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Thus Bad Begins
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
Award-winning author Javier Marķas examines a household living in unhappy the shadow of history, and explores the cruel, tender punishments we exact on those we loveAs a young man, Juan de Vere takes a job that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Eduardo Muriel is a famous film director - urbane, discreet, irreproachable - an irresistible idol to a young man. Muriel's wife Beatriz is a soft, ripe woman who slips through her husband's home like an unwanted ghost, finding solace in other beds. And on the periphery of all their lives stands Dr Jorge Van Vechten, a shadowy family friend implicated in unsavoury rumours that Muriel cannot bear to pursue himself - rumours he asks Juan to investigate instead. But as Juan draws closer to the truth, he uncovers more questions, ones his employer has not asked and would rather not answer. Why does Muriel hate Beatriz? How did Beatriz meet Van Vechten? And what happened during the war?As Juan learns more about his employers, he begins to understand the conflicting pulls of desire, power and guilt that govern their lives - and his own. Marias presents a study of the infinitely permeable boundaries between private and public selves, between observer and participant, between the deceptions we suffer from others and those we enact upon ourselves.'No one else, anywhere, is writing quite like this' Daily Telegraph on The Infatuations
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review
mklong
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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Mehso-so

I recognize the brilliance and beauty of the writing here as a meditation on time and history and memory, but as a whole, this didn‘t really work for me. Instead of sinister and foreboding, I found it to be withholding. Instead of richly detailed, I found it discursive and repetitive. Also, so so much male gaze.

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Abailliekaras
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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Pickpick

An immersive, layered story set in Madrid in 1980, tracing the ripple effects of the Civil War on a movie director & his circle of friends. Quite male-centred, the men are interesting & powerful whereas Beatriz the director's wife is complex & well-drawn but is seen by the young narrator as passive & a sex object, which bothered me. Beautiful, melodious writing which flows like classical music once you get used to long sentences. #Spain

batsy Gorgeous backdrop. And this is strange but I really love the shade of blue of the spine on this book. 7y
Abailliekaras Thanks @batsy ! I read it in Sitges, not quite Madrid but as close as I could get. šŸ˜‰ 7y
23 likes2 comments
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Abailliekaras
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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Tennis lessons for my husband and kids at a local club in Sitges. A g&t and good book for me! Still getting used to Javier Marias's beautiful but long sentences... #Spain

LubicaP I loved this book! His talking style is similar to his writing style - I went to a promo ralk he did for Thus Bad Begins and after every question it took him about 5-10 mins to cycle back to the start of his sentence and the point he was trying to make :-) 7y
Abailliekaras Wow @LubicaP I'd love to hear him speak! But yes very long and flowing style ... šŸ˜‰ 7y
20 likes2 stack adds2 comments
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Abailliekaras
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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#LitsyPartyOfOne = Barcelona and some of the books I want to read as soon as possible. 75 pages to go. Does anyone else get impatient to finish a book even when it's good? šŸ¤“šŸ·

TrishB Yes - the next one starts calling you!! 7y
ReadingEnvy Always 7y
Redwritinghood I do, because I start looking at the pile of other books to pick what I want to read next. 7y
28 likes1 stack add3 comments
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AMVP
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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#catchingup on #marchintoreading

2 - Judging by its Cover

I'll confess, I'm more inclined to pick up a book blind if it has a decent #goodreads rating and seems like it'll be scarce later on (so of course, #BarnesandNoble had stacks of it on display two weeks later).

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Taylor
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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Pickpick

Yes! This digs a tunnel into marriage and the painful secrets that can be kept for decades. The writing feels effortless, interrogative and completely absorbing.

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Taylor
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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This book is so smooth to read--flows like water. I've never heard of the author but apparently he's huge overseas. It reminds me of a more masculine Ferrante, which doesn't sound that laudatory but it's supposed to be a compliment. šŸ˜‚

Xxxxx I love this guy! "A Heart So White" is my favorite. Can't wait to crack this one. 8y
5 likes1 comment
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Taylor
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas

This is the book I just got, which I am quite excited about. It's been on my radar since it came out last year, and it's even surpassing my expectations.

Addictive.

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Jdscott50
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas

#7 #libfaves16 Now we get into a little fiction. Reviewed this here a few weeks ago. Here is a brief recap. The main drive of the book is a marriage during the Franco dictatorship and its consequences. People both suffered based on deceptions and self deceptions. Only time solves these problems, but time lived during these difficult years are not wasted. They are the light and the dark that makes up ones life and darkness often reveals the light.

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Genrebending
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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Day off reading

Taylor I want to read this in a bad way. 8y
47 likes3 stack adds1 comment
review
Jdscott50
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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Pickpick

For Marias, the plot bookends the conversations and observations of his characters. The main drive of the book is a marriage during the Franco dictatorship and its consequences. People both suffered based on deceptions and self deceptions. Only time solves these problems, but time lived during these difficult years are not wasted. They are the light and the dark that makes up ones life and darkness often reveals the light.

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Jdscott50
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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...we can't spend our lives listening to rumours, still less acting in accordance with their many fluctuations. When you give that up, when you give up trying to know what you cannot know, perhaps, to paraphrase Shakespeare, perhaps that is when bad begins, but, on the other hand, worse remains behind."

10 likes1 stack add
quote
Jdscott50
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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...even in a situation in which the winners ruled absolutely and completely crushed the opposition or their scattered and battered remnants, it suited them to be at least partly on good terms with everyone or to have them all partly in their debt, or at least not to be seen by anyone as their bitter enemy. They know that any such remnant will, sooner or later, regroup and recover enough to reorganize itself and reconquer..."

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MatthewBurris
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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Starting this one

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AMVP
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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Had my eyes on this one for a little; This was the last copy they had on the shelf, so I took the plunge.

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klwestenberg
Thus Bad Begins | Javier Marķas
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A+ Sunday.

12 likes1 stack add