Jazz and Blues

He and I like jazz and blues. He certainly loves blues more than I. In fact, I have come to appreciate blues more through him, through his ear and descriptions of thoughts and emotions that enter his mind when listening to blues. I think that perhaps I was moved by such descriptions first, and later by the music itself. Now, I cannot disassociate those words from the actual music. They have become one in my ear.

More The Hour of the Star:
"All this, yes, the story is history. But knowing beforehand so you never forget that the word is the fruit of the word, the word must resemble the word. Reaching it is my first duty to myself. And the word can't be dressed up and artistically vain, it can only be itself. Well, it's true that I also wanted to arrive at a sheer sensation and for it to be so sheer that it couldn't break into a perpetual line. At the same time that I want to arrive at the thickest and lowest, deepest and earth trombone, so much for no good reason that out of nervousness in writing I burst out in an uncontrollable laugh coming straight from my chest. and I want to accept my freedom without thinking what so many do, that existing is something for fools, a case for madness. Because that's what it seems like. Existing isn't logical" (11-12).

Something about these words resonates with the way I experience the blues. No dressing up or vanity: Music being itself rather than adopting the guise of another. Once it enters the ear, it creates pure sensation that doesn't "break into a perpetual line". I repeat these last words without being entirely sure what Lispector's text means by them.