I fell completely in love with Too Much of Life by Clarice Lispector. Even months after finishing it, the beauty of her writing still lingers with me. This book also marked a turning point in my reading life: it was the beginning of my journey into classic literature.

I later learned more about Lispector and was surprised to find out she was primarily known as a fiction writer. I had fallen so deeply in love with her nonfiction writing, which felt far beyond what I imagined her “brand” to be. It was as if she stepped outside her usual realm and still managed to craft something absolutely breathtaking. So, I grew curious: just how good were her fiction works?

Therefore, months after finishing Too Much of Life and missing the experience of reading Lispector’s work, I picked up The Hour of the Star. And from the very first sentence, I was smitten. Every word felt like a hug, the same tender feeling I experienced while reading her nonfiction, Too Much of Life. I think that might just be the magic of Lispector’s style: her words hold you.

Reading Lispector’s work expanded my reading interests, not just toward nonfiction classics, but fictional ones as well.

Although this blog is technically nonfiction-themed, I couldn’t keep the beauty of The Hour of the Star to myself. That’s why I’m sharing it here under my Reading Life category. I hope these words touch you as deeply as they touched me.

My Favorite Bits

• All the world begin with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born.

• Make no mistake, I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.

• As long as I have questions and no answers, I’ll keep on writing.

• Thinking is an act. Feeling is a fact.

• My truest life is unrecognizable, extremely interior and there is not a single word that defines it. My heart has emptied itself of every desire and been reduced to its own final or primary beat.

• Who hasn’t ever wondered: am I am monster or is this what it means to be a person?

• .. I want to declare that this girl doesn’t know herself except from living aimlessly. If she was dumb enough to ask herself “who am I?” she would fall flat on her face. Because “who am I?” creates a need. Those who wonder are incomplete.

• 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 symboilically 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 only like to have what I would have been and never was.

• There was something slightly idiotic about jher, but she wasn’t an idiot. She didn’t know she was unhappy. That’s because she believed. In what? In you. But you don’t have top believe in anyone or anything—you just have to believe. That sometimes gave her the state of grace. She’d never lost faith.

• If I still write it’s because I have nothing better to do in the world while I wait for death.