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

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Al mismo tiempo, contrapesándose el uno al otro, el padre y el amigo representan los dos extremos del mismo espectro. En un libro que gravita alrededor de la idea de la traición y la imposibilidad (o la habilidad) de anticiparla, de conocer el rostro mañana de aquellos en los que confiamos, estos dos personajes adoptan —porque no deja de ser una decisión consciente— posturas opuestas. He wanted to hire my services, initially on an ad hoc basis and subsequently full-time, with theoretical duties as vague as they were varied, including acting as liaison or occasional interpreter on his Spanish or Latin-American incursions. Has de tener presente que la mayoría de la gente es tonta. Tonta y frívola y crédula, no sabes hasta qué punto, una permanente hoja en blanco sin la menor huella ni resistencia, por mucho que te parezca saberlo no puedes saberlo bien, hasta qué punto, tú no has vivido guerras, espero que no te toquen. I can’t help it, Javier Marias’ voice seduces me. It’s a purely cerebral seduction, but still sexy in its smooth (& feverish) unspooling of its own explorations of itself inside my head. Admittedly, to actually read the whole of this book requires a seduction, and a willingness on the part of the reader to cede control of his/her own reading experience to the overwhelming, unrelenting voice; for this voice's self-love (a self-love that is also selfless) to be loved by another. So yeah, I suppose that if you write an actionless, multi-volume novel with a vulgarly high comma-to-period ratio and no actual events save a party and stuffy rich erudite people yakking, you must be consciously placing yourself in a specific European literary tradition, and inviting certain comparisons to some celebrated, endless plotlessness that has come before. So yes, to answer the question blazing in everyone's mind: if Marcel Proust were Spanish and writing a twenty-first-century spy novel, I suppose it might be at least vaguely like this.

Pero sobre todo es señal de que todavía te sientes muy joven. Aún crees disponer de un tiempo ilimitado, tanto como para malgastarlo. Quizá no te sea fácil ver esto, pero intentar vengarme habría sido tan sólo perder más tiempo por causa suya, y los meses de cárcel ya me fueron bastante. Por aquel entonces ya había comenzado a “cambiar de registro”, descubriendo nuevos tipos de literatura (nuevos para mí, quiero decir). En cierto modo era una especie de rebeldía adolescente, una forma de renegar de mis orígenes, aunque para ello tuviera que “traicionar” a mi autor más querido. Pero uno siempre vuelve a sus raíces y, tras leer recientemente Berta Isla y Así empieza lo malo, era el momento de sumergirme de nuevo en la inmensa Tu rostro mañana. Nevertheless, he proceeds to do most of these things, and if he doesn't exactly spill his guts he is (or at least appears to be) fairly forthcoming. 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 No debería uno contar nunca nada, ni dar datos ni aportar historias ni hacer que la gente recuerde a seres que jamás han existido ni pisado la tierra o cruzado el mundo, o que sí pasaron pero estaban ya medio a salvo en el tuerto e inseguro olvido. Contar es casi siempre un regalo, incluso cuando lleva e inyecta veneno el cuento, también es un vínculo y otorgar confianza, y rara es la confianza que antes o después no se traiciona, raro el vínculo que no se enreda o anuda, y así acaba apretando y hay que tirar de navaja o filo para cortarlo.

There is always more to come,...there is always a little more, one minute, the spear, one second, fever, another second, sleep and dreams - spear, fever, my pain, words, sleep and dreams - and then, of course, there is interminable time that does not even pause or slow its pace after our final end, but continues to make additions and to speak, to murmur, to ask questions and to tell tales, even though we can no longer hear and have fallen silent." bir kitap düşünün james bond hikayesi kadar aksiyonu varmış gibi yapıp size olup olmadığını anlatıcının dahi bilmediği şeyler(neyler) üzerinden bir şeyler anlatıyor olsun. kitapta aksiyon olmamasına rağmen kitabı soluksuz okutuyor, what kind of sorcery is this?!! Among the most intriguing secrets are those surrounding the Spanish Civil War (and Wheeler's role there), a long-past conflict that, like World War II, still overshadows the present of these characters. All of which suggests, perhaps, a rather solemn, self-important book, whereas Your Face Tomorrow is in fact a work of sublime lunacy, closer in spirit to Sterne or Cervantes than some of the more modern mega-tomes – A la Recherche, for instance – to which it has been compared. (Musil might be more apt than Proust, with a dash of Anthony Powell to take care of its peculiar Englishness, but even that fails to do justice to the book's sheer waywardness.) Language itself is one of the great subjects of these novels, the necessity that we should remain always aware of how it is being used, especially when our own language is being turned against us in times of government-declared emergency. Jaime listens to every nuance of speech in every character he encounters, almost obsessively worrying about an accent or the odd choice of a word that might betray someone's true origins or reveal their assumptions about the world and their own aspirations. In translation Jaime might find the preservation of truth. Part of the sublime experience of reading Dance and Dream is your own growing awareness of the perpetual riskiness, the uncertainty of language, between Jaime and others, and between Javier Marías and yourself (and this superb, flowing translation by Margaret Costa makes that possible).

Javier Marias ile böyle görkemli bir tanışmayı hayal etmiyordum. Evet seveceğimden emindim ancak bu denlisini beklemiyordum. Öncelikle söylenmesi gereken şey şu: Bir başlangıç, bir son, bol olay var sanıyorsanız; yanılıyorsunuz. Do you agree, or disagree with Andy? Come and let us know your thoughts on the Spybrary fans community. Your Face Tomorrow Fever And Spear by Javier Mariasha bir de, nuh nebiden kalma ispanyolca sözlüğümü raftan indirdim bu kitap için. öyle bir kitap. dil öğrenme şevkinizi tetikliyor. hani bazen, "iyi ki bu yazarı türkçe okuyabiliyorum" filan deriz ya; bu kitapta iki "iyi ki"m vardı: birincisi, iyi ki anadilim ingilizce değil. zira kitabın büyük bir kısmı ingilizce'ye çeviriyle ilgili. ikincisi, iyi ki, iyi ki, iyi ki roza hakmen gibi bir çevirmenimiz var ve bu kitabı o çevirmiş. ne büyük şans bizim için. An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale. Borges mantenía que lo mejor de leer un libro es que nos permite releerlo más adelante. “Yo he tratado más de releer que de leer, creo que releer es más importante que leer”, afirmaba el argentino, “salvo que para releer, se necesita haber leído.” 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.

It may be all that is left if one cannot trust anyone. Then, one cannot give oneself over to anyone or anything, a painting included. Gathering facts by those removed from self-intrusion either through will or an absence of self will theoretically lead to an assessment of who people are and who they will be in the future. Their face tomorrow. Sin embargo, Peter Wheeler eligió justo lo contrario; formar parte del misterioso grupo para el cual ha captado a Deza y ganarse la vida sabiendo, anticipando, adivinando el rostro mañana de cuantos pudieran, con un cambio de rostro, de lealtad o de comportamiento, suponer una amenaza o una oportunidad —una oportunidad, porque entre saber cómo reaccionará alguien ante un determinado estímulo y manipularle para controlar sus actos solo hay un breve paso. A little patience, in other words, is required of the reader, but it is amply rewarded. By the second volume all cylinders in its large and powerful engines are purring smoothly. And with this triumphant finale – the longest and best of all three – it becomes impossible to resist the thought that this deeply strange creation, with its utterly sui generis methods, its brilliant disquisitions on love and loss, its dark playfulness, may very well be the first authentic literary masterpiece of the 21st century. Extremely hard to read, as every sentence is beautifully crafted but to the point of being over-written and elaborate, often piling on a series of repetitions; as an example (which could actually be referring to large parts of the book) I first became aware of Your Face Tomorrow due to its inclusion in an early Spybrary podcast episode from 2017. Featuring journalist, the Telegraphic critic Jake Kerridge‘s top 20 spy novels of all time. It was ranked and rated highly, but almost mentioned in passing. I never heard of it before or since, not even in the maybe later category of the esteemed Shipman best 125 spy authors list, but what was made clear by Jake was that this was not a conventional spy novel it's off road, scenic route stuff.Der Gedanke als Klang: Marias ist ein Virtuose dieses Klangs, und zwar ein derart vollendeter, dass der Roman den Wunsch nach Handlung gar nicht erst aufkommen lässt. Dein Gesicht morgen ist ein wunderbares "livre sur rien", ist betörende Wortkunst, die den Leser nicht mehr loslässt. Verwaist und an den Rand gedrängt findet sich hier die Story." - Kersten Knipp, Neue Zürcher Zeitung My next line of inquiry was to try to determine the significance of certain themes: e.g., translation and interpretation; and recurring phrases: e.g., fever and spear (which appears in the title of the first volume).

Dadas las furtivas actividades del grupo sin nombre, temas tan centrales en la obra de Marías como el secreto y la traición, lo que se dice y lo que se calla, tienen incluso más protagonismo que en otros libros del autor. Hablar o callar; nadie parece ser capaz de callar hoy en día; y lo que se cuenta no solo es tan importante como lo que realmente sucede —puede que incluso deje una huella más profunda—, además es indefectiblemente impreciso e incluso falso. Además, nadie es capaz de no escuchar, menos aún de olvidar lo escuchado cuando nos damos cuenta de que preferiríamos no haberlo oído nunca porque “todo tiene su tiempo para ser creído.” Las palabras, un flujo inagotable de ellas, mueven la maquinaria del mundo.

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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 ..."