a girl on a bench

Clarice Lispector is notably one of my favorite authors. This book, unlike others I have read previously, is written with less literary mind hurdles and more simplistic sentence structures, as noted by the narrator itself. One of my favorite aspects of Clarice’s writing is that while variably short in length, her stories leave gaping holes with their impact, in which you will carry along, burning in the back of your mind as you continue through life. This story, with no doubt, does the same; about a poor young woman living in the rural worn streets of Brazil.

Learn more or buy, here: The Hour Of The Star

Other Clarice Lispector books I recommend:
🌟 Complete Stories
🌟 Near to the Wild Heart
🌟 The Passion According to G.H.
🌟 Too Much of Life: The Complete Chrônicas

This was LA Ghosts Book Club read of the month for September, 2023.

Notable quotes:

“So that’s why this story will be made of words that gather in sentences and from these a secret meaning emanates that goes beyond words and sentences.”

“As for the girl, she lives in an impersonal limbo, without reaching the worst or the best. She just lives, inhaling and exhaling, inhaling and exhaling.”

“Things were somehow so good that they were in danger of becoming very bad because what is fully mature is very close to rotting.”

“I swear that this book is composed without words: like a mute photograph. This book is a silence: an interrogation.”

Macabéa’s “soul [is] even more virgin than her body”

“It seems to me that her life was a long meditation on the nothing.”

🌟🌟🌟