Thus Bad Begins
By Javier Marias
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
Print: $27.95
E-book: $14.99
It's 1980 in Madrid, Spain, and Juan De Veres is young and not very committed to any particular life plan when he becomes the personal assistant to Eduard Muriel, a famous Spanish movie director past his prime. Muriel is pretty much living on his past glories and doesn't really get the stars or scripts that he used to. That doesn't keep De Veres from being in awe of him as he jumps at the chance of being his gopher.
Because he spends so much time at Muriel's house he begins to witness secret scenes between Muriel and his voluptuous wife, Beatriz Noguera. Out in public and even among their closest friends, Muriel and Beatriz some to be a happily married couple, but behind closed doors, Muriel treats his wife with contempt and hate! For some reason, Muriel calls her fat all the time and is disgusted just looking at her. The crazy thing is that this unhealthy relationship has been going on for years. because under Franco's rule, divorce was outlawed. Why Muriel treats his wife in such a horrible manner is one of the two big mysteries of the novel that De Veres is trying to solve.
Muriel has a close friend, a doctor named Van Vechten, and Muriel has heard some pretty nasty rumors about his past but cannot bring himself to reconcile the rumors with the image of his friend.
That's where De Veres comes in. Muriel asks him to ingratiate himself with Van Vechten, to hang out with him, invite him to go out with his friends at the night clubs. He is also told to be obscene and cavalier about women in hopes of getting Van Vechten to reveal his own past sins. For you see, that is the crux of the matter. All Muriel will tell De Veres is that Van Vechten's transgression has something to do with how he treated women in the past. I guess he won't believe it unless someone reports it coming from Van Vechten's own mouth.
This is the first novel by Javier Marias that I have read even though I've been aware of his reputation as an important author for some time. Funny thing is, the main reason I got the book was because of the TRANSLATOR, Margaret Jull Costa, She has translated so many classic works of Spanish that I knew she wouldn't waste her time on a book unless she thought it was important and worthy of attention.
Clocking in at 446 pages, at times I thought the "mysteries" that I mentioned before took a bit too long to get solved. The fact that Muriel tells De Veres to keep tabs on Van Vechten without really telling him ANYTHING beyond it having to do with the doctor's treatment of women kinda strains believability at times. Why not tell De Veres "ok, this is what I heard...see if you can get him to admit it somehow"? No, we have to read the whole novel to find out what happened, if anything. Maybe Muriel thought if he DID tell the whole story, it would make De Veres more self-conscious and more blatantly obvious in asking about it.
Behind the action of the novel is a whole political background of post Franco Spain that colors a lot of what happens in the book. During the Spanish Civil War, both sides of the conflict did some horrible things and committed atrocities against each other. And I'm not just talking about the soldiers, but among the civilian populace as well. People used the war to settle jealousies and disputes and scores against others. The only way the country could come back together after Franco's death was for people to forgive and forget....or at least not talk about what they had done in the war. Nobody was punished for war crimes, nobody was put on trial or sent to prison. Even though Spaniards on both sides deserved to. Weird thing is that I visited Spain in the late 1990s and NOBODY would even MENTION Franco. It was a taboo subject.
This situation reminded me of the failed peace deal in Colombia that its people voted down a couple of weeks back. They were basically on the cusp of initiating the same process that happened in Spain in the mid 1970s. But in the Colombia vote, a very slim majority said "no, we're not forgetting what the FARC did" and I don't really know what's wrong with that choice. I guess some people would rather live in denial and lies than face the truth. Because if you DO face the truth, you are usually obligated to do something about it.
Even though the book was somewhat long, I never got bored or thought about putting it down. The characters were great and yes, I DID want to find the answers as to why Muriel and Beatriz have such a crappy marriage and what Van Vechten's horrible crime was. I would definitely read another book by Marias.
My Grade: B+
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