A Lispector novel in its beaded moments of universality that nourishes both an aesthetic and philosophical search. Economizing to contour itself withi
A Lispector novel in its beaded moments of universality that nourishes both an aesthetic and philosophical search. Economizing to contour itself within its battle with time, "The Hour of the Star" slides us alongside the hollowed cosmopolitan writer, Rodrigo S.M. as he faces the tribulations of writing a novel that comes to him, arrives without his seeking, and a character that haunts beyond his control.
His battle to remove himself by not adding qualifiers to his writing but to let the character have her own way, is a battle which over time he, the writer, is losing as he invades her and she him. Macabea, an undernourished, unattractive young woman moves through the morbidity of her life unaware of its poverty and dull sadness. Bereft of reflection, an awareness of self, desire is absent therefore the future has no existence. She won’t behave for Rodrigo S.M. though he wants more for, from, her than this Zen existence. He wishes to live through her but she against his wishes also is living through him. With his pen, his conscious or unconscious desires, he would like to move her into his world of need and hope, of time flowing just beyond reach, so she as this character in his story may nourish him. A translucence. An epic battle.
Lispector scales the existential crises we live with and through each day, each moment passing, the quadrangle of suffocating time and the nagging needs, hopes, desires, pushing us on. But for Macabea unaware of the despair she should be experiencing, she knows no different. Her existence is as a monk, a Zen meditation of being as she is. Not questioning. Not desiring to be other. Not an act of will this is who and what she is.
How is it structured? Lispector structures it along the form of, existence. An existence that is yet to occur but styles itself according to the contours of hers, ours, searching life....more
The writing is enigmatic? The book an enigma? But as much as we try to refute it by all our, isms, attitudes, adherences, isn’t this what existence isThe writing is enigmatic? The book an enigma? But as much as we try to refute it by all our, isms, attitudes, adherences, isn’t this what existence is? Within the eighty pages of this novella cries out the entrapment of our lives caught between this and the smoked breath of death.
Our protagonist-narrator not only walks us into the face of death, its all consuming fears but takes our arm and leads us directly into the cross threads of the experience of enigmatic life through the truth of his style. These parts are difficult reading, tough sledding, but we get from those pages the unwrapped experience of life shredded down to its core.
He battles this through his unending search for freedom. His inner and inward struggles for understanding while undermining his attempts by the means of his search. The story the narrator is trying to get across? One of his? The revolving door of us human critters and our sense that we can reach that land, promised or not, by what we know rather than encounter the enigma that awaits uncomfortably beyond.
The book was uncomfortable and difficult for me. I bogged down not the book yet now grateful that I plowed through. Within its eighty pages it contained greater width and length, a greater depth and breadth, than other books that I have read. So, bundle up, bring a supply of food and of water, and open the first page....more
Rather than work and experience being valued now all is negotiated. The negotiators are the important ones relying on slyness and chicanery to gain poRather than work and experience being valued now all is negotiated. The negotiators are the important ones relying on slyness and chicanery to gain power over others; to rule. The expansion of this leads to the weakening and removal of those seeking direct experience, transcendence, a life of greater scope. In order to maintain power the rulers need the people, out of fear and insecurity, to live a bland life of seeking comfort.
The manuscript seeks to explain and reveal this which is why Korin carries it forth trying to deposit it into eternity where everyone everywhere will always have access to it. This archivist who found it on a shelf behind an old folder sees this as his mission, which in itself will be leading a transcendent life.
Much of the tension of this novel, and it is a tense work with the one long sentence, only commas no periods, catapults the reader head-forward throughout the narrative, revolves around what the manuscript eventually reveals and will Korin, an antihero at best, find his way across many miles of varied characters, landscapes, meanings, to interpret what this seemingly plotless piece of writing is saying. If it has no plot, story, only form then what is the point? (Krasznahorkai comments on modernist, post-modernist, writing a number of times including the book we are reading.)
What story there is takes us along Korin’s reading of the manuscript to the lover of the landlord who due to language difficulties cannot understand what it is he is saying. The reading follows four soldiers trying to return from war. They speak only when they have something important-relevant to say. Along the way the path is often blocked with the detritus of this war, with other wars of this fourteenth century world, powered by greed, the need for ownership, of all consuming power. They too are searching always for a higher meaning for their lives in a world of greed and conflict. As a reader we see the wars exploding throughout this land, century, but also within the vast variety of characters peopling this book.
It lost in the end a quarter of a point due to the ending verging on preaching and closing with a metaphor I felt was transparently forced and weak. But then again it may have only looked this weak in respect to the strength of the rest of the narrative which raises this from a 4.5 to a 4.89
She lives in the squalor of emotional desolation. Not knowing or understanding herself she is disconnected from herself and therefore she is disconnecShe lives in the squalor of emotional desolation. Not knowing or understanding herself she is disconnected from herself and therefore she is disconnected from others. But there is more for as she tries to understand herself; place the amorphous shards and pieces together to free a whole person; to be who she is and who she is becoming, she is exquisitely vulnerable. Whatever boundaries she has are barely visible. Therefore everyone and anyone can invade and make her who they want. It is terrifying; a terrifying world where being disconnected is her only defense; to withdraw into her internal world. Here is where she can safely continue her observations, insights, brief flickerings of understanding. This epic battle where fear and anxiety rule.
What she begins to find is that what is meaningful in her world is not truly related to the everyday world of others. She experiences that others are willing to make vast sacrifices for comfort and to fit in. As she moves through the immaturity of her inner development into the hope of a wholeness, she is thought of as evil. She cannot deny that posing her ideas and points of view, her way of life onto these innocent others would be evil. They are content to not be in constant battle. They can be in the world even if narrowed. Why do that to them?
This is a book of journeys and internal heroism. Flipping from first to third person and back again it all works in expressing the inexpressible and why it is such.
She lives in the squalor of emotional desolation. Not knowing or understanding herself she is disconnected from herself and therefore she is disconnected from others. But there is more for as she tries to understand herself; place the amorphous shards and pieces together to free a whole person; to be who she is and who she is becoming, she is exquisitely vulnerable. Whatever boundaries she has are barely visible. Therefore everyone and anyone can invade and make her who they want. It is terrifying; a terrifying world where being disconnected is her only defense; to withdraw into her internal world. Here is where she can safely continue her observations, insights, brief flickerings of understanding. This epic battle where fear and anxiety rule.
What she begins to find is that what is meaningful in her world is not truly related to the everyday world of others. She experiences that others are willing to make vast sacrifices for comfort and to fit in. As she moves through the immaturity of her inner development into the hope of a wholeness, she is thought of as evil. She cannot deny that posing her ideas and points of view, her way of life onto these innocent others would be evil. They are content to not be in constant battle. They can be in the world even if narrowed. Why do that to them?
This is a book of journeys and internal heroism. Flipping from first to third person and back again it all works in expressing the inexpressible and why it is such.
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