Thus Bad Begins

Javier Marías is arguably the best living author in Spain currently. I have been a fan ever since A Heart So White, and although Thus Bad Begins starts slowly, by its middle and through to the end it was hard to put down. A lot of his style is psychological in nature; what characters think and how their interior monologues evolve. The drama of this novel plays out in an almost Hitchcock-like fashion, while the reference to “bad beginning” is from Shakespeare. The action of the novel is set in Spain in the immediate aftermath of Franco's passing. The work proved a fascinating insight into the changing social mores of this period, but more, with Shakespeare as a starting point, the reader is reminded of both his timelessness and universality. The key driver of the work relates to the consequences, both intended and unintended, of past actions. The reader is kept guessing until the end, but Marías achieves a deft symmetry/circularity: 9.5/10.

By Javier Marías