macabea is never going to get a chance to improve her life. Born into poverty with no parents and a cruel aunt having raised her, she has no education. There is noone to look out for her. Well, until she picks up a boyfriend, who just happens to be a murderer and likes to watch butchers do their job and gets strangely aroused by it.

The book seems to be about seeking peace. About seeking self-fufillment. Or to put it better, in the Taoist tradition, to not seek and yet find. Maybe Macabea was the lucky one. She was at peace because she had no needs, no ambition. Much like a doctor that treats her in the novel, she wants to have enough money to where she can do what she's always wanted: Nothing.


I Just Don't Get It   May 12, 2002
richard_t (South America)
8 out of 25 found this review helpful

Everyone keeps telling me this is a classic. I think it's just awful. It reads like it was written: a rambling, unedited, ill-considered, weakly plotted piece of whimsy jotted down by an ailing old lady... was riding her reputation here - Macabea is just someone who comes and goes. This novel just isn't finished.


Not a normal book, and that's what makes it great.   May 24, 2003
8 out of 14 found this review helpful

Don't dig into this book expecting something normal. Lispector wasn't a normal writer at all. She wasn't a normal woman. This book was written while her cancer in her uterus was eating her alive, and you can almost taste the angst from the narrator. Not that her other books are any different, but in here it feels even more authentic. Perhaps it's due to the fact that the narrator is ficticious as well. Under the name of Rodrigo S.M., Lispector slashes open her soul and reveals nothing, because that's what it is.

Do not read this book waiting for a story. It tells three stories, the first one being about Macabea. The second story is the narrator talking about his writing, and the craft. The third is the narrator talking about his life.

Some critics claim that Lispector is "existencialism for the masses" (as impossible as that may sound) because she avoids complex theories. She refused to read other existentialist authors, because they were too pompous. Lispector admits that there are no answers to her questions, but that absence does not make the questions dissappear. There are a couple of times where her train of thought is hard to follow, but they came very rarely, and the book is definitely worth it. Saying that she was riding on her reputation shows blatant lack of knowledge on her works. Every other book of hers is written in this sinuous manner, and much of the recognition she has in Brazil was attained shortly after her death, since her books never sold well. After reading this, I can't say I don't understand why. It's not a normal book.

It's hard to decide which part of this book is sadder, Macabea's pathetic existence or the Narrator's angst. But both are awesome. Just don't expect anything normal, and you'll love it.


The Hour of the Star: Clarice's remarkable sensibility   June 23, 2000
Renato Pereira (Anapolis-GO, Brazil)
6 out of 9 found this review helpful

This fantastic work analyzes the meaningless life of a pitiful character, Macabeia, who used to think that since she was alive, she had to live. Life was not something questionable for this character who would accept everything too easily. The whole story is a journey through Macabeia's existence, an everlasting search for the real significance of her living in this world. It is definitely a passionate narrative leading us into examining whether we truly know how to conduct our own lives before it's too late.