Javier Marías (1951–2022)

Rarely have I read a novelist so in love with his own words. Marías babbles on inordinately, with long run-on sentences that mull over characters and their motivations in the most ponderous of ways, often repeating himself or ending up in highly questionable positions. Each of his characters speak the same way, in lengthy exposition, sounding like the 61-year-old author in everything down to their cultural references. Seriously, it’s as if there was zero attempt to revise or pare down a show more first draft. The plot is extremely thin and quite honestly, this should have been a 30 page short story. It’s an order of magnitude longer, and I felt every bit of that.

Marías delves into justice (or the lack thereof), how people are often substitutes for others in the lives of their partners, and how we move on after trauma or the death of a loved one, but rarely in satisfying ways, and often arriving at some bizarre conclusions. “In a sense, he cannot wish that it [his father’s brutal murder during the Spanish Civil War] hadn’t happened, because if it hadn’t, he would be a different person, and he has no idea who that person would be.” Good lord, talking about taking not knowing when a philosophical argument has gone too far. “We mourn a great writer or a great artist when he or she dies, but there is a certain joy to be had from knowing that the world has become a little more vulgar and poorer, and that our own vulgarity and poverty will thus be better hidden or disguised…” What? I genuinely feel sorry for Marías if this was a sentiment true to him in life. There are other examples.

I kept hoping that this novel would turn the corner after a nice slow burn, but it never did. The second half had some opportunities to pay off, but instead repeated the same tired concepts. I don’t know how many times he said “we don’t really care what happens in books and films and forget about them once they’re over,” but it was too many, and in this case, I truly do hope I can forget this book. show less

Human beings are the strangest creatures on God's earth. Who else would be willing to wait and wait and wait for someone who doesn't stay? Who else would be willing to put up with someone who has chosen to wear an iron mask? Who would share a life with Judas? (not the actual one, obviously, but someone even worse?)

Why is it that love makes us behave in ways that contradict our personality, our wishes, even our hard-forged principles? Is love the greatest and most fragile and irrational of show more alibis? Despite the endless repetition of themes, and the habit of interrupting the flow with a character's inner thoughts, Marias's novel holds a mirror to those who love unconditionally.

Forget about espionage. Forget the historical context of the novel, the Cold War, the Falklands conflict, the Iron Curtain, the Northern Ireland issue. None of it matters. What this book is about is endurance. Endurance of spirit, endurance of love. And a generous dose of human stupidity and hypocrisy. show less

I always wonder when reading books written in a foreign language how much of the overall impact is down to the original writer, and how much to the translator. A case in point would be Patrick Suskind’s novel Perfume which I remember for the extraordinary flamboyance of its descriptive passages. Having only read it in English, I have no idea whether that was a straight representation of the original German, or a marvellous tour de force from the translator. Javier Marias’s novel is a show more simple story, beautifully told, and I find myself similarly unsure who to thank most: writer or translator. Of course, you are probably all shouting, ‘Does it really matter?’, and I suppose you are right.

The premise for the story is relatively straightforward. A man has dinner with a married woman while her husband is away on a business trip to London. This is their first night together, and romance is delayed until she has managed to put her young son to bed. During the night, she is taken ill and dies, leaving the man with a difficult decision: does he stay to inform the authorities and ensure that the boy is looked after, or does he just leave as quietly as possible, having removed any evidence that he had ever been there. He chooses the latter option, and the book recounts the various consequences that ensue.

Marais captures the man’s panic, and the wrenching of his conscience, masterfully. The book seethes with emotion, though never succumbs to tawdry cliché. Every character is entirely believable, and the story builds with great power. show less

This was my first taste of Marías, and I'm very impressed. The looping, reflective style, the repetitions and large-scale structures are all very similar to the techniques W.G. Sebald and Thomas Bernhard use, but they feel quite different in their effects when they're applied to something which is so much more obviously a constructed novel with a kind of plot. Very interesting. The sort of book that makes me feel I really should make the effort to improve my Spanish and read it in the show more original... show less