Hour of the Star - Clarice Lispector

I don't know how to write about this novella (at 80 pages, it's barely a book), hence why I've put off blogging about it.  It was lent to me by Jane and I read it in a couple of hours.  I think it should have taken me longer - the curse of the speed-reader is the effort it takes to slow down when necessary.  I don't, however, feel moved to read it again.  Maybe in a year or so, but not now.

The first thing I had to get past was the oddness of the prose.  To begin with, I was grinding my teeth about the awfulness of the translation - why oh why are some books butchered by translation?  I'm never going to learn another language (or five, or ten) so I can read "in the original" but surely, in the 21st century, we can have good translations? (This is another reason why I love the Europa imprints.) Anyway, I unclenched eventually and just tried to go with it, turns out, when I read the afterword, that I was unfairly blaming the translator; Lispector reportedly engaged in significant amounts of correspondence with her editor, finally telling them that "...the sentences do not reflect the usual manner of speaking...The punctuation I employed in the book is not accidental and does not result from an ignorance about the rules of grammar." So that was me  (as well as the beleaguered editor) told.

And so to the narrative.  The Hour of the Star is narrated by a man "for a woman would weep her heart out". I was warned. The (reliable? unreliable?) narrator is Rodrigo, his aim, to "touch the invisible in its own squalor". The "invisible" girl is Macabea, the slum-orphan girl who thinks she has met the man who will raise her up from her blurry, washed out, grey world, into a world of clean lines, bright colour and happy ever afters.  Are you hearing echoes of fairy tales?  You would be right. Alas for Cinders/Macabea, Olimpico ain't no Prince Charming, but a man on the make, and the minute a better prospect comes along, in the shape of Gloria, Macabea's friend/colleague he drops Macabea like a hot brick.  Macabea is ugly, skinny, impoverished but, (hints are dropped throughout) she has a brain.  Or at least intellectual curiosity and a thirst for knowledge - if only she had been borne into another life.  As it is, her cognition is another strike against her in Charming/Olimpico's eyes. She's a terrible typist and her idea of heaven is a Coca-Cola, even though she is always hungry.  She is someone who is done to, she has no agency, no control, no self-determination. Her terrible passivity is one of the reasons I found Hour of the Star so difficult to read.

In an effort to grasp some sliver of control, Macabea visits a fortune teller, who tells her that her life will change.  She will be lifted up, exalted by a foreign man (of course!) she will have a fur coat "but you don't need a fur coat in the heat of Rio,"  "then you'll have it just to dress up!" And wealth and untold riches, never again will Macabea go hungry etc etc.  She leaves the fortune tellers "already a different person...just as you can be sentenced to death, the fortune teller had sentenced her to life".  She she steps off the pavement, Destiny enters, Macabea is struck by a Mercedes (driven by, you guessed it, a blond, foreign man), "her fall was nothing, just a shove" and she lies in the gutter, bleeding, and with onlookers doing nothing, she dies "finally free of herself and us". So lifted up by a wealthy man, in one sense, certainly.

And thus the novella ends.  Macabea is dead, our narrator "lights a cigarette and goes home".  I, as predicted, being a woman, wept my heart out.

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Purr-fection

Before you read this review, there are some things you need to be aware of. In my house, the cats run the show. We have two half-Siamese cats, who have their own personalities, their own voices, syntax and mannerisms. They have opinions, that are listened to and validated as much as the other members of the household (and read into that what you will.) They are also quite neurotic. And disgustingly spoiled.

For Christmas, Himself had the wonderful idea of buying me a Reading Chair. He then had an even better idea, which was to consult me and give me full autonomy of the type of chair I wanted, the style, fabric etc (proving that Himself has learnt the Right Way to do things!). Eventually I found a chair that met my spec, ordered it and awaited delivery, which was set for Valentine's Day. Happily, this is the day before my birthday and at the start of February half term, so I bought books, specified the sort of throw I wanted, dragged Himself out on a number of frustrating but ultimately successful hunts for the right reading lamp, and spent the intervening weeks fretting about whether the (large) chair would fit up the stairs. The Reading Chair, I stated to the world at large, will be in the bay window of my bedroom and it will be MY chair. A chair for ME. The chair I will go to when the Daughters are watching tv in the sitting room and Himself is gaming in the study and I want peace. To read in. It will be my Reading Chair. And I need not have worried about it fitting up the stairs as when delivery day dawned, the delivery chaps ran it up the stairs and placed it in situ, in the bay window. The next day I unwrapped the fleeciest, most snuggly throw ever made and my chosen reading lamp, as well as a number of books.

The cats came to have a good sniff, looked at the chair, covered in soft fleece, in prime position in the bay window, allowing excellent visuals of street, human and bird life and jumped and sat. Needless to say, the Reading Chair is now the Cat Chair. Occasionally, when they are outside, I can sit in it for up to five minutes, but I know that they will feel the tremor in the force and soon I'll hear the patter of paws and know that I will be moving imminently, unable to face their vocal outrage that I am sitting on the Cat Chair. And this chair was not cheap. It was expensive and it is now the Cat Chair. I may be slightly resentful of this, but the cats are indulged enough that I would never dream of chucking them off or not moving for them.

If the above paragraphs leave you shaking your head, dumbfounded then you will not understand Close Encounters of the Furred Kind by Tom Cox. Don't even try to read it. You won't get it. Unless you have pets (preferably cats, but I guess dogs kinda count too), or know (and love) people who do have pets and are down with them being family members, this book will have you making a WTF face throughout. If, on the other hand, you've got this far through the post with a wry grin, or a wince of recognition, then read the book.

This book has chapters with titles such as There is a cat who never goes out and I put a bell on you (because you're mine) and this is almost a selling point in its own right, frankly., because you got the references, right? It's a book that's nominally about the trials and tribulations of moving house...with cats, but really it's about owning cats and spending not insignificant periods of time creating an inner world for them, where they have rich, complex (and slightly tiring) lives. Tom's cats have very definite personalities (and I believe one or two of them have their own Twitter feeds). Shipley who can swear like a navvy (and does, a LOT), Ralph the wasted, aging God of Rock, Roscoe, the lone (I think) female, surrounded by men and trying her best to be a factual and sane, albeit slightly harassed voice of reason, George a stray who finally finds his way in but has something of a gentleman of the road sense about him and last but possibly most importantly The Bear. I'm not going to tell you about The Bear. You need to read the book!

It'a also about having a slightly bonkers parent (ahem) and about the joy they bring you, as well as about seeking out a place that feels like home, and what home really means to us all.

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