Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo S.M., this brief, strange, and haunting tale is the story of Macabéa, one of life's unfortunates. Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a poor living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Colas, and her rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed, sickly and unloved. Rodrigo recoils from her wretchedness, and yet he cannot avoid the realization that for all her outward misery, Macabéa is inwardly free/She doesn't seem to know how unhappy she should be. Lispector employs her pathetic heroine against her urbane, empty narrator—edge of despair to edge of despair—and, working them like a pair of scissors, she cuts away the reader's preconceived notions about poverty, identity, love and the art of fiction. In her last book she takes readers close to the true mystery of life and leave us deep in Lispector territory indeed.
The Hour of the Star 3 csillagozás
Eredeti megjelenés éve: 1977
Most olvassa 1
Várólistára tette 5
Népszerű idézetek
If the reader possesses any wealth and a comfortable life, he'll step out of himself to see how the other sometimes lives. If he's poor, he won't be reading me because reading me is superfluous for anyone who has a slight permanent hunger.
On Sundays, she always woke up early in order to be able to spend more time doing absolutely nothing.
Most of the time, she possessed, without knowing it, the emptiness that replenishes the souls of saints. Was she a saint? It would seem so. The girl didn't know that she was meditating, for the word meditation was unknown to her. I get the impression that her life was one long meditation about nothingness.
How can one disguise the simple fact that the entire world is somewhat sad and lonely?
…her heart beating furiously as if she had swallowed a little bird that continued to flutter inside her.
And even sadness was the privilege of the rich, of those who could afford it, of those who had nothing better to do. Sadness was a luxury.
Sometimes, grace descended upon her as she sat at her desk in the office. Then she would go to the washroom in order to be alone. Standing and smiling until it passed.
— I'm a fan of Jesus. I'm just mad about Him. He has always helped me. Mind you, in my heyday I had enough class to live the life of a lady. Things were easier then, thanks to Jesus. Later on, when I didn't rate quite so highly on the market, Jesus lost no time in helping me to set up a brothel with a friend. That earned me enough money to buy this ground-floor apartment. I then gave up the brothel for it wasn't easy looking after all those girls who spent most of their time cheating me out of money.
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