Katie Reviews~ Tomás Nevinson by Javier Marías
You'll have to forgive me but before picking up the recently released book Tomas Nevinson I had never read a novel by Javier Marias but boy will that change. Tomas Nevinson is the last book written by Javier Marias translated by Margaret Jill Costa from Spanish before his death last year at the age of 70.
This novel follows the character Tomas Nevinson as he returns to the world of spies and espionage after retirement. Sent on a mission to find the evidence of which woman out of three is behind a terrorist bombing ten years prior. Nevinson takes on the role of Miguel Centuriòn a school teacher which gives him access to watch and interact with the three women to find evidence or lack of evidence to prove which one is the terrorist.
This book reads like no crime novel I have read before. Marias takes his time in moving the plot along, putting emphasis on the day-to-day interactions between the characters and their daily lives. It's like people watching but in slow motion where you get to see every personal moment of each suspect over the course of a few months, it's an intrusion on the daily life of three women.
The start of this book reads like non-fiction, Marias uses the history of women in war and the executions of female historical figures such as Joan of Arc to highlight the significance of women's roles and women's deaths, and the morals of men killing women. The book is laced with literary quotes from the likes of TS Eliot and Shakespeare which are often used during conversations between Nevinsion and his handler Tupra.
During parts of this novel, I thought I would have found myself impatient for a conclusion or for the plot to develop at a faster pace. But what I loved was every time I sat down to read it, I would learn something new or I would be whisked away to Nevinsion's apartment along the river through Marias’ long sentences and powerful prose.