Comments on: Javier Marías: Your Face Tomorrow, Volume I: Fever and Spear

By: Trevor

Trevor — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:21:14 +0000

Click here for a superb interview with Margaret Jull Costa from Bookslut. In it she speaks of close sentence-level reading and the great translation of Madame Bovary by Margaret Mauldon, which I reviewed here.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:50:20 +0000

Thanks for the links, DK! Interesting points of criticism despite your overall enjoyment of the books.

By: Deucekindred

Deucekindred — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:24:00 +0000

When I attempted to blog about the ‘Your Face Tomorrow’ trilogy, I ran into the same problems

here are my reviews:

http://deucekindred.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/book-979-javier-marias-your-face-tomorrow-pt-1-fever-and-spear/

http://deucekindred.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/book-979-javier-marias-your-face-tomorrow-pt-2-dance-and-dream/

By: Trevor

Trevor — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:59:26 +0000

I remember reading an article on Marias that suggests his books don’t have fixed beginnings and endings, that they all tend to drift into others. I’m anxious to read the two other Oxford books you mentioned, Kevin, but I’ll see how it changes things on the back side of reading Your Face Tomorrow. I like coming to an author like this: not much knowledge about him or her beforehand, but a large accomplished backlist to lose yourself in!

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:47:37 +0000

There is a part of me that is very glad I read the first two volumes of Your Face Tomorrow before I started blogging -- I would have found reviewing this book and volume two every bit as difficult as you did, Trevor. And now that you have started the project, I can comfortably just comment on your thoughts instead of trying to construct my own. I got interested in Marias as the result of a TLS review of volume three -- fortunately, it made reference to earlier works and I was intrigued enough that I started there. All Souls is a novel based on Marias' two years at Oxford; Dark Back of Time is described by the author as "a false novel" following All Souls -- Oxford being Oxford, there was much speculation about what real people the characters in the first novel represent. All of this is background to the narrative that becomes Your Face Tomorrow. In a way, I like that you haven't read the other books -- it adds a new perspective to how you experience the trilogy. Marias does take some getting used to but I found that if you can get yourself into his rhythm he becomes a most rewarding author. As your review notes, Deza's "job" is to be a perceptive observor and interpreter of observations -- Marias expects the same thing from his readers. If you can get into that frame of mind, you are truly into the book. I am less familiar with Marias' "Spanish" books than those set in England -- I do hope to be able to read and review A Heart So White before volume three of Your Face Tomorrow is published in English next month.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:04:25 +0000

Thanks cb! I’m one who tends to look for authors who should win the Nobel Prize rather than those who do :). Next in my sight is is Antonio Lobo Antunes.

By: cbjames

cbjames — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:46:02 +0000

I usually avoid Noble Prize winners whenever possible, but this sounds very good, and he hasn’t won the prize yet. Excellent review. Another one for the TBR stack.