Poison, Shadow, and Farewell

by Javier Marías

Book Overview

Poison, Shadow, and Farewell, with its heightened tensions between meditations and noir narrative, with its wit and and ever deeper forays into the mysteries of consciousness, brings to a stunning finale Mar as's three-part Your Face Tomorrow. Already this novel has been acclaimed "exquisite" (Publishers Weekly), "gorgeous" (Kirkus), and "outstanding: another work of urgent originality" (London Independent). Poison, Shadow, and Farewell takes our...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811219240
• ISBN13: 9780811219242
• Release Date: June 2011
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 554 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A great series

A fitting climax to a great series. Some redundancy, which is understandable for someone who hasn't read the first 2 in the series.

A slow but wonderful journey

I agree that you must start at the first book. The third is, as one would expect, where the pieces fit together. I don't think it's overdoing it to describe the trilogy as one of the great works of modern literature. I have rarely read a novel as full of wisdom, insight, and provocative ideas, as Your Face Tomorrow. It is not always an easy read, it is dense, it takes digressions, and a key scene may stretch over 80 trance-like pages. At its heart though is a quiet rage at the violence done by man, particularly during the Spanish Civil War when Marias' father was targeted. The justifications for that violence and its consequences (whether the intention was deliberate or accidental), are at the heart of these books. And Your Face Tomorrow is also a thriller - albeit not in the conventional sense - acquiring a slow-burn intensity that drives you to its final pages.

All 's fair in Love and War

An alternative title for a review of this phenomenal final part of the trilogy could be, "One should never tell Anything to Anyone", a dictum of Sir Peter Wheeler, former Oxford don, spy during WW II and the Spanish civil war. He was close to members of an ultra-secret group of people charged with "black propaganda", aimed to create chaos in Germany, during WW II. He gives this advice to the trilogy's hero Jaime (etc.) Deza, who works for a 21st century version of this ex-WW II group without a name, working in a building without a name, which has co-opted its staff of no more than seven on his say so, regardless of nationality, no oath required. Privatisation of intelligence gathering is only one of many themes in this volume. Words can kill, knowingly or unknowingly. This volume provides plenty of evidence: slips of the tongue, vile accusations, a simple idea to discredit an SS-officer, and the horrible (un)intended consequences. To win a war requires total determination, anything and everything is allowed despite there always being innocent victims. In smaller campaigns like scaring away a competitor for the love of the mother of one's children, the application of fear and violence also requires absolute determination. Who in this line of business is determined enough and can also cope with the outcome? And what will survivors of such actions do? This third volume and the entire trilogy indeed, is a very deep piece of work, very (auto-)biographical, full of urgent and timeless themes, worked into a beautiful fabric of memories of wars, conversations, observation of videos of hideous scenes, and illustrated by ideas gained from posters designed to warn people that walls have ears, paintings, and quotations from poetry from centuries ago. Western society can no longer suffer, stay silent, and shrug off its heroics during and after another very big conflict, as the UK did during and after WW II. I will reread Marias' trilogy next year, to understand perhaps 70%, and then again, and again. Ultimately, this trilogy is about the Western world today, having become soft, silly, totally ignorant of its roots and fundamental ideas and values, which were fought for, again and again. No one is safe viewed from such a perspective. Least of all Deza, who at the end of this tale, will have to remain on guard, sleep with one eye open.

Outstanding

Javier Marias' conclusion to his three-volume novel is a tour de force. Expertly translated by his long-time collaborator, Margaret Costa, this lengthy tome demonstrates the full power of an author who truly deserves the Nobel Prize. I do highly recommend that readers begin with volume one and proceed through the entire book. This is not a series or a sequel. While you can enjoy this novel as a stand-alone, purely for the strength of the writing, the plot won't make much sense if you don't begin at the beginning. Those who value an intelligently written work that makes full use of language will love this book.