words by Ellie Johnson | rated 3 stars | may contain spoilers

Clarice Lispector’s novella The Hour of the Star (1977) has a uniqueness that won’t be easily forgotten. I am confident that weeks after having read it, the ambiguous feelings it created in me will remain. Eighty-six pages is all that's needed for Lispector to create a palpable marmite effect: readers will either love or hate this story, and very few will remain indifferent. The reader is immediately invited into the mind of an omnipresent male narrator who proceeds to tell the tale of a young woman named Macabéa — the “northeastern girl”. This tale will evoke polarised reactions, conflicting opinions and questions that will remain unresolved…

From the very beginning, Macabéa’s tale is sombre and unforgiving. The narrator opens by briefly alluding to her tragic start in life, describing how she was orphaned from infancy and left in the care of her cruel aunt, who later on passes away. Macabéa then moves from the rural Northeast of Brazil to the slums of Rio de Janeiro and begins a new life with a very limited understanding of the world. Her world is undoubtedly small and oppressive, the storyline never exceeding the mundanity of life. Only a handful of other characters appear, most of whom act to oppress Macabéa further. By the end of The Hour of the Star, the reader is forced to accept, like the narrator, like Macabéa, that sometimes “that’s the way it is because that’s the way it is”. The fact that Lispector’s narrative ends somewhere different from where it started does not guarantee a satisfactory ending. 

Whilst Lispector’s narrative can be beautiful and heart-wrenching at times, its adherence to metafiction can often restrict the reader from feeling fully immersed in the story. Metafiction, in short, is when the narrator draws attention to the act of storytelling itself. Although this is a clever technique, the constant reminder that Macabéa is the narrator’s creation and not an actual person prevents the reader from feeling the full gravitas of her story. For instance, the narrator admits that he is going to refrain from using vibrant language to describe Macabéa’s life, highlighting that her existence is solely determined by someone else’s writing. Some readers may appreciate this self-conscious style of narration; others may prefer narratives that aren’t fractured by a narrator’s commentary. 

Upon arriving in Rio de Janeiro, Macabéa’s experience becomes ubiquitous, representing hundreds of women who undergo the same. Lispector emphasises the lonely existences of these underprivileged women. They are women with names, faces and jobs; women who have encounters with others, yet their identities still seem unremarkable. The sad anonymity of these women is epitomised the most when the narrator talks of Macabéa’s surroundings: her four roommates all share the name “Maira”, which feels like a deliberate ploy to illuminate the blurring of female identity amid the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Macabéa and the Mairas also live on “rough Acre Street amongst the prostitutes” — further reminding that women in The Hour of the Star are constantly classified as an oppressed collective that is impossible to break from. Although this is a powerful message on gender from Lispector, she perhaps could have taken a stance that would provide the reader with greater clarity. What if the narrator wasn’t repeatedly breaking the fourth wall? If Macabéa’s story was a fluid narrative as opposed to the more fractured one it is, this message on gender would have carried a greater impact. 

This breaking of the fourth wall also extends to Macabéa’s encounter with a man named Olímpico. Even though the presence of the narrator is somewhat lost in these encounters to begin with, it’s not long before Macabéa and Olímpico’s plot-line is interrupted. The narrator starts asking themselves questions, wondering again why they are telling a story that never really happened, a story that isn’t even remotely attached to them or anyone else they know. Thus, in the narrator commenting on the story’s artifice, Macabéa, once again, becomes only make-believe. However, the reader’s perception of Macabéa’s fictitious nature is not necessarily a problem. After all, every reader is acutely aware of the conventions of literary fiction. It is the consequent trivialisation of what Macabéa stands to represent that becomes problematic: the women of the Rio de Janeiro slums and their battles with both gender and class. 

The Hour of the Star cannot simply be defined as one thing or another; it is certainly a piece that could easily leave readers divided. Lispector’s use of genre, form and narrative content could be debated for hours. The narrator’s use of introspection, frequently preventing the reader from feeling immersed in the story, is not always a negative. This technique provides the novel with an existentialist tone which is incredibly engaging and not something one usually comes across. The narrator seeks a deeper understanding of existence and writing. Why would one choose to write about someone like Macabéa when she is anonymous among thousands alike? Yet the narrator is simultaneously scared of the answers they may find. Worse still, they have the answers, none of which are positive, and they see existence as entirely pointless. Therefore, Lispector’s narrator, although deliberately jarring at times, adds a stronger level of complexity to the story of Macabéa. 

The Hour of the Star is a piece that has the potential to be interpreted differently by every single reader. Despite being such a short piece of fiction, perhaps even abrupt, it somehow manages to conjure a thousand different lines of questioning. Even then, the reader is left unsure of what they were questioning in the first place! It’s like the voice of the narrator and all of their inner thoughts have become a haunting presence. 

Lispector has woven a novella that is entirely made of contrasts, its subject topic being all and nothing at the same time. It is both exciting and mundane; complicated and simple. It has moments of hope before switching to complete hopelessness. It is a text that is both powerful and powerless; a text that both contains and lacks an ending. Where will you stand on The Hour of the Star’s marmite effect? Will you love it or will you hate it?