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Title: A Heart So White by Javier Marias, Margaret Jull Costa, Janier Marias ISBN: 0-8112-1505-9 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (23 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Patient people might like this book.
Comment: If you like a detailed, psychological analysis of love and family relationships, then this is a book for you. You need a while to get into Maria's writing style. His style is not the most readable - a sentence can be a page long. After you get used to the sentence legths, it is a great book to read. The plot is well presented with surprising flash-backs and time intervals. I started to really enjoy the book in the middle chapters. From then on the pace of narration is much faster and interesting coincidences makes you curious about what might come next. The final scene is gripping and very emotionally engaging. Overall a very intelligent book.
Rating: 2
Summary: A bit odd....
Comment: On my DC bookclub's list this winter, I am sorry that I missed this discussion because I found the book a bit unusual and would love to have heard others' reactions to it. Like with so many Spanish writers, the voice in Marias' book is that of his protagonist and the novel takes place primarily in his head. An interesting story, but to read this book one must take in every word and sometimes these words can give us more information than is necessary. The basic story begins shortly after Juan marries and his wife, who, like him is also a translator, begins to build a friendship (nothing more than that) with Juan's father, Ranz. For Juan, Ranz has always been somewhat larger than life, and has a secretive past that involves among other things, a mysterious first marriage, a second marriage that ended after the honeymoon (she committed suicide), and a third marriage to the sister of the second wife. With so much to hide, Ranz is still a showy womanizer who Juan has a complicated time understanding. And much of the complicated time understanding his father consists of long dialogues with himself in his head. And a number of interesting and brief conversations with his wife. The book takes a strange detour 2/3rds of the way through when Juan is in New York City on a translation assignment at the UN, and lodges with an old friend who has been looking for romance by video-dating. Once this interlude ends and Juan is back in Madrid, the story comes to its end, not exactly a surprise ending - but rather, an ending that most readers will be happy to have. I was sort of happy to just to have had it end. Finally.
Rating: 1
Summary: When the author's pedantry drowns the reader's interest.
Comment: This must be the most pedantic, long-winded and self-absorbed piece of fiction I've encountered in over two decades. I for one can't begin to fathom the cause for rejoice expressed by other reviewers. I found the novel to be wanting in good character developement, basic narrative skills and overflowing with an embarrasing sense of conceit and narcisistic self-admiration that bordered on the ludicrous. There was something very adolescent to the tone of this pompose, pretentious book that seemed to want desperately to convince us of how smart the author was. By the end I was far from convinced of that, and would have rather see the author work harder at some basic aspects of style, structure and character. Before you become a prima donna at least you should be able to sing.
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Title: Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me by Javier Marias, Margaret Jull Costa ISBN: 0811214826 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Man of Feeling by Javier Marias, Margaret Jull Costa ISBN: 0811215318 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: All Souls by Javier Marias, Margaret Jull Costa ISBN: 0811214532 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: November, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: My Name Is Red by Erdag Goknar, Orhan Pamuk ISBN: 0375706852 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 27 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Time of the Doves (La Plaza del Diamante) by Merce Rodoreda ISBN: 0915308754 Publisher: Graywolf Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1986 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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