Saturday, July 04, 2026
Very Important Addendum on the Title of "The Hour of the Star"
Still on The Hour of the Star, a "last but not least"-type note.
One curiously humorous effect that film had was that it consisted on a kind of involuntary joke on a 1980s Brazilian mass cultural phenomenon, that of "The Hour of..."-retitled films, almost exclusively comprising horror ones. So, it is hilarious to contrast this film with the completely opposite kind of product that abounded on Brazilian screens, such as A hora do pesadelo ("The Hour of the Nightmare", for A Nightmare on Elm Street), A hora do espanto ("The Hour of Fright", for Fright Night), A hora dos mortos-vivos ("The Hour of the Living Dead", for Re-Animator), A hora do lobisomem ("The Hour of the Werewolf", for Silver Bullet), etc.
On the Plot, Title, and Characters' Names of "The Hour of the Star"
First, some news of my reading progress: I've finished reading Joseph Atwill's Caesar's Messiah. This book was on my waiting list for ages, and I finally decided to make an effort and remove it from there. By the way, this year I've read shamefully little, the only other item of non-negligible size which I've read being Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. Aside from that, only a few short stories by Arthur C. Clarke and a few "novelettes" by Chandler.
When, in Caesar's Messiah, I came across the story of the Maccabees, I immediately, by association, remembered the name of the protagonist of The Hour of the Star (A hora da estrela), a film which I watched long ago (on April 5, 1987, to be precise). That film is based on a novel by Clarice Lispector. Intrigued by the apparent coincidence of having a Jewish writer naming one of her characters after an important episode in Jewish history, I searched on the Web for the novel's plot, of which I remembered very little.
Before I started, what drew my attention was the novel's title's mention of a "star". I promptly associated this with the star of David, a symbol of Jewish identity. However, in the book I've just read by Atwill, I became acquainted with another meaning for a star in the context of Jewish mythology: it signals the coming of the Messiah (it has the same connotation in Christianity, by the way). There is, for example, the prophecy associated with Simon bar Kokhba (Simon, Son of the Star), a messianic Jewish leader. The Maccabees, who came earlier than Simon, and after whom the novel's protagonist Macabea is named, were of course a family of rulers in Judea who opposed Roman dominion and who were eventually ousted from power.
I've recalled the novel's plot mostly by reading its Wikipedia page.
Macabea's male romantic partner is named Olímpico de Jesus. That name draws obvious associations with Hellenism and with Christianity. The romance between them does not prosper (draw what conclusions you like from this).
Macabea's love rival is named Glória. This doesn't seem to demand any elaborate interpretation; of course the word "glory", from which it derives, reflects her predominance and ultimate victory over Macabea.
Macabea goes to a psychic named Carlota. Allegories establish individual dramas which have collective and political parallels; thus, a psychic is the equivalent of a prophet, only in a personal dimension. Carlota, the psychic, predicts that Macabea will find a certain man named Hans (a German name) who would be blond and who would be her salvation; she instead is run over by a car (a Mercedes, which is a German car) and dies. It's hard not to see what Lispector could be driving at here.
The novel employs a framed narrative, written by one 'Rodrigo S.M.'. This is a very unusual way of disguising an author's identity. Why not use initials for all three parts of his name, instead of making only the first name known? Why two surnames disguised with initials instead of just one? Anyway the acronym 'S.M.' in Portuguese (the language in which the novel was written) stands for 'Sua Majestade' (His Majesty), so we might look for a king's name named Rodrigo as a possible fit. After some search, one king stood out as a very compelling candidate: Roderic, the Visigothic king who ruled Hispania between 710 and 711. Why would I choose him? Because of his violently antisemitic acts (he also ferociously attacked Muslims).
I have no idea whether anyone else has conjectured an interpretation along these lines for The Hour of the Star.
P.S.: I did a web search, and found an article which seems to investigate similar thematic lines as those above (A hora da estrela: O que nos diz Macabea, by Mônica Palacio de Barros Correia).
