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Trilogia sentimentale: Tutte le anime-Un cuore così bianco-Domani nella battaglia pensa a me
Per Javier Marías l'amore è il sentimento che richiede le maggior dosi di immaginazione, non soltanto quando chi lo ha sperimentato e lo ha perduto ha bisogno di spiegarselo, ma anche mentre l'amore si sviluppa e ha pieno vigore. In altre parole, per Marías l'amore ha sempre una proiezione immaginaria, per quanto possiamo crederlo tangibile o reale in un determinato momento. Ed è sulla proprio sulla base di queste riflessioni personali che Marías ha costruito, seppure con declinazioni diverse, i romanzi qui riuniti - usciti singolarmente tra il 1998 e il 1999 -, tutti accomunati dal filo rosso e imperioso della passione amorosa. In "Tutte le anime" Marías racconta la storia di un turbamento, un penetrante diario pubblico dell'intimità dove ogni dettaglio viene indagato con l'acribia minuziosa dell'entomologo, nella convinzione che anche il gesto e l'incontro apparentemente più insignificanti possano aprire la strada a vertigini metafisiche. "Un cuore così bianco", invece, parla della persuasione e dell'istigazione, del matrimonio, della possibilità di sapere e dell'impossibilità d'ignorare, del sospetto, del parlare e del tacere. Infine in "Domani nella battaglia pensa a me", raccontandoci l'inganno e svelandone la macchina che esso mette inevitabilmente in moto, Marías racconta l'illusoria realtà in cui tutti noi siamo sprofondati.
- GenresFiction
829 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Javier Marías
148 books2,568 followersJavier 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 12, 2013
Non amo particolarmente la letteratura spagnola. Gli scrittori che ho letto non mi sono piaciuti, in primis il tanto celebre Zafon che mi stanca e mi tedia. Ma Marìas è stata insieme un'eccezione e una scoperta.
Tutte le anime, il primo romanzo della trilogia, ha quasi l'immediatezza giornalistica del reportage, sia pure a scopo privato, e i chiaroscuri di un romanzo, dove ci sono tanti personaggi che solo per vie contorte arrivano a fissarsi nella memoria come persone. Poco pregnante per me. L'unica riflessione che mi ha colpito (e che mi ha fatto un po' sorridere) è quella dell’immondizia come metafora dell'esistenza: "Il sacchetto e il secchio sono la prova del fatto che quel giorno è esistito e si è accumulato... L’unico riscontro, l’unica prova o conferma del trascorrere di quell'uomo".
Ma il suo stile mi piace proprio. Prolisso e distratto, che volutamente genera confusione. Ma quando ci si entra appieno nella lettura, l’effetto è intensamente sconcertante. La realtà smette di esistere, lascia il posto ai suoi simulacri spettrali, si colora di mille sfumature e apre i suoi orizzonti alle infinite dimensioni del possibile.
Un segreto nascosto per anni può essere svelato o deve essere tenuto nascosto per non sconvolgere la vita delle persone? E' questa la chiave del romanzo Un cuore così bianco che trascina il lettore ad interrogarsi sulle tante e coinvolgenti riflessioni che l’autore ci propone attraverso l’inquietudine dei suoi personaggi e delle loro storie. Riflessioni che sono ripetizioni di intere frasi o paragrafi che ne segnano l'inizio e la fine, in una circolarità che dà armonia ed equilibrio al romanzo.
Domani nella battaglia pensa a me è il rifiuto della morte, la rigida e composta risposta del padre della donna ad un lutto doloroso, la rabbia di un marito che si scopre tradito, e infine la nebbia che tutto nasconde e che si porta via “ardori e ricordi”. Bisogna continuare a vivere, prenderne coscienza, e quando sorge l’alba continuare a occuparsi di altro.
Marìas è un fabbricante di inquietudini, quelle della sua Trilogia sentimentale che ho letto d’un fiato. E’ un viaggio alla ricerca delle possibilità irrealizzate della vita. Una realtà, sotto forma di un pensiero ricorrente, diventa punto di partenza per sviluppare un discorso tutto interiore che invece di raccontare l’accaduto dà voce all'inespresso, all'irrealizzato, all'irreale. Un mondo in cui ci si smarrisce, ci si lascia distrarre e trasportare dall'incessante flusso della scoperta.
Tutte le anime, il primo romanzo della trilogia, ha quasi l'immediatezza giornalistica del reportage, sia pure a scopo privato, e i chiaroscuri di un romanzo, dove ci sono tanti personaggi che solo per vie contorte arrivano a fissarsi nella memoria come persone. Poco pregnante per me. L'unica riflessione che mi ha colpito (e che mi ha fatto un po' sorridere) è quella dell’immondizia come metafora dell'esistenza: "Il sacchetto e il secchio sono la prova del fatto che quel giorno è esistito e si è accumulato... L’unico riscontro, l’unica prova o conferma del trascorrere di quell'uomo".
Ma il suo stile mi piace proprio. Prolisso e distratto, che volutamente genera confusione. Ma quando ci si entra appieno nella lettura, l’effetto è intensamente sconcertante. La realtà smette di esistere, lascia il posto ai suoi simulacri spettrali, si colora di mille sfumature e apre i suoi orizzonti alle infinite dimensioni del possibile.
Un segreto nascosto per anni può essere svelato o deve essere tenuto nascosto per non sconvolgere la vita delle persone? E' questa la chiave del romanzo Un cuore così bianco che trascina il lettore ad interrogarsi sulle tante e coinvolgenti riflessioni che l’autore ci propone attraverso l’inquietudine dei suoi personaggi e delle loro storie. Riflessioni che sono ripetizioni di intere frasi o paragrafi che ne segnano l'inizio e la fine, in una circolarità che dà armonia ed equilibrio al romanzo.
Domani nella battaglia pensa a me è il rifiuto della morte, la rigida e composta risposta del padre della donna ad un lutto doloroso, la rabbia di un marito che si scopre tradito, e infine la nebbia che tutto nasconde e che si porta via “ardori e ricordi”. Bisogna continuare a vivere, prenderne coscienza, e quando sorge l’alba continuare a occuparsi di altro.
Marìas è un fabbricante di inquietudini, quelle della sua Trilogia sentimentale che ho letto d’un fiato. E’ un viaggio alla ricerca delle possibilità irrealizzate della vita. Una realtà, sotto forma di un pensiero ricorrente, diventa punto di partenza per sviluppare un discorso tutto interiore che invece di raccontare l’accaduto dà voce all'inespresso, all'irrealizzato, all'irreale. Un mondo in cui ci si smarrisce, ci si lascia distrarre e trasportare dall'incessante flusso della scoperta.
February 12, 2018
22.08.2017 - 24.08.2017: Tutte le anime (pp. 3-213) [x]
12.02.2018 - 17.02.2018: Un cuore così bianco (pp. 214-485) [x]
04.04.2010 - 04.05.2010: Domani nella battaglia pensa a me (pp. 486-830) [x]
12.02.2018 - 17.02.2018: Un cuore così bianco (pp. 214-485) [x]
04.04.2010 - 04.05.2010: Domani nella battaglia pensa a me (pp. 486-830) [x]
August 18, 2010
[All Souls, 19 Sep 2010] -- an account, from memory, of the Spanish narrator's 2 years at Oxford. From memory, that's the important bit here. Everything is account (story) and memory.
At first I was going to complain about the style, the looping, rambling voice of not only the narrator but also the other characters (everyone talks/thinks the same?, I thought to myself). In fact, at one point (the high-table scene where our narrator first meets his lover-to-be) I said to myself, this scene that's supposed to be funny (hilarious even) almost isn't because of the way he's telling it. But by the end I realized that that's the point. The whole book is in the narrator's head, I mean coming from the narrator's head. That's why it's messy, anxious, agitated (as the narrator himself readily admits he was during that period in his life).
This novel is also a demonstration of what literature is: keeping going with the story; the immortality of us as persons and as a culture. All souls have a story, all souls are afraid to die because they don't want to miss out on the all the stories: those untold, those yet to unfold...
One of my favorite bits: the scene near the end where Clare recounts a scene from her past that she herself barely remembers (she was only 3 and has constructed the story from others' tellings); but we don't "hear" her finishing the story (the climax), instead the narrator does it himself in his own head, adding his own embellishments and touches...!
[A Heart So White, 20 Oct 2010] -- while reading this I was trying to figure out 2 things: 1) what was it that I didn't like about it, and 2) why I liked it so much. And that, in a nutshell, is a description of Marías's paradoxical style (and method).
One of the things that bothers me is the way all the characters seem to talk in the same way, with the same style. In the other books, I found good excuses, and in this one, the narrator out-and-out says it, This is the way I remember it, which may not be the way it actually was. But that's all minor, inconsequential stuff.
The real discovery here is Marías's method, which is outlined in an appendix, but which I was unconsciously aware of (I think). In this book in particular (of the 3 now I have read), there's a distinct lack of plot, and instead a collection of seemingly random set pieces. In fact, I was going to write something similar to what I wrote re: 2666 -- chance events that somehow fit and don't fit at the same time, through some sort of magic, and yet the "fitness" doesn't matter anyway. And then I read what Marías himself says about his working method: he has no idea what he's going to write when he sets down to write. (OK, yeah, I'm sure he has some idea.) But the rest he leaves to ... flow, magic, inspiration, the spirit of the Gift?, does it matter?
But for all the supposed randomness, there's a definite structure here. As usual with Marías, the book ends where it starts (usually with a death or the mention of a death, much like with Marquez). In this one there's a lot of repetition, of entire phrases, especially at the end, like a crescendo (that make it almost musical), as the final revelation is told (recounted), and heard and overheard, willingly and unwillingly, but necessarily, because that's what Literature is, that's what Life is...
[Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me, 28 Nov 2010]
I don't know, maybe it was Marías fatigue, or maybe I took too long to read it, but this one didn't work for me. Not like the others anyway. Marías himself admits that his working method doesn't always work, that it can have "disastrous" results. While I wouldn't call this a disaster, I'm not sure how well it worked. We have all the usual Marías tropes and images (time, memory, spying, the back of the neck, the face, names, death, storytelling), but somehow they don't gel, not like in A Heart So White. Or maybe it's that the "random" stories that happen between the main story aren't as interesting as they were in A Heart So White (interesting to me anyway).
Here the book ends with a story told not by the narrator but by another character. But instead of the narrator finishing the story for us (as in All Souls), we realize that his own story (told in the preceding pages) was contaminated by this story, which he is finally telling us, having delayed it with other stories, with too many thoughts, too much thinking actually. And in the end, maybe that's why this fails; the inner thoughts, the inner paranoias, that useless whirring that our brains do sometimes, overrode the storytelling, the flow, the magic...
P.S. OK, I think I have an answer to the paradox I mentioned in my review of A Heart So White: haunting. Marías is haunting. His narrators are haunted (as they themselves claim), but so are we. A spell is cast upon us, we are mesmerized and enchanted, despite the meanderings, the spiraling and looping, the "what the hell are you doing??" moments, the flaws... or it's precisely because of those things...Is this perhaps why in my least favorite of the 3 books I just read I have placed the most bookmarks?
At first I was going to complain about the style, the looping, rambling voice of not only the narrator but also the other characters (everyone talks/thinks the same?, I thought to myself). In fact, at one point (the high-table scene where our narrator first meets his lover-to-be) I said to myself, this scene that's supposed to be funny (hilarious even) almost isn't because of the way he's telling it. But by the end I realized that that's the point. The whole book is in the narrator's head, I mean coming from the narrator's head. That's why it's messy, anxious, agitated (as the narrator himself readily admits he was during that period in his life).
This novel is also a demonstration of what literature is: keeping going with the story; the immortality of us as persons and as a culture. All souls have a story, all souls are afraid to die because they don't want to miss out on the all the stories: those untold, those yet to unfold...
One of my favorite bits: the scene near the end where Clare recounts a scene from her past that she herself barely remembers (she was only 3 and has constructed the story from others' tellings); but we don't "hear" her finishing the story (the climax), instead the narrator does it himself in his own head, adding his own embellishments and touches...!
[A Heart So White, 20 Oct 2010] -- while reading this I was trying to figure out 2 things: 1) what was it that I didn't like about it, and 2) why I liked it so much. And that, in a nutshell, is a description of Marías's paradoxical style (and method).
One of the things that bothers me is the way all the characters seem to talk in the same way, with the same style. In the other books, I found good excuses, and in this one, the narrator out-and-out says it, This is the way I remember it, which may not be the way it actually was. But that's all minor, inconsequential stuff.
The real discovery here is Marías's method, which is outlined in an appendix, but which I was unconsciously aware of (I think). In this book in particular (of the 3 now I have read), there's a distinct lack of plot, and instead a collection of seemingly random set pieces. In fact, I was going to write something similar to what I wrote re: 2666 -- chance events that somehow fit and don't fit at the same time, through some sort of magic, and yet the "fitness" doesn't matter anyway. And then I read what Marías himself says about his working method: he has no idea what he's going to write when he sets down to write. (OK, yeah, I'm sure he has some idea.) But the rest he leaves to ... flow, magic, inspiration, the spirit of the Gift?, does it matter?
But for all the supposed randomness, there's a definite structure here. As usual with Marías, the book ends where it starts (usually with a death or the mention of a death, much like with Marquez). In this one there's a lot of repetition, of entire phrases, especially at the end, like a crescendo (that make it almost musical), as the final revelation is told (recounted), and heard and overheard, willingly and unwillingly, but necessarily, because that's what Literature is, that's what Life is...
[Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me, 28 Nov 2010]
I don't know, maybe it was Marías fatigue, or maybe I took too long to read it, but this one didn't work for me. Not like the others anyway. Marías himself admits that his working method doesn't always work, that it can have "disastrous" results. While I wouldn't call this a disaster, I'm not sure how well it worked. We have all the usual Marías tropes and images (time, memory, spying, the back of the neck, the face, names, death, storytelling), but somehow they don't gel, not like in A Heart So White. Or maybe it's that the "random" stories that happen between the main story aren't as interesting as they were in A Heart So White (interesting to me anyway).
Here the book ends with a story told not by the narrator but by another character. But instead of the narrator finishing the story for us (as in All Souls), we realize that his own story (told in the preceding pages) was contaminated by this story, which he is finally telling us, having delayed it with other stories, with too many thoughts, too much thinking actually. And in the end, maybe that's why this fails; the inner thoughts, the inner paranoias, that useless whirring that our brains do sometimes, overrode the storytelling, the flow, the magic...
P.S. OK, I think I have an answer to the paradox I mentioned in my review of A Heart So White: haunting. Marías is haunting. His narrators are haunted (as they themselves claim), but so are we. A spell is cast upon us, we are mesmerized and enchanted, despite the meanderings, the spiraling and looping, the "what the hell are you doing??" moments, the flaws... or it's precisely because of those things...Is this perhaps why in my least favorite of the 3 books I just read I have placed the most bookmarks?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews