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The Amazon Store at MillionDollarPetPix.com ( In association with Amazon.com )The Hour of the Star (New Directions Paperbook) - COULD YOU GIVE ME SOME MORE BOOK?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. Rating:  - I Just Don't Get ItEveryone 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. Rating:  - College assignment became my favorite book.I am an avid reader with many "favorites," but for years now, this is the book I call my Favorite. "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.) Rating: - to live life not knowing what it isPerhaps that is our common fate, although I dare not speak for all. I just finished this story; it gets one thinking, will or no will, it doesn't matter. How much does a man live, after all? For a week, or for several centuries? How long does a man spend dying? What does it mean to say "for ever"? --PABLO NERUDA Rating: - The Hour of the Star: Clarice's remarkable sensibilityThis fantastic work analyzes the meaningless life of a pitiful character, Macabéia, 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 Macabéia'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.
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