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.
The Worldly Digressions of Javier Marías
The Spanish novelist talks about Francisco Franco in the new Trump era.
www.newyorker.com
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