Pero sobre todo es señal de que todavía te sientes muy joven. Aún crees disponer de un tiempo ilimitado, tanto como para malgastarlo. Quizá no te sea fácil ver esto, pero intentar vengarme habría sido tan sólo perder más tiempo por causa suya, y los meses de cárcel ya me fueron bastante.

There's little menace or sense of danger -- and what there is (Deza's impression that he is being followed, for example) remains, for now, fairly harmless. So, again or independently, this dilemma begs the question: what is the function of the first book or part? To fall silent, yes, silent, is the great ambition that no one achieves not even after death, and I least of all, for I have often told tales and even written reports, more than that, I look and I listen, although now I almost never ask questions. It may be all that is left if one cannot trust anyone. Then, one cannot give oneself over to anyone or anything, a painting included. Gathering facts by those removed from self-intrusion either through will or an absence of self will theoretically lead to an assessment of who people are and who they will be in the future. Their face tomorrow.A little patience, in other words, is required of the reader, but it is amply rewarded. By the second volume all cylinders in its large and powerful engines are purring smoothly. And with this triumphant finale – the longest and best of all three – it becomes impossible to resist the thought that this deeply strange creation, with its utterly sui generis methods, its brilliant disquisitions on love and loss, its dark playfulness, may very well be the first authentic literary masterpiece of the 21st century. A lengthy section late in the novel focusses on the campaign in the Second World War against "careless talk" in Britain, where everyone was warned against revealing any information that might be of use to the enemy -- because you never knew who might be the enemy.

Once narrator Dezas starts his person-interpreting intelligence work in earnest the reader is confronted by a number of seemingly random descriptions of various persons unconnected to the larger narrative. The story is more about the little intelligence unit's ability to manufacture those profiles. It’s more about what the profiles say about the profilers. I believe the psychological term here is called “projection,” Freudian lingo that Marías never mentions. What are we led to think about the profilers by what they see in others? Remember, their work is all intuitive. They base their assumptions on nothing factual except the roughest biographical data. It’s a fascinating idea and it works though it makes for dense narrative. A beach read this is not.linguistiğe karşı ilgisi olan okurlar bu kitaba bayılacaklar(misal ben, Sine, Yazgülü). çünkü anlatıcı anlattıklarını ingilizce ve ispanyolca dil karşılaştırmalarıyla beraber aktarıyor. ve siz çok şanslı bir türk okuyucu olarak her iki dile olağanüstü hakim olan ve mükemmel çeviri yapan Roza Hakmen kaleminden okuyorsunuz bu kitabı. kitabı türkçe'ye Roza Hakmen'den başka biri çevirmiş olsaydı eminim bütün kitap boyunca keşke Roza Hakmen çevirseydi diye ağlayarak okurdum, teşekkürler Metis. In the past he has studied literature and taught Spanish literature at Oxford, and his contemporary peers have been Professors of Spanish or English Literature there (Peter Wheeler and Toby Rylands, the latter now deceased). Cómo puedo no conocer hoy Tu rostro mañana, el que ya está o se fragua bajo la cara que enseñas o bajo la careta que llevas, y que me mostrarás tan sólo cuando no lo espere? Deza's duties, when he finally starts working for the secret service, mainly involve translating and sharing his impressions of conversations and interrogations.

So yeah, I suppose that if you write an actionless, multi-volume novel with a vulgarly high comma-to-period ratio and no actual events save a party and stuffy rich erudite people yakking, you must be consciously placing yourself in a specific European literary tradition, and inviting certain comparisons to some celebrated, endless plotlessness that has come before. So yes, to answer the question blazing in everyone's mind: if Marcel Proust were Spanish and writing a twenty-first-century spy novel, I suppose it might be at least vaguely like this. The first person narrator, Jacobo Deza, is just divorced. He’s about forty and until recently lived in Madrid with his wife Luisa, but they have separated for reasons unknown and he has now come to London working for BBC on programmes about Spain and its culture. He has academic connections at Oxford where he once taught. There the history professor/spy Peter Wheeler introduces him to the suave Mr. Bertram Tupra who in turn hires him for his business of clandestine intelligence assessment. He become a kind of consulting spy, paid to read and interpret people. He's also known for his formidable memory and intelligence. The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year. Also at the dinner is Bertram Tupra, for whom Deza eventually goes to work (having passed the test).

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Cok ilginc bir kitap. Kabaca, gelismis gozlem yetenegine sahip bir adamin gizli istihbarattaki deneyimlerini anlatiyor. Ama konu kitabin cok az bir kismini olusturuyor gibi. Tarihi olaylar hakkindaki yorumlar, kisiler hakkindaki gozlemler ilk sayfadan son sayfaya kadar cok yogun. Bu kadar cok sübjektif paragrafin toplandigi baska bir kurgu okudugumu hatirlamiyorum. Kitap boyunca konu tam olarak neydi hissinden kurtulamiyorsunuz, Deza ve Wheeler'in kimi nasil yargiladigina cok genis yer verilmis. Bir gazetecinin deneme kitabi olacakken kurgu olmus gibi.