Clarice Lispector
The Hour of the Star
It's a very short novel, only about 80 pages long, and the story within it is shorter still as much of the beginning tells of the writer inventing the story (although the writer is also fictional, being a different gender than Lispector at least). One of the questions that I have for myself is whether I wouldn't like it better if it didn't have the self-consciousness of the writer in it. The first time through I was impatient with the beginning, which goes on for 10 pages or so before saying anything about the main character. However, the second time through I appreciated it more. I think that my impatience the first time through was a worry that when the story came it wouldn't be worthy of the build up to it. The second time through, when I knew that there was a good story there, I was much more appreciative.
As a writer, I've sometimes though that it takes a lot of arrogance to believe that your thoughts and experiences are of such importance to be of interest to other people enough to read an entire book. But then I've countered that with the thought that there is something about everyone that is distinct and incredible and it is a matter of revealing it. [The Hour of the Star] is about the process of imagining someone who seems of utter insignificance, not appealing, and finding the beauty of her life. It adds another dimension to know that Lispector was dying of cancer as she wrote it and was perhaps using it as a vehicle to question or to find the meaning of her own life.
She definitely succeeds in showing meaning in the guise of seeming insignificance. I'm still not sure I wouldn't have enjoyed it more as a simple story but it is a gem of a book. 