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The year is coming to a close but I think I have enough time to squeeze in one more book before it ends if I spend my vacation leave wisely. I'm not strict on the number of books I have to read in a year (in fact, I don't think it's a very helpful goal to have) but there is still some satisfaction in knowing that I've read more books this year than I did the last.
The last fantasy novel I read was VanderMeer's A Peculiar Peril and while it did have its moments, it didn't quite scratch the itch to read a proper fantasy novel quite like A Spear Cuts Through Water. There is something satisfying about immersing yourself in an adventure. It's a nice break from the more plot-less or character-study novels that I typically read. It's also nice that we live in a time when queerness is no longer just a subtext. Although over-all I enjoyed the story, I find that the style didn't quite work for me. I understand that the second person point of view was used in service of the story but I couldn't really get into it. This is just a personal preference, though, and it didn't really affect my reading of it that much.
Hour of the Star is my first Lispector and I'm quite unsure how to feel about it. Zooming in, it feels confusing, the meaning obscured by Lispector's prose. Zooming out, the entire book starts to make more sense as the narrator's fears and existential crises comes to the forefront. There is a story within the story and in both of them one can find oneself. The author explores his own mind as he in turn explores his character's mind, using writing as a tool and as an escape.
The narrator Rodrigo S.M thus writes Macabea, a woman so far removed from his world (someone he "could have been and never was"). Macabea is a character who doesn't seem to have any agency, almost devoid of interior life. Yet, the narrator constantly describes her as being contented, almost happy, as if she didn't know that she should be unhappy. Yet there are moments where Macabea gains lucidity and depth despite the narrator's insistence that she is somehow too stupid to feel things.
By the end of the novel the narrator understands why he writes the story and we in turn understand him a little better. It's amazing how many layers such a short book has. I started out saying that I was unsure about reading any more Lispector (because on a sentence level, this book can be confusing) but this writing this review has made me realize just how much I took away from it and how many wonderful passages there are that I've saved. I think this might be one of my top books for this year.
The last fantasy novel I read was VanderMeer's A Peculiar Peril and while it did have its moments, it didn't quite scratch the itch to read a proper fantasy novel quite like A Spear Cuts Through Water. There is something satisfying about immersing yourself in an adventure. It's a nice break from the more plot-less or character-study novels that I typically read. It's also nice that we live in a time when queerness is no longer just a subtext. Although over-all I enjoyed the story, I find that the style didn't quite work for me. I understand that the second person point of view was used in service of the story but I couldn't really get into it. This is just a personal preference, though, and it didn't really affect my reading of it that much.
Hour of the Star is my first Lispector and I'm quite unsure how to feel about it. Zooming in, it feels confusing, the meaning obscured by Lispector's prose. Zooming out, the entire book starts to make more sense as the narrator's fears and existential crises comes to the forefront. There is a story within the story and in both of them one can find oneself. The author explores his own mind as he in turn explores his character's mind, using writing as a tool and as an escape.
I write because I have nothing else to do in the world: I was left over and there is no place for me in the world of men. I write because I'm desperate and I'm tired, I can no longer bear the routine of being me and if not for the always novelty that is writing, I would die symbolically every day. But I am prepared to slip out discreetly through the back exit. I've experienced almost everything, including passion and its despair. And now I'd like to have what I would have been and never was.
The narrator Rodrigo S.M thus writes Macabea, a woman so far removed from his world (someone he "could have been and never was"). Macabea is a character who doesn't seem to have any agency, almost devoid of interior life. Yet, the narrator constantly describes her as being contented, almost happy, as if she didn't know that she should be unhappy. Yet there are moments where Macabea gains lucidity and depth despite the narrator's insistence that she is somehow too stupid to feel things.
But I also think she was crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and even a certain luxury of soul. She knew that there were a lot of things that she didn't know how to understand.
I forgot to say that it was really alarming that from Macabea's almost parched body so vast was her almost unlimited breath of life and as rich as of that of a pregnant maiden, impregnated by herself, by parthenogenesis; she had schizoid dreams in which giant antediluvian animals appeared as if she'd lived in the most remote epics of this bloody earth.
By the end of the novel the narrator understands why he writes the story and we in turn understand him a little better. It's amazing how many layers such a short book has. I started out saying that I was unsure about reading any more Lispector (because on a sentence level, this book can be confusing) but this writing this review has made me realize just how much I took away from it and how many wonderful passages there are that I've saved. I think this might be one of my top books for this year.
