Travesía del horizonte

by Javier Marías

Al igual que en las grandes novelas de aventuras de finales del XIX, y a las que Travesía del horizonte rinde cariñoso y también burlón homenaje, esta novela tiene como hilo conductor una atrevida expedición: el capitán Kerrigan, millonario y excéntrico, ha organizado un viaje a la Antártida para hombres de letras y científicos. Pero esa travesía no es más que una excusa, uno de los muchos hilos con los que está tejida la trama. Construida según el modelo de el relato dentro del relato, Travesía del horizonte añade a la aventura marítima de Kerrigan otras historias de personajes no menos novelescos, en deliberada parodia de ciertos maestros del género que van desde Joseph Conrad hasta Henry James pasando por Conan Doyle y entre pintorescos secuestros y manuscritos misteriosos, señoritas eduardianas y paisajes de navegación , se va desplegando un torbellino narrativo servido por un estilo paradójicamente pausado. Un insólito alarde de osadía narrativa.

Genres: Fiction, Spain, Spanish Literature, Literature, Novels

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Javier Marías was a Spanish novelist, translator, and columnist. His work has been translated into 42 languages. Born in Madrid, his father was the philosopher Julián Marías, who was briefly imprisoned and then banned from teaching for opposing Franco. Parts of his childhood were spent in the United States, where his father taught at various institutions, including Yale University and Wellesley College. His mother died when Javier was 26 years old. He was educated at the Colegio Estudio in Madrid.

Marías began writing in earnest at an early age. "The Life and Death of Marcelino Iturriaga", one of the short stories in While the Women are Sleeping (2010), was written when he was just 14. He wrote his first novel, "Los dominios del lobo" (The Dominions of the Wolf), at age 17, after running away to Paris.

Marías operated a small publishing house under the name of Reino de Redonda. He also wrote a weekly column in El País. An English version of his column "La Zona Fantasma" is published in the monthly magazine The Believer.

In 1997 Marías won the Nelly Sachs Prize.

Reviews

[merixien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Javier Marias’ın Kurt Mıntıkası’ndan sonra, 21 yaşındayken yazdığı ikinci kitap. Aynı Kurt Mıntıkası’nda olduğu gibi kendisinin aşina olduğumuz Madrid-Londra hattına hiç uğramayan ve zaman olarak oldukça uzak bir geçmişten gelen bir hikaye. En başından söylemeliyim ki klasik bir Marias kitabı okumayı bekliyorsanız bu kitap sizi mutlu etmez. Çünkü Kurt Mıntıkası dahi Marias’ın ilerleyen dönemlerindeki eserlerine daha yakın. Ufkun Öte Yanı ise her sayfasında çok net bir şekilde 19. yüzyıl İngiliz edebiyatı tadı alacağınız bir kitap. Konu olarak 19. yüzyılın sonlarında edebiyatçılardan ve bilim adamlarından oluşan bir ekibin, bir gemiyle Antartika’yı keşfe çıktıkları yolculuğu ve bu yolculuğun sonunda yazmayı çok erken yaşta bırakan bir yazarın hikayesini okuyorsunuz. Marias’ın gelecekte çok daha sağlam bir şekilde önümüze koyacağı, takıntı, merak, belirsizlik ve insanın birden fazla yüzü konularının temellerini görebilmek adına güzel bir fırsat. Ancak mutlaka okuyun diyemeyeceğim zira Marias ile çok derin bir bağınız yoksa, ya da beklentiniz Yarınki Yüzün gibi bir kitap okumaksa büyük bir hayal kırıklığı yaratabilir.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

To enjoy a book like this you have to enjoy being frustrated reading about characters being frustrated reading (or being read aloud from) a novel about characters being frustrated not figuring out what the hell is going on with some person you've read about in a letter and whose ostenible, unfinished story is relayed at second-hand to the letter-writter, so at third-hand to the real life fictional character whom the "novelist" in question is writing the book [Voyage Along The Horizon] about, except it's only in a manuscript whose sole trustee insists upon reading it all aloud to you though you don't know him well at all, and the whole thing stimulates something so lasting in you that in later years you yourself write a novel called Voyage Along the Horizon and yet your name is also not Javier Marías, the author of this book (you got it, Voyage Along the Horizon), which indeed I thoroughly enjoyed being frustrated about (but also felt strangely sentimental about re: his ventriloquisms of Conrad and James) and recommend to all likely to enjoy anysuchlike.

[Ferhat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marias'in henüz yirmili yaşlarının başında yazdığı ilk romanlarından biri. Çok bariz bir Conrad etkisi var fakat ayni zamanda oyuncu ve üst kurmaca denenmiş.Marias'in gelişim çizgisini ve tarzının evrildiği noktayı takip etmek adına önemli bence.Deniz romanları sevenler bir baksin.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

begun when he was nineteen(!) and published two years later, voyage along the horizon (travesía del horizonte) was the second novel from the incomparable spanish novelist javier marías. a metafictional, seafaring homage to late nineteenth century fiction, voyage, while clearly presaging themes and elements to come in his later works, is much more than an early outing from an author developing his style. the novel is playful, humorous, and, as we've come to expect from marías, a penetrating glimpse into the psychology of the individual. although not as accomplished as the books to follow, voyage along the horizon is an imaginative, well-written work the likes of which most authors would be proud to count as their finest effort.

the feeling that you have made a fool of yourself, that you have wasted an opportunity you have sought for so long, that you have acted dishonorably, forever ruined a very well laid plan, failed to rise to the occasion, lacked tact and self-control, seemed impertinent and unpleasantly obvious, lost someone's respect - in short, the feeling that you have behaved like a perfect lout, is perhaps one of the most painful and humiliating sensations a man can ever know.

*translated from the spanish by kristina cordero (fuentes, volpi, et al.)

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 5 out of 5]

During the period of time between February of 2005 and March of 2006 when the San Fransisco-based magazine THE BELIEVER was publishing English-language translations of Javier Marías’s “La Zona Fantasma” columns, I was a regular reader of the magazine. I would have looked at Charles Burns’s sketch of Mr. Marías a great many times indeed over the course of that year and change. I read the column itself consistently and with interest. At some point the book-publishing arm of THE BELIEVER, the magazine itself already an offshoot of McSweeney’s, made available an edition of Marías’s VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON, his second novel, originally published in Spain in 1972 (though apparently not properly released until 1973), and written, impressively, when the author was between nineteen and twenty-one years of age. I didn’t get around to reading it at the time and the book became consigned to the shelf, for all intents and purposes temporarily forgotten. The Believer Books imprint put out at least one book I did read and which I adored, namely French misanthrope Michel Houellebecq’s wonderful text on miserablist horror visionary H. P. Lovecraft. It must have been in approximately 2010, when New Directions published a hardcover edition of the English translation, that I devoured with fascination Marías’s short story collection WHILE THE WOMEN WERE SLEEPING. From there I moved pretty rapidly to the YOUR FACE TOMORROW trilogy and tore straight through it in expeditious fashion. I have since gone on to read six more Marías novels (before getting to VOAGE ALONG THE HORIZON, which I have just finished reading). Over the course of the past decade I have often stated that I believe Javier Marías to be in strong contention for consideration as our most brilliant and gifted contemporary novelist, and though I know that a number of the writers who wrote some of the finest novels of the post-war era are still very much alive, my tendency has been to accord Marías a particular exalted status as I believe him to currently be operating very much at the top of his game. Now, what is perhaps unusual is that for the first few years that I spent venturing back into his body of work I had somehow forgotten that this author I had come to revere so highly was the author of that column I used to read in THE BELIEVER in addition to the novel VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON that their publishing arms had put out and which was sitting still unread on one of my shelves. I say that this is perhaps unusual, but it all honesty it probably makes all too much sense, as I happen to have spent my late twenties and early thirties struggling with addiction and late stage alcoholism, my condition for the most part one of the most extreme dissipation. My head has been far clearer for the last number of years, though I cannot precisely recall when it dawned on me that the Javier Marías who I had been reading devotedly in recent years was the same author as he who wrote those columns and that novel I owned from Believer Books. Suffice it to say that I have known this for some time now. That I have put off getting to VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON until now may be in part due to the reticence provoked at the prospect of reading a novel the composition of which was commenced by its author whilst still a teenager and completed not long thereafter. Having recently read the novels that Clarice Lispector wrote in her twenties (the first of which was published shortly before she turned twenty-three), three absolutely extraordinary masterpieces, it has very recently become clear to me that this is not an especially defensible prejudice. Down off the shelf, then, comes VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON, and none too soon. Any suspicion that the book might be the jejune or embarrassingly unworldly product of some precocious and inelegant upstart was very rapidly put to rest. Not only does it testify to a genius already actualized, it may well be especially pleasurable for readers such as myself who have a pretty good handle on how this peerless prose stylist would subsequently develop his approach and his central preoccupations (the most central of which might well be preoccupation itself). This may not seem likely to a prospective reader who has read an outline of the plot of this early novel. Something like a ribald seafaring yarn would seem to be on offer. This is not the kind of stuff we readers of the later Marías expect from him. The Believer Books edition of VOYAGE concludes with an interview with its author, conducted in preparation for the publication of the edition in question, and we will not be surprised to therein find Marías speaking of the influence of Jospeh Conrad on his younger self (an author he would himself go on to translate). Our interviewee also speaks of Henry James and Laurence Sterne (the giant as far as these things go). Marías saw himself as a young man undertaking the execution of this work very much in dialogue with the literature of the 18th and especially the 19th centuries, and conceived of his project very much as a kind of admiring parody. The debt to Sterne certainly manifests itself as mischief at the level of form, a quality of self-reflexivity, and an approach which ultimately subjects the idea of ‘the novel’ to enhanced scrutiny. From Conrad of course we have a particular kind of elegance of craft used to tell seafaring adventure yarns. From James we have what I read as, in the hands of Marías, a tone of ironic solemnity and a focus on the burden, often dangerously transferred, of stories themselves. And readers of popular novels of the 19th century, such as Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN and Matthew Gregory Lewis’s THE MONK (actually from 1796), will be familiar with a tendency in these novels to burry stories within stories within stories, a practice of which young Marías makes prodigious use in his second novel. The tale starts with our nominal narrator attending a reading of Victor Arledge’s novel VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON at the residence of the deceased author’s purported friend Mr. Holden Branshaw (the narrator concedes in passing that the man’s name might actually well have been Horden Bragshawe) in the company of a suspiciously eager woman named Miss Bunnage. The reading will occur over two sessions, Miss Bunnage mysteriously (although this is one mystery that the greater book does ultimately resolve) failing to show up for the second of these. The novelist Victor Arledge will turn out to actually be the protagonist of the novel within the novel, and after completed his reading of it, Branshaw (if that really is his name) mysteriously no longer considers it the masterpiece he previously held it to be, revealing also that it was in fact written by a man named Edward Ellis. All manner of confusion and unreliability informs proceedings at every turn. We should note of course that the title itself, VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON, would appear to have certain implications: when undergoing a voyage we will naturally at all times see the horizon looming in the distance, whereas a voyage that is occurring along said horizon would necessarily have to be one viewed from afar (and almost certainly with a fair amount of indeterminacy). It would also seem unlikely that we receive a transcription of the novel within the novel, our more likely being treated to something like a commendably exhaustive summation from the narrator, though this is itself not especially clear. Early on in the novel within the novel (or the summation thereof) a newspaper article apprises us of the journey ahead: “MOST AMBITIOUS LITERARY ENTERPRISE KNOWN TO MAN. A large group of illustrious writers and artists from England and France to embark on a voyage to Antartica, hoping to produce a literary work and a great musical spectacle based on their experiences at the South Pole.” Arledge is to board the TALLAHASSEE and embark on the journey in question, spearheaded as it is by one Captain Kerrigan. He is excited to meet a musician named Hugh Everett Bayham, also set to join the expedition; Arledge has recently received a letter from a friend in London (shared with the reader apparently in full) in which a recent rather mysterious Scottish misadventure of Bayham’s is recounted. We very quickly come to intuit that the journey is probably doomed, all manner of misfortune interceding from the outset, the first significant instance of such being the murder of Collins, the boatswain. Florence Bonington enters the picture, a comely young woman who may hold the secret to Hugh Everett Bayahm’s strange Scottish tale and with whom the musician keeps close company. Captain Kerrigan gets extremely inebriated and instigates a violent scene on board. He is subsequently confined under guard to his quarters. Arledge will visit him, and subsequently recount some of the Captain’s woeful backstory to Bayham—these are the most explicitly Conradian passages, detailing the mercenary Captain’s misadventures in the East and his journey aboard the UTTARADIT with the millionaires Merrivale and Holland along with the much younger wife of the former—in the hopes of making intelligible the Captain’s recent misconduct. Or is this in fact what happens? A clever bit of writerly obfuscation casts it into some doubt. And so on and so on. A man is killed in a duel on board. Armed insurgents would seem to enter the picture from the periphery. I don’t think I am giving too much away at all to reveal that the South Pole is simply not happening. Another thing that Marías would seem to have adopted from Henry James is a gift for the weaving together of character motivation and incident in truly dexterous fashion. I would like to share one astonishing passage to show you just how gifted a stylist and astute a clinician of the human animal this very young author already is: “It would be interesting indeed to find out the exact terms of the relationship between Bayham and Miss Bonington—and I am afraid that Victor Arledge did—but from what I have been able to ascertain to date, I imagine it was the type of relationship—the observation of which, I admit, is rather agonizing and often leads to the dehumanization of one of the two parties—that often arises between young couples on the precipice of getting married. This type of relationship usually exhibits two distinct characteristics: the most absolute servility (or dutiful resignation) on the side of the truly enamored party (in this case Hugh Everett Bayham), and the fickle whim of the other (in this case Florence Bonington) who, conscious of his or her charms, and as such doubly pernicious, simply allows himself or herself to be adored and loved. In the majority of cases, and contrary to what one might intuitively guess, this second party is usually the less intelligent of the two. I realize this may be a simplistic and slightly rudimentary way to look at it, but it does seem to explain, quite perfectly, the reasons why Hugh Everett Bayham, the day after Léonide Meffre’s death, decided he would not set foot on the upper deck.” While the Javier Marías who wrote VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON is not yet the author who would go on to demonstrate an ability second to none when it comes to composing extremely long, digressive sentences of impeccable virtuosity and grammatical integrity, he is already a formidable literary craftsmen, and his pastiche of 19th century literary prose style operates quite seamlessly, especially when he utilizes his talents to create elaborate-yet-easeful formulations such as that quoted above (reminiscent as it is of Henry James at his very finest). We should note here that the completed reading of the novel within the novel is followed by passages which return our narrator back to something like business as usual, though the mystery aroused by the unusual novel read to him by an unusual man continues to eat away at him. Though the mystery is dispersed, the irresolution nags at him and he is unable, even years later it would seem, to reconcile himself with certain loose ends. The novel ends with the question of irresolution and how to adapt to both its intractability and its ubiquity. The narrator becomes just as preoccupied with the novel within the novel (especially the context of its composition, its possible traces of truthfulness) as had Victor Arledge in that very novel with the Scottish misadventure of Hugh Everett Bayham, an obsession that the novel within the novel repeatedly tells us essentially destroyed Arledge's life (though we are not filled in on how his ultimate undoing played out). In the interview at the back of the Believer Books edition—conducted, as I have said, decades after the novel’s original Spanish publication—Marías says that he believes that what most links VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON to his later mature works is the presence of a fundamentally incorporeal or peripheral narrator, lacking agency, who recounts the story from a position of remove. That is surely a sound observation. However, as I have already said, I have long thought of Marías as an author whose work is fundamentally about preoccupation or, if you prefer, obsession. This is, to my mind, already very much the case with VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON. Storytelling is about an obsessive need to define a reality and communicate it while obsession equally informs the perilous quest to 'get the story.' As for what distinguishes this early novel from the mature work, take note of Marías’s answer to the first question in the interview contained at the back, where he supplies as influences not only Conrad and James but Billy Wilder’s 1970 film THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, a film that upon its release was an avowedly modern film having a great deal of fun indeed with what were even then antiquated popular templates. That VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON utilizes idioms and templates with ironic intent makes it seem like a demonstratively postmodern novel in a way its author’s later masterpieces really are not. Also note that in bringing up Laurence Sterne (another writer Marías went on to translate) we are forced to consider TRISTRAM SHANDY, that remarkable 18th century masterpiece it is common to call postmodern avant la lettre. When it comes to referring to very old novels as prematurely postmodern, of course, it is also common to go back even further than Sterne to Cervantes, DON QUIXOTE, and the Spanish Baroque, as such bringing to bear the literary history of Marías’s homeland. This specific legacy, that of the Spanish Baroque, strikes me as being operational in Surrealism, the postmodern novel, and ongoing literary practices (especially in the 20th century) throughout Spain, Latin America, and the Spanish diaspora more generally. If we want to discuss THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, perhaps we might also like to consider Spaniard and first wave Surrealist Luis Buñuel’s 1954 Mexican film adaptation of ROBINSON CRUSOE. We might also think of Spanish Surrealist Eugenio Granell's THE NOVEL OF THE TUPINAMBA INDIAN and the work of the magnificent Felipe Alfau, a Spaniard living in American exile, whose remarkable masterpiece CHROMOS is up to such similar business with its stories within stories within stories and various Baroque amenities. Many who read VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON likewise have and will continue to think of Borges. As for the connection to the postmodern novel, how can we not think of John Barth, that most characteristically postmodern of postmodern novelists, whose THE SOT-WEED FACTOR certainly seems like a definite precedent, and who in later works such as SABBATICAL: A ROMANCE, THE LAST VOYAGE OF SOMEBODY THE SAILOR, and THE TIDEWATER TALES filled his sprawling canvases with sailors sailing and storytellers storytelling, as well as with irony and euphoria and irreconcilable mystery. It is perhaps a tired commonplace to say that the adventure is about the journey rather than the destination. Think of how a child plays. Play is purely committed to pleasurable activity for its own sake. Irony itself is fundamentally playful. Those obsessed with destinations are like all who are obsessed: they most likely face postponement, disillusionment, and torment. Javier Marías says that Billy Wilder's movie about Sherlock Holmes was and is one of his favourite movies. Wilder famously had ten commandments about cinema the first nine of which were "though shalt not bore." Goddammit, it should be fun! Adventure, play, stories: freed of obsession. Fun? VOYAGE ALONG THE HORIZON very much is. Perhaps a fun story about destructive obsessions with stories is ultimately an exorcism...or at very least a catharsis, an overcoming, a liberating admonishment on behalf of the writer (and for the reader!) targeting any personal tendency toward dismal self-seriousness.

[Rise · Rating 3 out of 5]

The day that witnessed the departure of the Tallahassee—a sailboat with a metal hull, three masts, and a steam engine, classified by Lloyds Register of Shipping as a mixed vessel, property of the Cunard White Star, built by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in the United States, purchased by Great Britain (where it was newly registered in 1896, though its original name, that of the city where it was baptized, remained the same), capable of reaching a velocity of 11.5 knots, with capacity for seventy passengers, and operating under the command of Ship's Captain Eustace Seebohm, Englishman, and First Officer J. D. Kerrigan, American—there was a great celebration at the port of Marseilles. The ship was fêted and festooned with balloons, confetti, and streamers that dappled the surrounding waters with their dazzling colors. As they boarded the vessel one by one, the passengers were cheered by the onlookers. Finally, at ten in the morning, after all the obligatory ceremonies had finally come to a close, the boat pushed away from the coast with forty-two prominent society figures, fifteen men of science, and an inevitably furious, resentful crew.

—Voyage Along the Horizon by Javier Marías, translated by Kristina Cordero

This is a sophomore effort by Javier Marías, started when he was 19 years old and published two years later, in 1972. I'm still eagerly waiting for when his first book, Los dominios del lobo (1971, Domains of the Wolf), will appear in translation. That's that book, along with La asesina ilustrada (The Enlightened Assassin) by Enrique Vila-Matas, that for Roberto Bolaño, "marks a departure point for our generation."

Voyage Along the Horizon is, by Marían standards, a minor novel that I'm still glad to have read. One gets to see similarities and contrasts with the novelist's late style. In this, the young novelist already displayed a tendency for playful tinkering with plot. I can see why Bolaño, fed up with the imitations of magical realist novels of Boom writers, would prefer a novel by a young Marías. The form, structure, and diction of Voyage Along the Horizon eschewed any magical and folkloric reference; it did not anchor itself on a "nationalist" literature. Instead it pays homage to the English adventure novels. Its acknowledged influences are Joseph Conrad, Henry James, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

The time of the "novel" within the novel was 1904. A trip to Antarctica was organized by the charismatic and gloomy Captain Kerrigan, who invited men and women of prestige aboard the Tallahassee: writers, artists, and scientists. The idea for this kind of journey must be bold and vain at the time, but it is prophetic too. A similar trip was recently undertaken by "a mix of scientists, academics, students and journalists" to raise awareness about climate change (news link here , provided by a friend).

The story of this journey is a background story that is framed by the present story where the unnamed narrator talks about a novelist named Victor Arledge who retreated from society and who died abjectly. A guest in the narrator's party mentions that he had with him a certain manuscript of a novel entrusted to him by a late friend. The novel is entitled Voyage Along the Horizon. In true Marías habit, the name of the author of this novel will be withheld until more than halfway into the book.
A young woman who studied the works of Arledge is very interested in the contents of the manuscript, so she asks the literary executor (Mr. Holden Branshaw or Hordern Bragshawe, the narrator "hadn't quite caught" the name) permission to read the novel which, once published, Branshaw (or Bragshawe) strongly believes, would catapult his friend to literary limelight and would pave the way for him to be considered "one of the great novelists of his time". Later on, this assessment will change, and Branshaw (let's say) will pass a definitively harsh judgement on the novel. The winking self-reference in this book must be one of its enjoyable aspects.

Instead of letting the lady borrow the novel, Mr. Branshaw invites the lady and the narrator to his house where he would read from his friend's manuscript. From this story (a novel called Voyage Along the Horizon) within a story (this novel of the same title), Marías produces other branching stories in the form of letters, confessions, and investigations. The novelist luxuriates in the same storytelling tics and antics that characterize his later books. The safekeeping of secrets, the confession of unpleasant deeds, shady or morally corrupt characters, ever so lengthy digressions—these are all here, surprisingly anticipating the elements swirling in his literary cosmogony. In addition, the scenes that parade in its pages are as unlikely as they are assembled: kidnapping, duel on a ship, smuggling on the shores of Formosa and Southeast Asia, pirate attacks, and a journey in search of a habitable island.

"One must learn how to cultivate the art of ambiguity", someone said in the novel. A principle that the novel seems to have taken to heart. The novel resists resolution that would tie up everything neatly together. Readers are instead treated to nontraditional murder and mystery stories, wide open to interpretation, and whose ending does not provide closure but cold comfort. For a writer who has always been concerned with the act and art of storytelling, this novel is a kind of variation of his literary maneuvers. Marías may have hardened in his dense prose style, but his uncompromising worldview as a "secret sharer" and "secret withholder" has always been intact.

The book contained an appendix—an interview called "Eight Questions for Javier Marías" where he discussed the novel's style and influences, its metafictional elements and the open ending, and the quality of his fiction that predisposes it to translation.

[Vicente Vida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tenía ganas de leer algo de Javier Marías y he de decir que esta no me ha decepcionado. Incluso habiendo sido escrita cuando el autor no tenía más de 21 años.
Está bien escrita, tal vez abusando algo del lenguaje descriptivo y siendo los diálogos muy escasos. Esto podría hacer la historia aburrida, sin embargo al tratarse de una narración que lleva anidada la vida de varios personajes hace que su lectura sea muy amena. La novela no es muy larga, me la he leído en un par de días.
Trata de un viaje de científicos y hombres de letras en un velero de finales del XIX hacia el Polo Sur, pero no es una novela de aventuras al uso, sino más bien una crítica satírica de la sociedad de esta época y de los estereotipos en que vivimos.
Recomendable.

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slim exercise book on emulating Calvino without needing to be brazen or effective. I read this four years ago, I recall it being a gift from The Believer. I wasn't that impressed, think Cortazar's The Winners sans any charatcers or action; that experience has made me cautious about marias to this day.

[Sebastián · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poco qué decir, es un gran homenaje a las novelas de folletín y de aventuras decimonónicas, me parece que para ser la segunda novela de Marías es un buen pie para la afición a los misterios sin resolver de sus novelas posteriores.

Ahora seguiré con El hombre Sentimental.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is about the best book by a 21 year old that I have ever read. However it is a book by a 21 year old. Novelists are not know for being prodigies - too much life has been unlived to be great out of the gate. "Voyage Along the Horizon" is a pastiche of Henry James and Joseph Conrad with a dash of the English serialists such as Wilkie Collins. What is amazing is that Marías (and the translator) caught the prose patterns of James while writing in Spanish and then translated back into English! That being said, frequently it was painful to parse what was happening when Marías was being Jamesian.

What Marías adds to the pastiche (or homage) is a postmodern sensibility. He is playing with the narrative impulse that was second nature to Conrad and the serialists (and to a much lesser extent James who sometimes didn't care much about the actual plot of the work he was writing.) The Voyage along the Horizon to Marías is the act of reading - we are always at the horizon of explication as we turn page after page. We can surmise what will happen in the remaining pages, but those pages are beyond the horizon.

The "hero" of the book is a novelist that goes mad trying to figure out what happens to another character who has told a murky and incomplete tale to one of the novelist's friends (which the novelist reads in a letter - a nod to the many ways 18-19th century novelists put in letters and other narrative devices into their works.) The stories in the book are monologues, letters, confessions, and at the heart of it, a novel-within-a-novel called "Voyage Along the Horizon.". The book does have Austerity.

Several real voyages do occur in the book, this is the Conradian part of the book - and these are much easier on the noggin than the James pastiches. The book is really a platypus in some ways. So someone expecting a nice resolution in the manner of Marías literary heroes, one has to realize that this is what Marías will not explicitly do - to tie up the loose ends and put the reader in the mood of "Well, that's that!" is contrary to Marías' goal. It seems to me that he wants us in the position of the novelist in the story (or, to consider more closely the position of the novelist) and have us examine the way our sails are blown by the narrative winds along a book's horizon. Is it enough for a novel - maybe yes, maybe no, but it was an interesting ride!

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siempre he pensado que no hay nada mejor que hacer dos cosas a la vez. Ver la tele y tejer. Comer o beber y leer algo encantador. Pero odio no poder leer y manejar. Lo odio especialmente ahora con esta aventurosa novela de Javier Marías que se aposenta en el asiento del copiloto esperando que yo esté en un alto o en el tráfico para abrir sus páginas y leer uno a uno los libros que forman la increíble travesía por la Antártida a la que un tal John Kerrigan arrastró a un grupo de escritores.

El humor, el colmillo, la brevedad poética, la certeza y las múltiples mascaradas tan conocidas en otras obras de Javier Marías están aquí en Travesía del Horizonte, ondeando como las velas de un barco.

[Christopher Heaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little Borges, a little Conrad, a little Conan Doyle swirled together to make an interesting intellectual game. The Conradesque embedded story in the middle is terrific, because it's the passage in which things really happen (or not?), but the rest just kind of taught me a lesson -- never go on an expedition to the Antarctic with a boat full of foppish artists. You'll be bored to tears or murdered by the trip's end.

[Nate D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfulfilled adventure novel forms, historical literary format pastiche, and rumination on the mysteries that compel us to seek the truth, or keep reading. I wasn't particularly moved by it. Marías says that endpoints matter less than the voyage and atmosphere, which I would often agree with, but here the atmosphere, and particularly the characters, did not drag me along to the degree that his designs seem to require.

[Ginny Pennekamp · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's not much more to say about this book than: it lulls you into awesometown. At first you're like, "What?" and then you're like, "WHAT!" And it's just dense and rich and escapist and incredible all in the best ways. One of the best presents my hubby ever got me. And himself, because he LOVES this book.

[Keliani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es el tipo de novela que empiezas a leer y no sabes qué esperar, pero mientras más lees, más te va interesando. Amé la efusividad de Victor Arledge, su relativa consistencia, y claro, todos los detalles de los compromisos sociales de la época son muy divertidos. Me hubiera gustado que se hablara más sobre el capitán Kerrigan, de sólo imaginármelo haría toda una novela con su vida.

[César González · Rating 1 out of 5]

Me pareció un libro bastante soso. Siento que dilapidé mi tiempo leyéndolo, prefiero leer un cuento de Julio Verne. Es el primer libro de Javier Marías que leo, y por comentarios de terceros en torno a su obra, me imagino que hay otros trabajos más rescatables.

Éste libro lo escribió muy joven, así que le doy el beneficio de la duda.

[Fernando · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una narración vaga, un enigma que no es tal, sugerencias, sombras de trama, siluetas de personajes; y a pesar de la vaguedad de todo, atrapante, emocionante y con un par de escenas de gran poder. Una pequeña aventura de las mentiras donde la duda se divierte.

[Patri · Rating 3 out of 5]

La sensación de hacer el ridículo, de perder una oportunidad largo tiempo ansiada, de comportarse de manera innoble, de desbaratar unos planes para siempre, de no estar a la altura de las circunstancias, de carecer de tacto y de mesura, de resultar impertinente y poco sutil, de perder las simpatías de otra persona y, en resumen, de ser un patán, es quizá la más dolorosa y humillante que un caballero puede experimentar.
Sin embargo, una reconsideración de los hechos, unas horas más tarde, tranquila y despejada mi mente gracias a la brisa nocturna, logró aliviar mis pesares y devolverme la serenidad: para aquellas personas que, como yo, tienden a ser dóciles y fáciles de contentar, no es problema hallar argumentos que, una vez desechado un proyecto o perdida una ilusión, nos convenzan de su banalidad e incluso consigan que nos regocijemos y nos sintamos liberados ante dicha privación. A la mañana siguiente todo -o casi todo- había sido olvidado.

[eylem · Rating 4 out of 5]

bizim büyük challengeımız sayesinde tanıştım yazarla. anlattığı dönemin dilini ve hikaye tarzını kullanması hoşuma gitti. üst kurmaca da çok başarılı. beğendim. diğer kitaplarına da bakacağım

[MJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first discovered Javier Marías by pure accident, while I was wandering around my library in Brooklyn. The book was A Heart So White, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I've been meaning to read more from him, but didn't get a chance to until I finally picked up Voyage Along the Horizon just recently.

Voyage was Marías's second novel, written when he was only twenty two years old. As such, it does read as less polished than A Heart So White, but I still really enjoyed it. It's playful, a book about a book about an author trying to learn the details about a story, a bit of a writerly experiment, if you will.

The language is purposefully stilted and old fashioned. It feels like you are reading an early 1900's English mystery novel. If that's your kind of book, you should appreciate this. If it's not typically your type of book, you still can enjoy the meta whimsy.

Despite the borrowed style, this book is still very much Marías. He writes looooooooooonnngggg paragraphs - blocks of text can go on for pages. It can leave you a little breathless, but it does have the effect of pulling you into the scene.

One of the things I like about Marías is his clever way of inserting little observations about human behavior into seemingly unrelated text:

"...Meffre and the pianist had met, but with rather unpleasant consequences, two years earlier at Baden-Baden. Their interaction had been somewhat circumstantial, and even though the slight friction that had erupted between them in Germant during a performance of Monteverdi's Ulysseys, involving some box seats and a certain young lady, was more or less ancient history by now, both men (Meffre in particular) still seemed to remain slightly, quietly hesitant about initiating any kind of direct conversation even when the occasion all but required it."

More on the blog: Wandering in the Stacks

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bouyed by my reading this week of Bernhard's worthwhile, early "On the Mountain," I decided to tackle the earliest prose work available in English by another of my favorite writers. Written during the span of his 19th to his 21st year, this exciting and playful novel only occasionally reveals the immaturity that I'd like to imagine most people have at that tender age, but only occasionally. Surprisingly, despite a plot that largely falls apart, and some clumsy paragraphs that fail at elegant explication, the elaborate syntax and sly observations on the nature of fiction and storytelling--most of the ingredients, in other words, that make mature the Marías such a pleasure to read--are here intact. Didn't Bolaño speak highly of "Dominions of the Wolf"? If it's anywhere near as accomplished as this, I hope it's translated soon. Marías may not have emerged fully-formed, but there's a lot to enjoy here.

[Juan de Dios Reyes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pensé un poco si poner las dos estrellas, pero finalmente me decidí por una sola porque en realidad no me gustó menos aún viniendo de un escritor que admiro. Podría ser porque es un libro de juventud. Entiendo que lo escribió a los 21 años y eso es un mérito enorme aunque para mi eso por sí no lo hace un "buen" libro.
No le encontré mucho sentido a la historia, en realidad parecen varias historias sin mucho sentido dentro de un solo libro, y los personajes en sí tampoco los sentí bien definidos.
Si eres un estudioso, de literatura o de Javier Marías, tal vez debas leerlo, pero no se lo recomiendo a todos.

[Theo Bender · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abenteuerroman, Seefahrer: das klang ganz nach einem tollen Schmöker für mich. Und dann noch von einem mir unbekannten Welt-Bestseller-Autor.
Umso enttäuschter war ich. Zwar spielen große Teile auf See, aber darum ging es nicht. Vielmehr ist das Buch ein intellektuell kluges Spiel mit Genrezitaten (eben z. B. dem Abenteuerroman), Erzählebenen und verschachtelten Konstruktionen. Das ist ansich okay. Was mich aber dann doch gestört hat, war die Tatsache, dass kaum ein Satz kürzer war als fünf Zeilen. Diese Bemühungen, möglichst komplizierte Sätze zu schreiben, immer noch ein Nebensatz dranzuhängen, immer noch eine Drehung unterzubringen, haben sich mir nicht erschlossen. Schade.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice charming slim novel. The best parts of it deal with mystery and the book does a fun job of setting up events only to never resolve them. It might be frustrating to some readers, but I found that technique really engaging. This is the first book I've read by Marias, and I have a feeling his other books are better; so I'm excited to explore more. Voyage might not be incredible, but you you can feel the joy of a young novelists inspiration in it (it was his second book, written at the age of 21); and for any fans of magical realism, this is a nice, though not required, read.

[annakatrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

normally i would have thought this book (consciously conjuring joseph conrad and henry james) was, as i'd like to say, "for boys." but if you know me, you know how much i indefatigably heart--EMEFFING HEART--javier marias. this was his second novel, written when he was 21 years old, so i will forgive him for toying with the reader so. but all in all, a wonderful read with really charming characters. i only wish i could have spent more time with them.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging and strange ... nested stories in this book ultimately about an ill-fated voyage of writers and scientists to Antarctica, but it's also not really about that at all (and not just because they never get beyond the Mediterranean). It's about inexplicable obsessions, and criminal histories, and a lot more.
Ultimately it's also just really strange but I liked the echoes of Conrad and Borges and others.
Also, exactly the kind of book I wanted to read now so that counts for something.

[Allison · Rating 1 out of 5]

2007 It kept me reading but I don't know why.
2020 reread. Why? Bc I didn’t remember anything about it and a friend had gifted me the book. Unfortunately it went down 2 stars. Not related to the friend who gifted it!

[Trin · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Marías’ earlier, and from the examples of his work I’ve read so far, more disjointed novels. And yet: still this is sort of irrepressibly charming. I think, like the voyage of the title, Marías’ work tends to be more about the journey and less about the destination.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book called Voyage Along the Horizon about a book called Voyage Along the Horizon. Perhaps not Marias' most sophisticated or rigorously intellectual books, but great, great fun and extremely readable. Did I mention he finished writing it when he was 21 years old?

[Susan Josephs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another magical realist. Fun to read this book within a book. I was awaiting his new novel, The Infatuations, that received amazing reviews in the New York Times book review and took this from the library in the meantime. I enjoyed it thoroughly.