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S'està carregant… Los enamoramientos (2011 original; edició 2011)de Javier Marías
Informació de l'obraThe Infatuations de Javier Marías (2011)
S'està carregant…
Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. Rarely have I read a novelist so in love with his own words. Marías babbles on inordinately, with long run-on sentences that mull over characters and their motivations in the most ponderous of ways, often repeating himself or ending up in highly questionable positions. Each of his characters speak the same way, in lengthy exposition, sounding like the 61-year-old author in everything down to their cultural references. Seriously, it’s as if there was zero attempt to revise or pare down a first draft. The plot is extremely thin and quite honestly, this should have been a 30 page short story. It’s an order of magnitude longer, and I felt every bit of that. Marías delves into justice (or the lack thereof), how people are often substitutes for others in the lives of their partners, and how we move on after trauma or the death of a loved one, but rarely in satisfying ways, and often arriving at some bizarre conclusions. “In a sense, he cannot wish that it [his father’s brutal murder during the Spanish Civil War] hadn’t happened, because if it hadn’t, he would be a different person, and he has no idea who that person would be.” Good lord, talking about taking not knowing when a philosophical argument has gone too far. “We mourn a great writer or a great artist when he or she dies, but there is a certain joy to be had from knowing that the world has become a little more vulgar and poorer, and that our own vulgarity and poverty will thus be better hidden or disguised…” What? I genuinely feel sorry for Marías if this was a sentiment true to him in life. There are other examples. I kept hoping that this novel would turn the corner after a nice slow burn, but it never did. The second half had some opportunities to pay off, but instead repeated the same tired concepts. I don’t know how many times he said “we don’t really care what happens in books and films and forget about them once they’re over,” but it was too many, and in this case, I truly do hope I can forget this book. I read this book under the wrong premise. I have been looking for books set in Madrid as I am planning a trip there and this title showed up in a list somewhere. I was under the impression then that the city of Madrid would be prominent in the story which isn’t the case. Had I not been so frustrated about the fact that Madrid and its sites are rarely mentioned, maybe I could have liked this book more. It is one of those genre bending murder mysteries, where the murder itself takes a second place to the main character’s issues. The author does show a deep understanding of human nature, but it feels as if the philosophical musings become too heavy on the shoulders of a somewhat too skinny plot. I don’t want to discourage anyone of reading it though. Maybe I should give it another try some day… I definably feel I should try other books by Javier Marias. Who knows, I might find more of Madrid then. Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
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From the award-winning Spanish writer Javier Marías comes an extraordinary new book that has been a literary sensation around the world: an immersive, provocative novel propelled by a seemingly random murder that we come to understand--or do we?--through one woman's ever-unfurling imagination and infatuations. At the Madrid café where she stops for breakfast each day before work, María Dolz finds herself drawn to a couple who is also there every morning. Though she can hardly explain it, observing what she imagines to be their "unblemished" life lifts her out of the doldrums of her own existence. But what begins as mere observation turns into an increasingly complicated entanglement when the man is fatally stabbed in the street. María approaches the widow to offer her condolences, and at the couple's home she meets--and falls in love with--another man who sheds disturbing new light on the crime. As María recounts this story, we are given a murder mystery brilliantly reimagined as metaphysical enquiry, a novel that grapples with questions of love and death, guilt and obsession, chance and coincidence, how we are haunted by our losses, and above all, the slippery essence of the truth and how it is told. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)863.64Literature Spanish and Portuguese Spanish fiction 20th Century 1945-2000LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
Ets tu?Fes-te Autor del LibraryThing. |
Maria breakfasts every day in a cafe where she observes a couple also breakfasting. She characterizes them as the perfect married couple. Then one day the couple is no longer there, and she is stunned to learn that the man is dead, having been randomly and brutally murdered.
Maria eventually meets the widow Luisa to express her condolences, and through Luisa she meets Javier, a friend of the murdered man. Maria and Javier become lovers, and she soon learns that Javier pines after Luisa and has for years. Then one day by chance Maria overhears a conversation that leads her to believe that Javier was complicit in the murder of Luisa's husband.
This book raises more questions than it answers. And it is very slow-moving and dense, not thrillerish at all. There was lots of wandering around going nowhere, and lots of repetition. This is the first book I have read by this author, and I will probably read more by him since I own a few of his books on Kindle. But this one did not impress me.
2 1/2 stars ( )