Corazón tan blanco - Javier Marías

Published in 1992, his seventh novel, Corazón tan blanco is the novel that launched Javier Marías onto the international stage as a writer with a distinct and unique voice. It has also proved to be one of his more popular and enduring books, one that touches on themes, characters and subjects that would be developed further in his later work, to such an extent that his body of work feels like a consistent exploration and refinement of preoccupying ideas, worked though in a number of ways. It's almost impossible to review such a book without relating the 'plot' (such as it is), since everything and nothing may be relevant to what it is about.

This novel itself weaves through several situations that can be seen to mirror or parallel each other, or perhaps inform and distort how one views the other, or perhaps between them they amount to something else. A lot of perhapses but that's the nature of how Marías works. What is definitely significant and certainly has repercussions later is the opening scene of the novel that recounts the suicide of Teresa Aguilera, who shoots herself in the chest soon after returning from her honeymoon. Teresa had been married to the father of Juan Ranz, the protagonist of the novel. His father subsequently married Teresa's sister, Juana, the mother of Juan, although the details of what happened have never been discussed with his father.

There's a Cuban connection to the story, the mother of Juana and Teresa being of Cuban origin, but another incident occurs in Havana during Juan's own honeymoon to Luisa. They have only known each other a relatively short time, working as colleagues as translators and interpreters, but on their honeymoon, travelling to Miami, New Orleans, Mexico and Havana, Juan already has a presentiment of disaster and unknown future brought about by this 'cambiar de estado'. While in Havana, Juan observes a mulata woman from his balcony, pacing on the other side of the street. She mistakes Juan for the man she is waiting for and shouts up at him, eventually realising her mistake and joining the man in the room next to him. He overhears Miriam's conversation with a man called Guillermo, where she appears to be asking him to kill his wife back in Spain and put an end to carrying on with her in secret.

Juan, like the protagonist of several of his books (and like the author himself) is a translator, always alert to words and their meanings, so what is spoken between the man and the woman in Havana is something he ponders and tries to understand. Another thread that contributes to how Juan views these unrelated events (death of Teresa, Miriam's meeting with Guillermo) is one where he happened to be at a summit of political leaders, where he was monitored by Luisa, then a senior translator. The British head of state puts forward the view that people need someone to make decisions for them, quoting Macbeth - 'The sleeping, and the dead, are but as pictures'. The title, Corazón tan blanco - A heart so white… - also comes from from Macbeth, which deals with a relationship between a husband and wife, a relationship with a father figure, a person of power, with death and killing. 

None of these incidents really directly relate to each other, but they are all feed into Juan's presentiment of disaster. That is intensified when at his wedding reception his father, with whom he has a difficult relationship, but with no animosity, not even open disapproval about how he earns money as an art expert,. Father's wealth as an art expert, not all gained honestly.  asks "Bueno, ya te has casado.  Y ahora qué?" So, you got married. What now?

There are many other little experiences that feed into Juan's consideration of his condition, and philosophising on the nature of his life, his work, his experience, some of which are explored in the author's other books - loss, pain that feels like fear, secrets, the necessity of saying nothing, knowing nothing. The other significant thread related at length however occurs while Juan is in New York on translator business at United Nations, staying with an old friend Berta. She has a limp from a car accident and appears to be lonely, frequently hooking up with candidates from a dating agency. She receives a message and then a video from unknown man asking for an explicit video, who intrigues her. He calls himself Nick, Jack and then settles on "Bill", but is clearly of Spanish origin. Juan immediately thinks of Guillermo in Havana.

How all these incidents, all unrelated except through some apparently tenuous connections made in Juan's mind, come together is nonetheless remarkable. When Custardoy (a womaniser also, like Custardoy, the painter in Tu rostro mañana), turns up outside his and Luisa's apartment in Madrid one night, Marías runs together the three incidents, Miriam and Guillermo, Berta and Bill/Guillermo, Luisa and Custardoy, and where he is in the middle of each is that indefinable position of 'state of change', a presentiment of something terrible. As a way of bringing this to a head, the novel culminates in the revelations of his father that he hears by chance. As shocking and unexpected as they are, it doesn't really resolve anything for Juan.

As with the Tu rostro mañana trilogy of books, there are elements of spying and overhearing. In Cuba, in following Berta's "Bill" from P O Box Kenmore Station, in watching Custardoy suspiciously outside looking up at his apartment (in an almost reverse situation of the one between Juan Deza and Custardoy in Tu rostro mañana), in overhearing his father's confession about Teresa's death 40 years ago, without really wanting to know. There are also elements within this of words being spoken that should never be said, of secrets once spoken that cannot be taken back, rewound or erased.

There are many levels to Corazón tan blanco. Certainly it's about the relationships between men and women, about words spoken and words unspoken, about what words mean, and how words, more than actions, can kill. There is a suggestion of social or political commentary on the relationship between fathers and sons, on the sins of the father, on how people behave in different times - Franco's Spain inevitably comes to mind, although it is not directly alluded to could also be seen as an underlying theme, as this is certainly taken in that direction in Tu rostro mañana. A lot of these themes are much more developed in that trilogy of books.

As the typical Marías torrent of words and thoughts and the act of putting them down in a book suggest however, Corazón tan blanco is principally about the act of telling. Secrets don't exist until someone imparts them. Actions don't exist if no one speaks of them and no one knows about them. It's the nature of the book itself, which might make it seem like some literary exercise, but in reality it deals with the fundamental nature of people and the necessity of telling stories, of putting it down in words and trying to make sense of experiences, as well as the consequences we must accept for knowing.

Reading notes: I was shocked to hear of the recent death of Javier Marías. It's a major loss to Spain and the whole of the literary world. I read Corazón tan blanco in the Spanish language Debolsillo paperback copy that I've had for a number of years, once started but never got around to finishing. Having completed the third book of Tu rostro mañana last year, I felt it was time to get back to this one before embarking on the rest of his work. That should give me plenty to read, but it's a shame that there will not be any further books from this extraordinary writer.