Love as Artifice: Javier Marías

One of the few things that i like about my new job is that the morning commute allows me to read. I have decided to ditch the harrowing train journey all together and leave a little earlier and ride the bus to work. I regret that i haven't done this sooner, even though its traffic, at least you're just sitting down comfortably doing something productive!

So I look forward to this little pleasure that life has afforded me. I like it best when I get a seat beside the window and let the morning sunshine on EDSA illuminate the pages I'm reading (i look forward to the rainy season). and this week my daily companion was Javier Marías...

i'd like to share the insight that moved me from his work "The Man of Feeling"
it opens with a haunting epigraph from William Hazzlit:

"I think myself into love and I dream myself out of it."

when i first came across it, i was very intrigued...
and decided to stay through the digressions of Marías' mind.

and in the end he lets it all out... you see

Love is mostly based on anticipation and recollection.
Anticipation being the first flourish...the what ifs, the hesitation, the dreaming
and recollection being the last...when we try to understand the love that now has passed and we try to tell it to ourselves.

and if you see it this way then
Love is the human emotion/feeling that requires the most degree of imagination.

this idea really spoke to me. the fact that i am being offered another facet of love, about its constructedness... how much of it is an artifice! love itself cannot escape the "prison-house of language".

no wonder love figures so much in the lives of artists.

PS

and because of this, I splurged and bought Marías' "Your Face Tomorrow" a novel in seven parts, published in three volumes (i bought the first two volumes) which has recently concluded December last year. the reviews of this "masterpiece" are really quite something, some even hailing it as one of the major works of the 21st century! So yesterday after a fun office excursion (hehehe) i went to Fullybooked gateway to buy the first volume which i also saw when i bought my copy of "the man of feeling" . but it was quite battered too and i decided to ask the guy at the counter if it was available at other branches...and lo and behold vol 1 and 2 exists in Greenhills...i lost it.

mind you i have quite an amount of debt to pay at the end of this month, so even thinking about buying the first volume was really a stretch...but it's worth it! i even forgot to claim my bag at the package section because i went straight out! LOL. so i'm a little broke again...

my only quip? the edition that I have are the UK editions published by vintage books, i prefer the covers of the US editions by new directions since they're....i dont know...more masculine? hehehe the UK covers make it look like i'm reading a romance novel (which i have to admit is kinda embarrassing)...tapos the title pa diba? it's like one of my titas thinking that it was gay for a man to read something entitled "love in the time of cholera" ...which was annoying really-- but i dont care! i'm a proud owner of Marías' books ;-)

the third volume is still in hardcover, so i'll wait for the paperback nalang

i know his titles sound so mushy, but they are in a good way hehehe, its a nice title right? ...your face tomorrow.... or in Spanish

Tu rostro mañana....

i'm really happy that now, most of the time, i can buy the books that i want
really, i'm very proud of my book collection
happy reading everyone!