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BOOKS I READ: The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (1977). Macabéa comes to Rio de Janeiro from Alagoas. She’s a northeastern girl coming to the big city for a job she got through her aunt. When her aunt dies, she’s in Rio on her own, living with four girls, all named Maria. She is a mistake-prone typist. After getting fired, her polite apology changes her boss’s mind who tells her to stay on. She’s a rube without hopes or dreams. Her sad life gets worse when Olimpico de Jesus befriends her. She considers him her boyfriend. He’s a heel, who eventually takes up with her work friend Gloria. It’s Gloria who convinces Macabéa to go see the fortune teller, which turns out to be a portentous visit. The story is written by Rodrigo S.M., who repeatedly steps out of the story to tell us why he is writing such a sordid tale.
When Clarice Lispector’s parents immigrated to Brazil from Ukraine, they also moved to Alagoas. A hora da estrela, translated from Portuguese by Benjamin Moser in 2011, was Lispector’s last novel before her death in 1977, and is considered among her finest work.
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