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- Apr 22, 2010
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Originally Posted by Jokerman
I discovered Javier Marias over the last year and Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me (1994) was the first one I read. Absolutely fascinating! After a great dinner with an attractive married woman in her home, a pleasurable continuation in the bedroom is on the menu when she suddenly goes from foreplay to dying.
I then moved on to A Heart so White (1992), which was equally good (if not better) and had some clear similarities. Then Dark Back of Time (1998), which should have been read after All Souls (1989) but is understandable and readable in its own right. Some kind of semi-autobiographical novel about obscure authors, obsessions and the Redonda legend. Less good (still goood, just not brilliant) but unavoidable for those who have been captured by Marias' special style.
Most recently, I managed to complete the project of Your Face Tomorrow(2002; 2004; 2007), an 1100 page trilogy which lives in a dimension and pace of its own - after book one you don't really know what is happening and what this story is about, book two has the makings of a spy thriller but book three, fascinating as it is, doesn't take the espionage angle much further but rather retreates into a further study of the human condition and the confused soul of the main character, another Marias look-alike.
Hard to say which one is better but I have full understanding for those who say the trilogy is his masterpiece, which will eventually land Marias the Nobel Prize.
