The aphorisms woven into the text are beguiling, and more beguiling still is the manner in which the author works from a reduction and even an absence of anything concrete. Her dazzling insights are extracted from the most opaque abstractions, above all the human mind when clouded by emotions. The rare moment of ecstasy is sparked off by the most fragile aspect of every living creature, namely his aspirations. Apparent contradictions in Macabéa's faulty reasoning are somehow made to sound convincing. The mental gyrations unfailingly spiral from a principle of order: 'before the prehistory there was the prehistory of the prehistory and there was the never and the yes'; philosophical probings that remain beyond the reach of Macabéa's understanding yet, in her own spontaneous way, she perceives their significance. Macabéa's tragic question: 'Who am I?' unwittingly echoes the major preoccupation of every mortal. No less tragic or familiar is the question that follows on: 'Am I monster or is this what it means to be a person?' When the author intervenes in the narrative to remind the reader that 'he who probes is incomplete', she is simply reaffirming our spiritual and emotional fragmentation. The human being who fails to question his or her mortal state is merely vegetating and never likely to transgress his own limitations. Lacking her creator's intellectual powers, Macabéa moves to much the same conlcusions by purely intuitive means. Instinctive desires and aspirations draw her into the same rich labyrinth of unresolved enigmas. Both writer and character know that existence can appear to be both absurd and illogical, yet ironically it is the simple-witted Macabéa who seems better equipped to cope with life's reversals. While Clarice Lispector battles with concepts, Macabéa tries to penetrate a web of superstitions and fantasies. Macabéa's fears are instinctive and irrational. Clarice Lispector's apprehensions are the fruit of scrupulous introspection. Yet the roots of this spiritual crisis are basically the same. Their tragic perceptions of life are ultimately indistinguishable. Both writer and character find themselves on the margin of society, for both of them respond to an inner law that means nothing to the world.
Macabéa's two attempts to be positive are significant. First, her visit to a third-rate doctor in the hope of healing her body. Second, her visit to the clairvoyante Madame Carlota, in the hope of healing her soul. These constitute two of the wittiest and most moving episodes Lispector ever wrote. The doctor, who has lost any sense of vocation after a lifetime of treating impoverished patients, dreams of getting rich so that he can do exactly as he pleases: nothing. The confrontation between the ingenuous Macabéa and the cynical practitioner is strangely revealing.
Macabéa's ineffectual attempts to explain her needs only provoke hostility and misunderstanding: her seemingly passive acceptance of disaster and misfortune arouse puzzlement and exasperation. She seems incapable of meeting the real world on its own terms. The society in which she finds herself has little use for 'the pure happiness of idiots'. Hence the gulf between Macabéa and her rival Glória, who has all the right credentials for material success; between Macabéa and her worthless boyfriend Olímpico; between Macabéa and the absurd Madame Carlota, who has more faces than Janus (clairvoyante/fan of Jesus/prostitute/brothel keeper). Macabéa's goal is much more modest yet at the same time much more difficult to achieve, namely, to establish her own identity. Macabéa's heroism consists in not being heroic. Her struggle has been notable for its reticence. A lifetime of anonymity decreed and endured.
The closing reflections on death carry a poignant note. Macabéa's premonitions are shared by Lispector. What Macabéa perceives, Lispector has always known, namely that: 'Death is an encounter with self. A brief, ecstatic moment of transition as corporeal form is miraculously transformed into 'vigorous air'. The promise of sudden release is inviting, but life demands the greater courage. The carpe diem sentiments of the book's closing sentence remind us that Lispector's heroines never withdraw from the struggle until summoned. One proves oneself in life rather than in death.
The Hour of the Star is not Clarice Inspector's first serious attempt to clarify her approach to the craft of fiction. Many of the concepts expressed here have been voiced before in works like The Foreign Legion and Family Ties. There is, nevertheless, a bolder attempt in this last book to analyse in greater detail the mysterious nature of inspiration and the elusive process of growth and enhancement. In The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector is intent upon linking the structure of the narrative with a subtle exploration of the creative process as seen by the artist.
The metaphors the author derives from parable, legend, and anecdote are effective because they are used sparingly and ingeniously slanted. The author prefers sparseness to accumulation, just as she finds prophecy infinitely more suggestive than the definition. As in all her writing, the dimension of mystery is sacrosanct. Mystical forces are ever present. There is always a note of divination, however serious or humorous, however formal or colloquial the prose. Things intimate and remote frequently overlap. Her asides to the reader, as distractions, uncertainties, and obstacles interrupt the creative process, underline the attendant problems as the writer struggles for direction and clarification. They also show how a writer may question the validity of the characters in a narrative even after those characters have assumed an independent existence. On occasion, their development may even run at a tangent to the author's original intentions. For, once the creative process is under way, new forces mysteriously exert their influence. The author sometimes tries to retreat, only to discover that it is much too late. The writer may grow tired of the characters to whom she has given birth, but they resist dismissal.
Meditation has always outweighed mere description in Clarice Inspector's writing. Characters and situations are rapidly sketched in with a few bare essentials. The characterization of Macabéa is centred on the girl's delicate and vague existence. Doubt outweighs certainty in the author's analysis of the human psyche. Even the aphorisms in the book invite discussion rather than bland approval. The cliche is reconstituted into some riveting new insight. The author reminds us of the hidden power of words. Macabéa's whole existence is changed by words capable of banishing her sterility: 'the fruit of the word' transforms her into a woman.
In the next breath Clarice Lispector defines The Hour of the Star as a book 'made without words ... a mute photograph ... a silence ... a question'. For in all her narratives she treats silence like sorrow, and transforms it into a fount of eternal truths.
Giovanni Pontiero
Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star
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