Javier Marias (1951-2022)

Liam

Liam

Administrator
Sad indeed. Also, shocking, as I thought he was fairly healthy. Wow, this sucks. Condolences to friends and family!! ?
 
Stevie B

Stevie B

Current Member
I'm both shocked and saddened. It will always be a mystery whether he was destined to win the Nobel this year. I wrote to Javier Marias 20+ years ago to see if A Heart So White had been translated into Japanese, and he was kind enough to respond with a postcard and details. Today's news is a reminder that we all need to remain vigilant against a disease that continues to take a toll.
 
alik-vit

alik-vit

Reader
Liam said:
Very hard to do that in OUR country, Stevie, with hordes of anti-vaxx idiots running around screaming their heads off, essentially putting the rest of us in direct danger, ?
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I guess, it's very hard in any country. Usually, I'm only one person with mask in my part of metro train on my way to university and always only one in the corridors of my faculty. It's real craziness.
 
Bartleby

Bartleby

Moderator
alik-vit said:
I guess, it's very hard in any country. Usually, I'm only one person with mask in my part of metro train on my way to university and always only one in the corridors of my faculty. It's real craziness.
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Me too. Virtually no one wears masks here anymore :(

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Also just woke up to this very sad news, still don't know what to think or say, just sad...
 
B

Ben Jackson

Well-known member
Sad loss. One of Europe's finest writers leaving the world without the Nobel. Just yesterday, I wrote an appraisal (it was me and Leseratte I think) on Javier Marias in our WLF Prize Thread. I still remember in Tommorrow in the Battle Think on Me, one of his masterpieces. Remembered writers that are fans of his writing: Sarah Ladipo Manyinka, Coetzee, the late Sebald, Jonathan Coe, Orhan Pamuk and so many others. Condolence to his family. A very, very sad loss to literary community.

Now that he's dead, I don't know if Spain will get the Nobel anytime soon.

For our WLF Prize, his demise leaves us with just two candidates. What are we to do now?
 
Leseratte

Leseratte

Well-known member
I'm still flabbergasted. He wasn´t my particular cup of tea, but I think he did his job on this earth as honestly as he could and contributed to the literature of his country. Bringing uncomfortable truths to light is not the least merit of a writer.

Some quotes:
“Life is a very bad novelist. It is chaotic and ludicrous.”
― Javier Marías

“I have a tendency to want to understand everything people say and everything I hear, both at work and outside, even at a distance, even if it’s one of the innumerable languages I don’t know, even if it’s in an indistinguishable murmur or imperceptible whisper, even if it would be better that I didn’t understand and what’s said is not intended for my ears or is said precisely so I won’t understand it.”
― Javier Marías, A Heart So White

“One should never tell anyone anything or give information or pass on stories or make people remember beings who have never existed or trodden the earth or traversed the world or who, having done so, are now almost safe in uncertain, one-eyed oblivion. Telling is almost always done as a gift, even when the story contains and injects some poison, it is also a bond, a granting of trust, and rare is the trust or confidence that is not sooner or later betrayed, rare is the close bond that does not grow twisted or knotted and, in the end become so tangled that a razor or knife is needed to cut it.”
― Javier Marías, Fever and Spear

“We lose everything because everything remains except us. And therefore any form of posterity may be an affront, and perhaps any memory, as well.”
― Javier Marias

Javier Marías Quotes (Author of A Heart So White)

657 quotes from Javier Marías: 'Life is a very bad novelist. It is chaotic and ludicrous.', 'People only get married when they've no other option, out of panic or desperation or so as not to lose someone they couldn't bear to lose. It's always the most conventional things that contain the...
www.goodreads.com
 
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errequatro

errequatro

Reader
Ben Jackson said:
Sad loss. One of Europe's finest writers leaving the world without the Nobel. Just yesterday, I wrote an appraisal (it was me and Leseratte I think) on Javier Marias in our WLF Prize Thread. I still remember in Tommorrow in the Battle Think on Me, one of his masterpieces. Remembered writers that are fans of his writing: Sarah Ladipo Manyinka, Coetzee, the late Sebald, Jonathan Coe, Orhan Pamuk and so many others. Condolence to his family. A very, very sad loss to literary community.

Now that he's dead, I don't know if Spain will get the Nobel anytime soon.

For our WLF Prize, his demise leaves us with just two candidates. What are we to do now?
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I actaully think we could still award him , given the proximity of the prize... I am dumbfounded. He was my number 1 pick.
Devastated ;(
 
errequatro

errequatro

Reader
Todas las almas - because it's also about something I have experienced, albeit in a different academic setting, Nottingham, not Oxford, and me being a different nationality (Portuguese, not Spanish). But yeah, I can relate.

The trilogy Tu rostro manana and, of course, Corazón Tan Blanco.
 
Bartleby

Bartleby

Moderator
Earlier this year I had watched this interview with Marías. I remember really liking it, and hearing him speak.

 
Skinnyfists

Skinnyfists

Active member
Can I ask - is it a bad idea to read the forthcoming translation into English of Tomas Nevinson without having read Berta Isla first? Or is it standalone but part of the same universe (eg Le Carre's Smiley novels etc)? I get the sense Marias is about language over plot anyway (having read the first two of the Your Face Tomorrow Trilogy) so it doesn't really matter? Would be cool to read his last work as soon as it comes out next month, not keen to trudge through BI first just for the sake of it!
 
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