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Your Face Tomorrow – Fever and Spear V 1 (New Directions Books)

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I'll pause my review there, until I read at least the second part, if not the third part of the novel (which I've now done). But telling is also a matter of trust, and he has his doubts that anyone can be trusted: confidences are almost inevitably betrayed. Life is not recountable", Wheeler tells Deza, but the book focusses on these attempts to get at the crux of lives and people (something Deza appears to have a talent for). The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year.

Indeed, remarkably little actually happens in Fever and Spear -- but Marías cloaks enough in mystery to make for a sense of suspense throughout. The title comes from a comment half-way through made by Deza in an attempt to explain his father's betrayal. "How can I not know today your face tomorrow...?" he says. In other words: Isn't the real character of a person obvious long before he acts? Shouldn't one be able to see betrayal before any overt act to betray? One might assume therefore that this is the central theme that brings the four complex threads together. The title of the trilogy comes from Deza's own special ability -- and his frustration at the unknowable and uncertain, and untrustworthy:En el fondo sólo nos interesa e importa lo que compartimos, lo que traspasamos y transmitimos. Queremos sentirnos parte de una cadena siempre, cómo decir, víctimas y agentes de un inagotable contagio.” Y aunque yo me cuento entre aquellos que prefieren no contar, entre los que raramente hablan de lo que sienten, de lo que sintieron, de lo que hicieron o les hicieron o harán, no por ello estoy a salvo. Siempre hay alguien para el que somos transparentes, siempre hay alguien que nos cale, que intuya lo que somos y lo que somos capaces de hacer y de no hacer y lo que podríamos llegar a hacer, alguien capaz de traer al presente nuestro “rostro mañana”. "Los individuos llevan sus probabilidades en el interior de sus venas, y sólo es cuestión de tiempo, de tentaciones y de circunstancias que por fin las conduzcan a su cumplimiento"Nosotros mismos podríamos ser ese alguien para otros, ser uno de los elegidos, de los "intérpretes de personas" o "traductores de vidas" o "anticipadores de historias", y así evitar la traición futura, la puñalada en la espalda, saber lo que a lo mejor no querríamos saber pues en el fondo odiamos el conocimiento y la certidumbre, e intuimos que “esa luz suspicaz, recelosa, interpretativa, inconforme con las apariencias y con lo evidente y llano” pueda encubrirnos la superficie, lo simple, nublarnos la visión de lo que no tiene doblez ni secreto y así convertirnos en nuestro propio dolor y nuestra fiebre. “Nos aburren la protección y la prevención y la alerta, y a todos nos gusta arrojar el escudo lejos y marchar ligeros blandiendo la lanza como un adorno.”Es más, nos aterra el precipicio de la equivocación, la posibilidad de lo improbable, la responsabilidad de lo visto y errado, y entonces el don del conocer se trastoca una vez más en maldición. ¿Se puede conocer hasta ese punto? ¿Podemos estar seguros del afecto presente, de la traición futura? ¿Se puede cambiar, se puede ser mañana en el que no se es hoy? The narrator readily admits that he does not know much of what is going on. His is a process of continual discovery and analysis. Marías thereby embraces here that singular strength of the first-person narrator, unreliability. Though in Jacobo’s case it does not seem willful. In fact, there seems to be a forthright attempt to piece together what little he knows into a coherent whole. I found it enormous fun to follow his ideas as he stumbles on some dissonant fact or other and tries to reconsider how it might fit into the overarching puzzle before him. But the novel always remains just that: a fragment. This partial knowledge of course sets him up very neatly to be blindsided at some point further on. Beneath Dance and Dream, one feels, is a medieval view of the world being subtly urged upon us, though it is in no sense religious. There remains in Jaime, right beside his taste for the lingerie of the 50s, a longing for courtliness, which, observed today, might save us from some of the worst aspects of ourselves. On the other hand, a knowledge of history makes Jaime grimly aware of the venality and violence rising to the surface of our lives now. And in this most beautifully tapped ancient vein of horror, Marías scales another peak, that of a deep, almost shamefully exciting lyricism of threat. Keeping an eye on that arch-enemy of his, who is about to snort coke in the "cripples' toilet" of a London nightclub, a place where violence of the fist or the gun might be expected, a sword, a huge menacing sword of the past, is produced: "It is the sword that caused most deaths throughout most centuries - it has killed at close quarters ... face to face with the person killed, without the murderer or the avenger or the avenged detaching himself from the sword while he wreaks his havoc and plunges it in and cuts and slices, all with the same blade which he never discards, but holds on to and grips even harder while he pierces, mutilates, skewers and even dismembers ... unlike something that can be thrown or hurled, the sword can strike again and stab repeatedly, over and over, again and again, each strike more vicious than the last ..." kimilerince romantik bir savaş olan Guerra Civil Española (İspanya İç Savaşı)’yı, faşist bir lider ile yönetilmeyi.

Unlike The Man of Feeling the novel is lengthy and so Marias’s complex prose which often turns in on itself does cross over into being unreadable.In this way, it resembles Haruki Murakami's "1Q84", which could be (and was) published either as one volume or three separate volumes (although as far as I'm aware, Marias' novel hasn't been published in a single volume, other than in Spanish).

Ateş ve Mızrak alt başlıklı ilk ciltte Tüm Ruhlar'ın isimsiz baş karakteri, Jacques Deza olarak daha yaşlı ve eşinden ayrılmış bir adam olarak Londra'ya geri dönüyor. Deza BBC'de çalışırken yine Tüm Ruhlar kitabından aşina olduğumuz Peter Wheeler sayesinde bir istihbarat grubu için çalışmaya başlıyor. Buradaki görevi işvereninin istediği kişilerin karakterlerini gözlemlemek ve analiz etmek. Hatta bundan fazlasını yapıyor Deza, insanların gelecekteki davranışlarını tahmin etmeye çalışıyor.

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To fall silent, yes, silent, is the great ambition that no one achieves not even after death, and I least of all, for I have often told tales and even written reports, more than that, I look and I listen, although now I almost never ask questions. Jetzt sucht Marías seine Souveränität darin, daß er fast ganz auf Handlung verzichtet. Mit der Konsequenz, daß die Gedanken nun oft wie private Versponnenheiten wirken, weil ihnen die Anschauung und Exemplifizierung fehlen. (...) Aber aufs Ganze gesehen wird die Lektüre zur Enttäuschung, nachdem man bis zur Mitte des Buches mit großen, aber aufgeschobenen Erwartungen weitergelesen hat." - Wolfgang Schneider, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Fever and Spear is a meditative novel, with Deza (and also Wheeler) extemporising at considerable length on matters such as trust and silence and the dangers of any communication.

This is one of those books that makes me confused about my own literary tastes, which is something that I certainly appreciate. I think of myself as a girl who needs robust narrative and appreciates a certain down-to-earthiness in my novels, but I guess I'm not, or I wouldn't get into shit like this. okuduğum hiçbir şeye benzemeyen kitapları okumaktan aldığım tadı hiçbir şeyden alamadım. belki almanlık... yani şakası bir tarafa, gerçekten okuduğum hiçbir şeye benzemiyor ve okurken bazı anlarda böyle şok etkisi yaratan, kafamda minik havaifişekler patlatan kitaplara ve onları yazan insanlara VE onları hakkıyla çevirebilen insanlara çok büyük hayranlık duyuyorum, hatta biraz da kıskanıyorum, ne yalan söyleyeyim.Jacobo Deza, el protagonista y narrador de la trilogía, no solo comparte infinidad de rasgos con Javier Marías, sino que además es el protagonista de Todas las almas, un título anterior del autor, publicado 13 años antes. Esto no deja de ser una simple anécdota, porque, aunque Tu rostro mañana engarza perfectamente en Todas las almas, no hace ninguna falta haber leído la segunda para entender la primera. Es Wheeler quien va a introducir a Deza en un oscuro grupo, vagamente vinculado al MI6, en el que un puñado de personas que tienen el mismo don que ambos, Deza y Wheeler, prestan no se sabe bien qué servicios —sospechosamente bien pagados— a no se sabe quién. ¿En qué consiste ese misterioso don? A medio camino entre la sobrenatural capacidad de leer el alma —¿o es quizá la mente?— de otras personas y simplemente tener buenas dotes de observación y una intuición bien afinada, los integrantes de este grupo son capaces, o creen serlo, de predecir cómo se comportarán en el futuro o ante determinadas circunstancias (“¿podría este hombre capaz de matar si se viera amenazado?” o “¿será aquella mujer capaz de mantener un secreto bajo presión?” o más simplemente “¿está diciendo la verdad este influyente personaje?”) sujetos a los que entrevistan, estudian en vídeos o con los incluso coinciden en una cena organizada a tal efecto. Si se piensa con detenimiento, es un don de lo más literario. 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. A cliffhanger ending -- an unidentified woman comes to visit Deza in the middle of the night --- also leaves the reader even more curious as to: what next ?)

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