Author's Dedication (actually written by Clarice Lispector)
Star Time

Lispector's last work,
Start with a little riddle

This work, Lispector's last, is preceded by a dedication.
But there is a mysterious sentence attached to it.
“This dedication was written by Clarice Lispector.” This sentence, which seeks to clarify the authorship, instead raises questions.
So, is there another "author" who could have written this tribute? How does this David Lynch-esque introductory setup work?

The word homem, which the author uses to refer to himself in this dedication, can be translated as 'man' or 'human'.
If this is interpreted as a male narrator, the dedication is written by Rodrigo, the first-person narrator and male author of the novel, and thus the dedication is incorporated into the novel.
On the other hand, if we interpret homem as a human being, then, in accordance with the customary nature of dedications that appear before the main text, this dedication is perceived as having been written by Lispector, the 'real author', 'outside the novel - in reality'.

Both of these possibilities are possible.
Therefore, this tribute is not located on the 'border between reality and fiction', but in a unique space where the parts of reality and fiction coexist, or 'it is both reality and fiction'.
This space, which blurs the wall between the author and the characters and disrupts the sense of reality, encompasses the entire 『Time of the Stars』.

Author and Creature A, Lispector and Rodrigo

Although they appear different on the surface due to their gender and the way they speak, Lispector and Rodrigo share a common identity.
A writer with a strange intellect and a brilliant writing style, successful enough to make a living.
Rodrigo is a character similar to the 'present' of the 'writer' named Lispector.
Even the introduction to 『Time of the Stars』 (which is supposedly written by Rodrigo) shows a typical Lispector-style development.
It is about discovering sentences by endlessly digging into one's inner self.

However, 『Time of the Stars』 attempts to break away from the world that Rodrigo (and Lispector) have enjoyed living in.
Rodrigo wants to break out of his inner world and write about someone very different from himself, and after hesitating for thirty pages in his own world, he finally takes the difficult step.
The strange world he arrived at was completely different from his own.
It is the world of a poor young woman who hardly speaks, who doesn't know what to say, who barely thinks.

Author and Creature B, Rodrigo and Maccabee

Rodrigo, a male writer belonging to the intellectual class, and Macabea, the 'poor woman' he created, seem like contrasting figures in both their backgrounds and personalities.
Maccabees grew up in poverty, was intellectually unskilled, and was therefore incapable of reflective thought, so he took suffering for granted and even considered himself happy.
Rodrigo created a character who was most unlike himself in order to go as far as possible in literature, but the intense light that illuminated that naive and ignorant world was too vivid to be expressed in language, that is, in “sounds injected from shadows (p. 29).”
Rodrigo is perplexed by his own creation.

However, Rodrigo and Maccabee are also connected.
Some of the words spoken by Rodrigo in his monologue are reborn as descriptions of Macabea or lines spoken by her over time.
Also, at one point when Macabea looks into the mirror, what is reflected in the mirror is Rodrigo's own face.
Moments like these show that the characters created by the author do not miraculously appear from outside the author's world.
What Rodrigo discovered through Macabea was not a mystery from outer space, but a part of his own inner self that he was not aware of (Lispector said in an interview:
He says that he has no such power of surrealism, and that he writes only through strict inner observation.

Ultimately, as Rodrigo writes his novel about the Maccabees, he finds himself being transformed by it.
So, is a novel a kind of essay or confession? Or perhaps all writing is an essay and a confession, and the writer ultimately encounters an unexpected aspect of himself? Is that writing?

The writer who has gone the furthest through literature
Clarice Lispector's final destination

Lispector, Rodrigo, and Maccabees.
They do not form a strict hierarchy as creator and creature, but rather influence each other.
Because they are all respecters.
However, this does not mean autobiographical literature in the general sense.
Lispector used himself as a subject not to promote himself, but because he believed that the world's greatest mystery was within himself.
Lispector's last work ends at the moment when he creates the most alien character, but when that character is the innermost soul of his own being, when he returns to the beginning by going the furthest.
A pure tragedy that nullifies linguistic thought, 『Time of the Stars』, set in this empty and transparent wasteland, feels like a cabin built for future generations.
This is the furthest I've ever been, so the future is now - start from here again.
The final sentence of this casually sad (perhaps the saddest of Lispector's works) book is strangely wide-open.

Recommendation

Lispector's later works often have a ghostly beauty, their form and content interlocking and skillfully dancing a slow waltz.
But Lispector, at the end of his life, wrote as if his life were just beginning again. - The Guardian

Every page is trembling with emotion.
Just saying that Lispector bends language or uses words in new ways doesn't quite capture the feeling.
Because there are countless modernist writers who can do such work.
But none of them writes prose as rich as Lispector. - NPR

Sphinx, wizard, holy monster.
The resurgence of the hypnotic writer Clarice Lispector is one of the true literary events of the 21st century. - The New York Times