Javier Marías

What great manners.

Last week, you may recall, I had read a terrible spy novel called Thomas Nevinson by Javier Marias, and I had a reaction to that.

I

thought to myself, you know what? I'm going to go back to the original source material of espionage.

taken one villain from one thing and one device from another thing and so on and so forth.

And I absolutely loved it.

Now, obviously, one of the criticisms I had of last week's book by Javier Marias was, was that there was some latent misogyny in it.

And obviously, Ian Fleming is 12 levels deeper.

way.

It appears in a novel by Javier Marías.

There's a novel, I think it's Thomas Nevison, that refers to that crime.

Ok, there is a question that I always ask all the guests when we finish, we are already finishing, there are two left that I usually do.

Right.

And that was the book Thomas Nevinson by, uh, Javier Marías, who is, was, uh, 'cause he died I think a couple years ago, uh, was the greatest living Spanish author.

Mm-hmm.

A big European author, very respected in the literary scene.

It, this was completely missing, and I think it connects to the, another major issue that I have with the book, which is the translation felt really archaic.

Right.

Even though the translator is super respected and has worked with Javier Marías on all his books-

Mm-hmm