I just read Clarice Lispector's novella The Hour of the Star (1977). I picked it up because Amy King mentioned it a while ago, and Lispector was an author who sounded cool but was unfamiliar to me.
I am pleased to have engaged with this text.
Here is the opening paragraph:
“Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes. It was ever so. I do not know why, but I do know that the universe never began.”
And here are some choice quotes I culled from just the first twenty pages:
“Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?” (pg. 15)
“I swear that this book is composed without words: like a mute photograph. This book is a silence: an interrogation.” (pg. 17)
“Eternity is the state of things at this very moment.” (pg. 18)
“I write because I have nothing better to do in this world: I am superfluous and last in the world of men. I write because I am desperate and weary. I can no longer bear the routine of my existence and, were it not for the constant novelty of writing, I should die symbolically each day.” (pg. 21)
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There are many pleasing things in the new issue of Robot Melon, but my two favorites are:
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Joe Kral's Atari Game Manuals:
