Hints at stories. Hints at stories, with a familiar voice—not the familiarity of mere recognition, but the familiarity of intimacy. Those of us who’ve read a lot of Marías will understand, hopefully, that I’m not speaking of the narrator’s voice, but rather the author’s voice, Marías’ voice, a voice that speaks through a broad grin and says, “How lovely to see you again. Have I told you about…?” As the author’s voice becomes more familiar, other aspects of Marías’ style reemerge: his use of rhetoric, e.g. exquisite iteration of phrase, sequence or detail; his intricate characterization; his ability to build suspense from a mundane encounter. Twists of fate; humor, dry or dark. Classic Marías in bite-sized portions.The Night Doctor—First do no harm? Really? Maybe? Perhaps. The Italian Legacy—The inverse realities of two Italian women, friends of the narrator, and their unfortunate choices of men.On the Honeymoon—An expanded excerpt of a scene from A Heart So White which makes me want to read that novel immediately. One of those astonishing scenes where Marías shines in his creation of character and tension between honeymooners and the woman-from-across-the-street. Pitch perfect.Broken Binoculars—A chance encounter at a race track, an accessory after the fact? The narrator’s (and author’s) attention to detail might send you scurrying back to James Wood or David Lodge—as it will me. This one seems very familiar and may have been part of Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me (published after the author’s introduction to this volume).Unfinished Figures—A forger who might also commit a deceit? Also familiar is the character Custardoy (the Your Face Tomorrow sequence and A Heart So White). And that three-legged dog—hasn’t he been around the block once before, too?Flesh Sunday—Two men watching the crowds on a beach, each with his own aim. Another wife named Luisa.Fewer Scruples—A reluctant porn-actress gets a lesson in worse professions. Another cameo by Custardoy.Spear Blood—Wow! A dispassionate narrator recounts the murder of an old friend some two years prior and his eventual solution to the mystery. By far, the longest story in this collection. Day-long Falknerian sentences, at times demanding and at other times, effortless music. Cameo appearance by Ruibérriz de Torres, a minor character in Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me and the narrator of Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico, also present is RdT’s trademark count: “one, two, three, four,” although voiced by the narrator, Victor Francés. At one point the narrator resorts to window-peeping in a search of clues and confides:That room too was only dimly lit, a large part of it lay in shadows, it was like trying to get to the bottom of a story from which the main elements have been deliberately omitted and about which we know only odd details, my vision blurred and with only a restricted view.Boy, howdy!In Uncertain Time—Perhaps, Thomas Wolfe was wrong; perhaps, you can only go home again, but you can’t remain there long. A Hungarian soccer player for Madrid (or football player, if you prefer, or fútbol player, if you must) toys with the emotions of a packed stadium before a gentle tug and learning the meaning of always.No More Loves—A gentle ghost story and an homage to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (the novel, not the old TV show). References to Lord Rymer, the hard-drinking warden of high tables in All Souls and a Mrs. Cromer-Blake—there is another character in All Souls, a gay professor named Cromer-Blake; I don’t recall mention of a Mrs.Well worth the time spent reading; the appearances of characters from other JM works is a bonus, but none of the stories rely on their familiarity.
Doce relatos escritos de forma magistral entre 1991 y 1995 y que van desde la crónica de costumbres contemporáneas a los cuentos de fantasmas.Lo primero que debe saber un escritor de cuentos es que nunca dispone de mucho tiempo y que el lector no admite que ese poco transcurra en vano. Si Javier Marías no lo sabe, al menos lo disimula, porque sus relatos no sólo complacen e interesan, sino que además turban desde su inicio. Al igual que en sus celebradas novelas, su prosa aquí es capaz de alcanzar en unas páginas una tersura y una tensión que apenas permiten apartar la vista, como si tuviéramos la cara pegada a un cristal y no pudiéramos retirarla con una mezcla de fascinación y zozobra.En los cuentos de Cuando fui mortal nos encontramos con personajes y situaciones que formarán parte de nuestra imaginación: un médico español que visita de noche las casas parisinas de mujeres casadas; un guardaespaldas aficionado al hipódromo que deseará que haya muerto el hombre a quien protege; un fantasma que padece la maldición máxima de saber ahora cuanto ocurrió en su vida; una aspirante a actriz porno que aguarda la sesión de rodaje junto a su compañero de reparto a quien no conoce; un escritor que experimenta consigo mismo para poder escribir sobre el dolor más tarde; un hombre y una mujer asesinados por una lanza africana en un Madrid veraniego; un futbolista mujeriego, una señorita de compañía que amará a un fantasma a quien lee libros y otros que salen directamente de Corazón tan blanco o Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí, mostrando que los escritores de talento llevan siempre consigo su estilo y su mundo en sus visitas a cualquier género.O quizá bastan las palabras del propio autor: «Sólo concibo escribir algo si me divierto, y sólo puedo divertirme si me intereso. No hace falta añadir que ninguno de estos relatos habría sido escrito sin que yo me interesara por ellos».
What do You think about When I Was Mortal (2009)?
Javier Marias writes exquisitely. And that exquisiteness that at times becomes tiring in his novels, fits perfectly the short tale format. All these tales have in common an intention to disturb the commonplace, to make the reader reflect on the shadows we come across daily, and that at times hide atrocities.The general quality is high, which is unusual in this kind of compilation, so much that I will only point out the tale that titles the compilation, in that it has the strangest narrator, and it is the longest and yet well rounded.The kind of tales that do not frighten you, but leave you the urge to look behind you, or to see in a different light your neighbour.
—Psychophant
Addictive short stories about "the normally invisible wall that separates life and death," and the residents on either side. Marias is like Keret with a longer attention span, with the same sense of how to frame dark and light so that the contrast makes the light seem rarer, more fleeting, more worth holding on to.Written and published separately over a four-year period, these stories have been ordered to comment and build on each other, to imply common real-life or psychological threads. The translation reads so well that you know both that it must read wonderfully in Spanish, and that the translator loved the work enough to take special care.
—Ben
I personally did not really enjoy this book. I feel like Javier Marias jumped around a lot and the stories were not relevant to each other. One chapter could be talking about mistaken identity and the next could be about lairs. It just didn't make sense to me and the book wasn't all that interesting either. This book was made up of short stories with different "themes". For example, one of the chapters had a soccer theme. I think that the blurb of the book seemed more interesting than the book itself. The book itself was also written in "older language" which I have to admit was impressive. However, the way Javier Marias formulated those words into stories was not impressive at all. Although his short stories may have meaning it did not appeal to me, maybe a more mature reader will appreciate his work. In conclusion this book may be short with only 162 pages, I would not take the time to read it again. I was fairly disappointed because the cover art and the title itself is what caught my attention the most. I would not recommend this book to anyone else because half the time I could not comprehend what the plot was really about.
—Kristin
