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A review by rlgreen91
Fever and Spear by Javier Marías
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I'm honestly not sure how to think of this book quite yet. It's a spy novel, sorta, which is interesting. It's very introspective, which is a plus for me. The plot doesn't seem to move at all, really, for large portions of the book, which somehow feels fine.
Jaime or Jacobo or Jacques or whatever he goes by at the moment is a man with a lot of thoughts. Yes, he did have a stint as an Oxford professor, so stereotypes would assume that he's long-winded, but this truly takes the cake. It's a level of introspection that manages to both feel profound in terms of content while also like surface-level chatter to avoid deeper consideration of one's self.
At its core, this novel is about a man that is part of a small group of people with the ability to determine if a person is lying and predict their future actions/dispositions based on a single conversation. That same man is also dealing with a self-imposed exile to a foreign country after the dissolution of his marriage. Because we only see things from Jaime's point of view, it's hard to tell if the other group members have this level of introspection, or if it's just Jaime's way of perhaps avoiding something. I guess I'll find out in Dance and Dream.
Edit: I should add that, as always with books set somewhere outside of the U.S., I am learning a lot of history reading this. Definitely did not know that Franco's regime lasted until the 70s. I always assumed that, as a contemporary of Hitler and Mussolini, his regime was toppled in the 40s/50s.
Jaime or Jacobo or Jacques or whatever he goes by at the moment is a man with a lot of thoughts. Yes, he did have a stint as an Oxford professor, so stereotypes would assume that he's long-winded, but this truly takes the cake. It's a level of introspection that manages to both feel profound in terms of content while also like surface-level chatter to avoid deeper consideration of one's self.
At its core, this novel is about a man that is part of a small group of people with the ability to determine if a person is lying and predict their future actions/dispositions based on a single conversation. That same man is also dealing with a self-imposed exile to a foreign country after the dissolution of his marriage. Because we only see things from Jaime's point of view, it's hard to tell if the other group members have this level of introspection, or if it's just Jaime's way of perhaps avoiding something. I guess I'll find out in Dance and Dream.
Edit: I should add that, as always with books set somewhere outside of the U.S., I am learning a lot of history reading this. Definitely did not know that Franco's regime lasted until the 70s. I always assumed that, as a contemporary of Hitler and Mussolini, his regime was toppled in the 40s/50s.