ABSTRACT
268The last few paragraphs of the novella A Hora da Estrela are anything but conclusive, despite the fact that they dwell on death and the passing of time, instead raising a flurry of open-ended questions. The narrator, Rodrigo S. M., writes with his usual jerky rhythm, swerving from topic to topic, from profound philosophical issues to seemingly banal remarks. Sentences made up of a single word are followed by lengthy sentences divided into multiple clauses, one generating the next. He fixates on death and loneliness, spouts apparently nonsensical non sequiturs, asks for the readers’ complicity in relation to the death of his character Macabéa, and makes strange, grandiose pronouncements about the nature of life. Rodrigo’s words channel Lispector’s characteristic ambiguity and contradictions. His tone ranges from wistful to weary, to wary, and even to moments of hysterical panic, indicated by up to three exclamation marks. The grand finale promised at the beginning of the book (p. 27) ends with the anticlimactic resignation of a single word: ‘Sim’. 1
