WLF Prize 2022 - Javier Marías

Should Javier Marías still be in competition?


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Bartleby

Moderator
This is a space for sharing thoughts on Javier Marías’ works read for our WLF Prize in Literature project.

A Man of Feeling is quite a short novel, All Souls as well. It was A Heart So White... that seemed to have stablished his reputation as a serious writer, tho, at least in the English-speaking world, winning the International Literary Dublin Award.

It's interesting to note that Dark Back of Time seems to be a metafictional novel dealing with the response All Souls got and issues of writing as well, and storytelling, a theme that apparently runs along his whole oeuvre. Later in his career you see many other connections among his books, Berta Isla and his latest, Tomás Nevinson (yet untranslated) having recurring characters.

from the beginning of Your Face Tomorrow:

"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."

His works, from what I've read about them, and from the bits I've read from them, seem to be highly digressive, something that can be a pleasure to many, but also put others off.


 
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Here's my take on Marias recommendations:

When it comes to Marias, I highly recommend any of the following:

A Heart So White, Thus Bad Begins, Berta Isla. Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me is also very good indeed and from the same period as Heart, but I think Heart is the superior one. The Infatuations is also great, but TBB & BI are perhaps better.

The Your Face Tomorrow trilogy is his crowning achievement to my mind, but is definitely a commitment at probably over 1000 pages + long across the 3 books. Perhaps not the best entry point in case you don't get on with him, but for anyone who likes any of the single novels, this is well worth it.

All Souls, Dark Back of Time are fine, but I'd definitely class them as "minor" works. I'd not recommend The Man of Feeling.
 
I think comparing Murnane and Marias against each other will be really interesting. They're both quite digressive, "long-sentence" writers, both seem pre-occupied with memory and the past (or seem to be, from what little Murnane I've read), and have recurring motifs/themes they return to obsessively (e.g., horse racing for Murnane, espionage for Marias). They're a very interesting match-up.
 

Ludus

Reader
I've read Tomorrow in the Battle, A Heart So White and the amazing book of essays Written Lives. Might start reading soon The Infatuations and a book of collected short stories.
 

nagisa

Spiky member
This one has been on my reading list for literally over a decade, but never on my shelves. (Now I'll finally have to pick translations, English or French.) Glad to discover him: I'll probably go for A Heart So White and the Your Face Tomorrow trilogy, maybe more if I'm into it.
 
I'm going to give him another go with Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me. It was the first of his books that I picked up at a book store, and I've been meaning to give it some of my time for nearly 10 years. Every time I pick it up to read I get nervous I'm just not ready or in the right headspace - but I'm looking forward to it. That first 10 pages is exceptional and intimidating and exciting.

He's the only one of the three I nominated to have survived.
 

Leseratte

Well-known member
I think comparing Murnane and Marias against each other will be really interesting. They're both quite digressive, "long-sentence" writers, both seem pre-occupied with memory and the past (or seem to be, from what little Murnane I've read), and have recurring motifs/themes they return to obsessively (e.g., horse racing for Murnane, espionage for Marias). They're a very interesting match-up.
What about Marías and Jaeggy?
 

Ludus

Reader
Finished the first chapter of The Infatuations. The same with the other novels I read by him: extraordinary first ten pages with the start of a thrilling story, and then a hundred pages of looping ramblings about the same three topics: somebody died, somebody is being weird, I shouldn't be here. Does he writes them with some sort of mold, like Christmas cookies?
 

Ludus

Reader
He certainly or at least probably has a model or a cast or a pattern or a matrix for his sentences?!

A model, or a mold of some sort, or a guide, or some kind of dummy or maybe a prototype he uses to write his sentences, and his lines, and his paragraphs.
 

Leseratte

Well-known member
I have still read only 30% of Thus Bad Begins and I don´t want to be to be too rash in my evaluation. But I am somewhat underwhelmed when I think of him as representing the Spanish speaking countries.
 

Ludus

Reader
I decided a few hours ago not to finish The Infatuations. I found the amount of redundancy in Marías fiction writing just plain boring. Synonym after synonym, and the same scenes and ideas over and over. The characters conduct themselves in a very implausible way, they feel just like puppets for the author's grandiose digressions.

At first it's a page turner, but then it loses it's charm. When I got to page 300 and the novel unveils it's "riveting" mystery, I felt like the story wasn't unpredictable or surprising enough to keep me interested. I just read a summary online and found out the grand finale. Nothing too impressive, in my opinion.
 

Morbid Swither

Well-known member
I can relate to your impressions of The Infatuations. However, I was completely absorbed by Thus Bad Begins, I thought the style and detail were completely effective, engrossing and sophisticated.
 

Bartleby

Moderator
Hmm all these thoughts on him are arising my interest even more; for here in Brazil, at least from what I’ve perceived, everyone seems to adore him, citing The Infatuations in specific as one of his greatest books (along with Your Face Tomorrow - I mean, those who find the patience to go through a thousand pages of essentially endless digression, apparently -, A Heart So White, Thus Bad Begins, and Berta Isla; his latest hasn’t been published here yet.).

I’m excited to reading him and see for myself on which side I land; whether I love him or find him a pretentious bore...
 
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