This book was awesome! It took me a while to truely get into it, but at pg 112 I was infatuated. I look forward to reading more by marías. ( )

Even among a good number of excellent reads this year, this novel stands out as my most exciting discovery. It begins with a young woman who has just returned from her honeymoon and kills herself. Sounds like ur typical mystery paperback? Not at all. Fast forward to a hotel room somewhere in Cuba where the protagonist is spending his honeymoon. He happens to look out of the balcony and gets to be mistaken by a woman below for somebody else. It's the guy in the next room, it seems, whom she knew. Trivialities, petty occurrences, chance happenings, but things are not as trivial as they seem to be. He does not yet understand, but there are hints of connections, links between seemingly isolated banalities that reflect darker and more painful truths. Shakespeare's Macbeth provides the underlying theme, and how the author subtly interlaces the complex themes of love, betrayal, and truth into parallels in the story is simply extraordinary. Mariás weaves an intricate mosaic of fragments of stories, effortlessly shuttling between past and present, in rich, evocative prose with wit and a profound insight into our lesser explored inner selves.

This novel is deep, complex, multi-layered, and the author effectively draws us, through the protagonist, into self-reflection through stream-of-consciousness writing. It is certainly not for those who prefer fast, linear narratives. Highly recommended to those who are interested in “thinking” novels. This would be a very good book for group discussion/reading – lots of material there, both in terms of substance and writing style. ( )

Marias has a rhythm that he repeats throughout the book, in which an apparently natural inner monologue leads up to a surprising insight or an unexpected obstacle. It is clear that he thinks these changes of direction produce meaning, and that their accumulation can lead to deeper meanings. But for me, it's consistently disappointing to see him leading up to one of those moments, and imagining that the result will be expressive or even profound, and then turning, satisfied, to the next episode.

The book has a large-scale structure, and was clearly planned in advance, but on the level of the page, it is loose. Epiphanies were managed so much more tightly, and with so much more variety, by Joyce. Even though Marias is a very introspective person, there are clearly limits to his self-awareness when it comes to these structures. That lack of self-awareness extends to repeated phrases and images: he knows he is repeating them (he is not an unskilled or unpracticed author), but he believes they are justified by the ebb and flow of inner monologues. The result is loose and unbelievable, like a sloppily sketched painting.

I know this review is somewhat abstract, but it's on this level that he fails. If you can stop yourself from seeing how he thinks he is creating deeper meanings, then you can suspend disbelief in the naturalness of his prose. ( )

'The book is about a man discovering the truth about his father’s life. That’s how the book starts off and ends – but that won’t be why you’ll love it.'

Read my review here:
http://deadbookdarling.blogspot.com/2... ( )

This is a novel of so many disparate episodes, it's hard to boil down. Family secrets long buried in the past, an adventure in mistranslation, episodes of voyeurism and eavesdropping, video dating as a chess game of selective exposure, the anticipation and finally the impact of revelation--all these elements are woven together in this novel to powerful effect. The pacing is like that of a mystery: each element, each situation is imbued with its own mystery and power, pulling the reader forward. Yet it is not conventionally plotted and the reader searching for a typical whodunnit will be tested. I do think Marias bears comparison in some respects with early Kundera in his tendency to weave plots (such as they are) together thematically. Marias is one of the most important writers at work in Spain today. Highly recommended for readers of literary fiction. ( )