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Episode 11: "Your Face Tomorrow, Volume Two: Dance and Dream"
94 Plays1 year ago
It's very strange to be this close to the end of our Marías focus, but that's rather how time moves, ever forward (unless you're Marías and can make time a rather fungible thing in your novels...). This is a fun episode, touching on East End gangsters, Spandau Ballet, the Spanish Civil War, swordplay, and more. And a couple of characters from the previous volume make appearances, though we rather welcome one over the other.
One more episode of Marías, a brief break, and then a new project. Thank you as always for listening.
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Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo
Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs
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Transcript
Introduction to Lost in Redonda
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, I'm Tom Flynn. I'm Lori Feathers. And welcome to Lost in Redonda.
End of Summer Reflections
00:00:26
Speaker
Hi, Lori. How are you doing today?
00:00:28
Speaker
Tom, I'm well, how are you? How's the final days of kids not back yet to school working with you? Oh, we're working with it. We're doing what we can. Yeah, next week they're back, which seems, I don't know, I don't feel like I went back that early. Maybe I did. They never used to. That's a recent thing in Chicago. But the school's air conditioned.
00:00:56
Speaker
They'll be fine. They'll be fine. They're not thrilled and trying to pretend like it's not happening. But, you know, that's just how it goes, I suppose.
00:01:05
Speaker
You might be more ready than they are. There are things that I'm going to be able to do that I've not been able to do all summer long. I'm sure. My time will be my own in some very significant ways. I am very much looking forward to that. It won't be too tearful of a sending off next Monday.
Introduction to Marías' 'Your Face Tomorrow'
00:01:30
Speaker
So today, we are tackling volume two of Your Face Tomorrow, Dance and Dream. Yeah, so again, I'm just a reminder, this one was published a couple years after volume one came out, and then the final volume, Poison Shadow and Farewell, came out a couple years after that.
00:01:53
Speaker
My experience of it was reading Fever and Spear and then having to sit for a couple of years waiting for the next one to be translated and come out. And I started to read volume two and immediately realized I needed to go back and quickly skim some passages out of volume one because I couldn't remember what the hell was going on, who this person was that was selling as doorstep.
00:02:20
Speaker
You're getting a much more streamlined experience of it, Laurie. Yeah. I guess a fresher perspective, perhaps. As I noted in our last recording, I had read volume one, Fever and Spear, maybe like 18 months ago, and then I decided that I was going to
00:02:41
Speaker
read these consecutively for this project. And so I went back and I fully reread volume one. That was a great experience. And then jumped right into this one and read it, I guess, like in a little less than a week. So a pretty intensive reading experience for me.
00:03:03
Speaker
And it was in some respects what I expected. In other respects, it wasn't. There was much less of Peter Wheeler's voice in this. I mean, his voice echoes.
00:03:22
Speaker
in this book, but in terms of having a setting or situation where Wheeler is there or telling more of his story, and especially the story about his wife, which I'm dying to learn, hopefully I'll get to that in volume three. I sure do hope so. But yeah, he's kind of a bit absent from this volume.
00:03:44
Speaker
He does show up mostly in repetitions of what he said in Volume 1. There isn't very much at all added on to it.
Character and Narrative Insights
00:03:54
Speaker
Maybe a little bit more English put on the spin, put on Deza's thoughts of him and how he feels about
00:04:05
Speaker
About him, about Toby Relins, there is a somewhat fun scene where Deza expands upon the afternoon lunch they had the day after the party that he attended, where they're going on and on about the bloodstain that he found on the stairs.
00:04:22
Speaker
And that actually serves as kind of an interesting structural thing that Marius does in this volume where I think he's tying things together and he's doubling back on himself quite a bit. You know, there's very much a
00:04:38
Speaker
almost fugue sort of going on with some of the ideas he brings up, some of the historical examples that he mentions, and then he ties it back into something that happens later. A notable one is that Heydrich, the Nazi commander who was, I always feel weird referring to his assassination when it comes to the Nazis, because that almost gives like this suggestion of like,
00:05:05
Speaker
I know there is no moral component to assassination, but for whatever reason, that's just sort of how it kicks around in my head. Anyway, he was killed by a couple of Czech partisans that were trained by the Brits and armed by the US. In the first volume, they talk a little bit about how he died very painfully, that there's a suggestion the bullets had been coated in poison, possibly a botulism.
00:05:29
Speaker
And then in this volume, he brings that up again at one point on his reflections upon death and dying. But later on, Botox comes up in the novel. And he makes this very clear connection between Botox and injecting a milder form into your face to smooth out wrinkles and hydric, which I think is just
00:05:52
Speaker
Really, really clever. And I think just an example of kind of some of the things that he's that he's doing in this novel, because the bloodstain plays a similar, similar role with some events later on in this volume.
00:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, I felt like the Botox discussion, which is essentially a conversation with his wife by phone, Louisa, where he's saying, hey, I just heard about this thing called Botox. And is it really a thing? And do you know how it works? And could it actually be a form of botulism?
00:06:24
Speaker
It felt it felt a little dated in today's world when Botox is just such a you know, it's like getting a pedicure almost so it's so common it seems for so many people and so commonplace, but
00:06:39
Speaker
But it's also like really quite an interesting literal visual for the whole project of the book, Your Face Tomorrow. Because of course, people that undergo Botox are essentially trying to defy the aging process. And so their face tomorrow might be very much not what you would have expected.
00:07:06
Speaker
their face tomorrow to be in thinking about what type of at least physical appearance that they would have. So yeah, although it did seem a little dated to me, it also was pretty clever the way that he kind of threaded that bit of storyline and the history of Botox into the book.
00:07:32
Speaker
I think it also accomplishes two other things. One is, and I realize that we're jumping right into some, not really really discussing plot at this point, but I was really so tickled by that. I just really wanted to get to that part early. But I think it does a really interesting job of expanding on Louisa. I mean, we get a much stronger sense, I think, of Louisa, her sense of humor, and even just how the two of them
00:07:59
Speaker
I mean, they didn't sound like an estranged couple in that conversation. They just sound like they were having a bit of a chat. And I mean, the book even opens with Louisa and Deza in conversation, just sort of talking and how Louisa is her own person. She isn't just this figment or this phantom of his past, often Madrid raising the kids.
00:08:22
Speaker
There's a lot of longing and pangs that days us clearly experiencing and expressing in this volume that I'm not sure was quite there in the same way in the first volume.
Themes of Time and Memory
00:08:35
Speaker
I really liked Louisa in this book. Just like anything with Maria's and particularly in this three-volume project, Your Face Tomorrow,
00:08:45
Speaker
It is one simple telephone conversation, but it goes on and on for pages between Louisa and Deza. I liked how straightforward and I liked your sense of humor, but at the same time, it made me a little sad because
00:09:03
Speaker
she was making all of these assumptions and like jokes with him about like, Oh, so your new girlfriend is using Botox or and there didn't seem to be she seemed to be so casual and unpaved about imagining him with another woman that it
00:09:26
Speaker
it made me feel like you know i don't know whether this this relationship for this marriage can ever really be revitalized cuz it almost felt to me maybe days i hasn't turned the page but felt like louisa has.
00:09:41
Speaker
And I mean, that's kind of been the point of him being in London is to give the space for that to take place. But he spends a good bit of time dwelling on the nature of living in another country and how you're not. It's a half life. You're not really the same person you were in your home country or you're just your home city. Even I think you could extend it that way.
00:10:04
Speaker
that until there's a dramatic reorientation towards it being where you live, that this is your permanent place of residence, that, yeah, it's something a little bit more phantasmal. And certainly in that conversation, Deza is trying to very quickly move her away from those assumptions. But no, I'm just curious, and this story is really boring. It's complicated. I just kind of want this information, and I'm having a great time chatting with you, but there is no one else, whereas she
00:10:33
Speaker
was fine with that, but also, as you said, seemed totally fine with the idea that there is someone else and that he is trying to get some information about this new person in his life and where they may be coming from.
00:10:44
Speaker
The other thing that I think the Hadric Botox thing does and really does in this novel, I mean, I keep calling it novel. I'm trying to be very careful not to because that's a thing I think we should talk about that it is volumes and it is like each one is a discrete volume, but they are one novel. And I think that actually plays into perhaps some of the things that you are disappointed about in this one.
00:11:09
Speaker
But I think it really plays and emphasizes Maria's considerations about time and how time works and how the mind works as it relates to time. That Deza's mind is such that he now has this information about Hadric and immediately makes the association with Botox and compresses these two very discreet things taking place in wildly different circumstances into sort of
00:11:39
Speaker
Oh, there's a bridge there that his brain is forming. And there's a moment where he even reflects on the idea that, no, I'm presenting this thought as if it happened at the time, but it couldn't have happened at the time. I'm only now linking it back to it. There's a very long
00:11:59
Speaker
long as far as words go, seen that at the end of which we're told only took 10 minutes and it would have taken you probably three hours to read through that whole exchange. But this is, and I think I said this in the first episode, and I haven't said it yet, when I saw Maria's Dune event in New York,
00:12:22
Speaker
He was asked about why he writes like this, and his response was, time does not give time the time to be. And I think that's really coming, I think it comes into very sharp relief here, that that's one of the things that he is, that he is playing with, that he is manipulating in terms of how his character, how his character reacts, thinks, interacts. And in some ways, how a lot of the folks who are part of Tuber's organization or adjacent to it view the world.
00:12:52
Speaker
And we get the repetition here, even though it's not live, but Deza is remembering that quote by Wheeler that keeps coming up about history not being recountable insofar as
00:13:09
Speaker
something happens, an event, a situation, and you're never able to fully recount it, to remember or to retell it exactly the way it happened, just because time and memory and all of that stuff. So yeah, there is
00:13:30
Speaker
for lack of a better term, a bit meta in that way in so far as there's a lot of explicit discussion about time.
Cultural Context and Setting
00:13:39
Speaker
But then if you just look at how the prose works and the looping back and kind of the extenuation of scenes, like you said, the 10 minute scene that takes place in a bathroom, a bathroom that our friend Bernie Tupper says a bathroom for cripples, which
00:14:00
Speaker
It's the handicapped bathroom. And then I thought it was interesting too that Deis is even amazed about the fact of a handicapped bathroom as though at that time in Spain they never would have especially dedicated a bathroom to
00:14:20
Speaker
to handicap people, and particularly one that wasn't quite as spacious or clean or nice or unused as this space was in this nightclub, in this disco tech that they're at in downtown London. I also think Deza probably just doesn't pay attention to things like that sometimes. He isn't looking for it, so he's not going to see it. For someone who sees so well, he has some very interesting blind spots.
00:14:48
Speaker
I think, though, as well, he was commenting a bit on just the manners of English people versus Spanish culture, because there's a line out the door waiting for the women's room. And then there's this handicapped bathroom that no one's rude enough to just go in there and use, even though it's never used. They're all following the rules, which
00:15:15
Speaker
feels probably a bit un-Latin to Deza. Well, especially considering what that bathroom gets used for, not a few minutes later. Let's do a little bit of the plotting in this one. I think we've given a nice taste of some of the things we're thinking about with it.
00:15:36
Speaker
I'm going to be interested to see what you do with this because there's very little plot in this one I feel. I mean, it's only going to take me like a minute, although maybe it'll take me 20. So volume one ends with someone ringing Deza's door and asking to come up and him inviting him up, but he has not indicated who it is.
00:15:54
Speaker
We find out pretty much immediately that Perez Newix is a colleague at the unremarkable unnamed building. Basically, she's there to make an ask of him that he's going to, Deza is going to analyze someone in the next couple of days. Perez Newix would very much like him not to disqualify him via his analysis.
00:16:20
Speaker
The particularities of who it is or what the ask is, like why this ask is in place aren't gone into really. It actually goes more into who Tupra is, that Tupra can't believe that anyone is ever fully one thing. If someone seems wholly good and completely honest and would always pay back their loan, then in Tupra's mind, they're untrustworthy.
00:16:47
Speaker
Basically, it's almost like a pendulum swing. They're 100% going to go hard the other way at some point. Similarly, someone who is untrustworthy, Tupper would recommend that they be given a shot. So basically, she wants Deza's analysis to put this guy somewhere in the middle such that Tupper won't out of hand dismiss him.
00:17:06
Speaker
And that's what the first 60 pages of this volume 70 and then it's just dropped like a hot potato. Like we don't really go back to it after that until like the last five pages. Right. Then it's circle. Then it circles back in a bit. I mean, there's quite a bit of.
Character Dynamics and Interactions
00:17:26
Speaker
this thing is the wrong way of putting it. The book does begin with Louisa and Deza discussing helping a homeless Romanian mother and her two kids, which is tied into a discussion of what do we actually owe to one another? And if by helping someone, does that then make you beholden to them, not them beholden to you? A lot of this book, this volume is really kind of digging into almost a
00:17:56
Speaker
contractual view of society, of the various agreements, implicit, written, verbal, that we're all engaging in and with all the time. It really comes across in terms of marriage, which makes sense for someone who's going through or the early stages of a divorce and a separation to kind of be thinking about the conditional nature of that kind of a relationship.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think that Deza refers to at least the situation with Louisa and the Roma woman outside the grocery store with the two little children as entanglements. Louisa became entangled with this woman because of the help that she provided her. And then it wasn't just one instance, but Louisa kept seeing this woman.
00:18:54
Speaker
provided her with additional help and became very sympathetic to the woman's plate and very affectionate with the youngest child of the woman. So Deza makes a comment that she's now entangled. So this woman, even if she never sees her again, she's going to be in Louisa's mind for quite a while.
00:19:22
Speaker
He also, though, and this is another instance of him kind of fleshing out Louisa as a character, he also does suggest that he, Deza, is not at all concerned that Louisa would get dragged into anything too far with this woman, that Louisa has a clear enough sense of basically of herself, of what she can give, what she is willing to give, and what lines she's willing to establish that
00:19:50
Speaker
it wouldn't go further than is necessary or perhaps prudent, which is, is, is interesting for someone who, I mean, we don't know all, we don't know the nature of the divorce, like what's really driving it or pushing it forward. And that phone conversation makes it sound like they can get along just fine. So what exactly is it that's, uh, that's pushed it in this direction is a little unclear at this point. So.
00:20:16
Speaker
Following the evening chatting with Perez Newix, Deza is taken to a nightclub by Tupra. I mean, there's a lot of pritties about how they function within the organization and that there will be socialization periods or Tupra wants them to all go out together and that sort of thing. But the main thrust is that what comes next is Deza is assigned to come with Tupra now this evening operating under the name
00:20:45
Speaker
Rare to be. Am I pronouncing that right? I never know. It's such a weird one.
00:20:49
Speaker
It is a, it is a weird name. It's one of Tupper's aliases. And yeah, I'm not quite sure the proper way to pronounce it either. But this evening he's rare as be. Um, and Deza is there to, um, to do two things. One, to, um, assist in any, uh, translation issues. The gentleman that Tupper is talking to, um, Manoia is Italian and that's one of Deza's languages. And also Deza is to keep the man's wife happy, Flavia, that
00:21:19
Speaker
And in Tubera's analysis, she is someone that wants the attention and wants the compliment, but she doesn't want anything beyond that. She's not someone that's going to step out of her marriage or any of those things, but she very much is a desirous of that sort of thing. And if you can offer her that and know that that is as far as it's going to go, attention and some kind words and some fun, then
00:21:46
Speaker
She's going to be happy, which is going to keep the husband happy, which is going to serve their purposes for the evening. I think that Acheupra says it in quite an interesting way, that she's someone that constantly requires a lot of grooming and a lot of flattery because she is unable to cope with her inevitable physical, he calls it decay, but decline. She's an aging woman.
00:22:14
Speaker
And she's a woman that is vain, and she wants to act and look like a much younger woman. And she's attractive, according to Deza, even though an older woman. But he seems to do a very good job of keeping her entertained and flattered, at least initially.
00:22:42
Speaker
Up to a point also in describing the husband there's a hell of a line here He had more more the look of a Roman or rather Vatican mafioso than of a Sicilian or Calabrian or Neapolitan one the large glasses The glasses of a rapist or a hard-working civil servant or both for they are not mutually exclusive types What?
00:23:08
Speaker
Like, that is such a statement. And like, jamming those two things in together was just, um, it's just, I don't know. I love reading Maria's for all sorts of reasons, but it's those sorts of like, where you just sort of like stop and laugh. It's just so. Yes, you'll never look at a large glasses wearing civil servant the same way again. No, no, absolutely not, especially at the DMV.
00:23:38
Speaker
Um, so they go to dinner, they then go to a disco afterwards and that's going perfectly fine. She wants to dance. So there is a, I mean, it seems like a fairly active club. Um, but the music kind of down shifts a bit. And so Deza takes her on the dance floor.
00:23:57
Speaker
and sees someone waving, trying to give his attention and wave them down, dressed, he thinks, like a someone trying to dress like they do hip hop or that they're a professional boxer or I mean, there, there's some interesting assumptions going on there in terms of that. But it's De La Garza, who we met, we met back at the party, who is
00:24:19
Speaker
I guess they called it peacocking at one point, dressing like an incredibly, frankly, bizarre for him way. He has like a hairnet on that he doesn't have enough hair to fill up, so it just sort of flops loose. There's this real sense of almost a clown when that comes across.
00:24:37
Speaker
De La Garza comes over and starts talking to him and is very interested in dancing with and hitting on Flavia and wants to pay her attention. And Deza gets called back to the table to do some translation work and kind of keeps an eye on, just attempting to keep an eye on things as is Tupra. Tupra is clearly not
00:24:57
Speaker
Doesn't give it much away, but it's clearly not thrilled that De La Garza has just shown up. And then after a few minutes of checking in every so often, De La Garza and Fleve go over to a table that's full of Spaniards. Deza gets sucked into a bit of a, there's just a few words he's not 100% sure on. The Italian gentleman, the glasses wearing man, gets very flustered and frustrated.
00:25:21
Speaker
So he doesn't check in on them for like 20 seconds and they're gone. And that's not great. So Deza is sent to find him, find the two of them, make sure they haven't taken off, that nothing truly untoward has happened. I don't think Tupper thinks that anything really...
00:25:37
Speaker
wrong is happening is just a function, a question of how this works for his plans for the evening. Tupra is one that is, and this is discussed with Perez Newick's is very decisive in his reading and his decisions behind it. He wants them to question and question each other and throw out hypotheticals. And, but he is the one that makes the decision. And when he decides, he's quite certain that he is, he has read correctly.
Historical Influences and Moral Dilemmas
00:26:04
Speaker
Deza goes to, checks the bathrooms, has an interesting exchange in the ladies' room, and then comes back to the dance floor, and he and Tuprah then together kind of scan the dance floor and identify them. Tuprah goes over and takes Flavia back to her husband. Deza tells De La Garza to join him in the accessible bathroom for a hit of coke.
00:26:28
Speaker
Tuprah then shows up a few minutes later, proceeds, and then after giving something that looks like cocaine, it's never snorted, so we don't know if it has any effects or if it's talk, which Dey's author is out there. While Dale Garza is attempting to make a couple lines for himself on the toilet seat, Tuprah comes up behind him holding his sword.
00:26:48
Speaker
And, and a big ass sword, a big sword, one that Desa recognizes. And I think like the German translation for is a cat gutter or something like that. Um, and to probably like repeatedly brings it down towards De La Garza's neck, always stopping just like a hair's breadth away, but does that like two or three times, leans the sword against the wall and then walks back up to, um, De La Garza, um, in the.
00:27:19
Speaker
In the cubicle lives at the toilet seat and plunges de la Garza's face into it and alternates repeatedly alternates between half drowning him and like working his ribs over and just going to town on the guy.
00:27:35
Speaker
And after that's all done with, um, two pro tidy is himself up has days I translate instructions to Dilla Garza that Dilla Garza is to stand there for 40 minutes. He's not that he's never to talk about this. Um, there's a really great line about, about him saying quiet, keep quiet and don't say a word, not even to save yourself. Keep quiet and save yourself.
00:28:00
Speaker
Which is just a really creepy thing to say to someone that you just threatened with a sword and halved around and beat the hell out of, but that's about where we're at with Tupra. But didn't it remind you of the careless talk? Yeah, very much so, right?
00:28:14
Speaker
They then leave, they go back to the table. Tuprah finishes his negotiations, his conversation. And then as they're exiting, Deza takes Flavia with him and Tuprah and Manoia go to the bathroom.
00:28:31
Speaker
That's what Deza is assuming, just to check in. I think basically to show Manoy out what he did and I think solidify that, Hey, this guy stepped out of line. I took care of him for you. And so our talks can absolutely continue that sort of thing. Cooper drives everyone home then drives. And as he's driving Deza home, who's last, they have a conversation in the car and.
00:28:55
Speaker
At the end of that conversation, Tupper decides that they actually aren't done yet and that Deza needs to go home with him, that they have some more things to talk about. And there are some videos that Tupper wants Deza to see. And that is how this volume ends.
00:29:25
Speaker
Deza's reaction to Tuprah and the violence that he inflicts upon De La Garza, I think is really interesting because it's clear Deza doesn't really trust Tuprah. And he thinks that Tuprah is quite capable, not just physically, but also mentally and constitutionally to kill De La Garza. And he actually thinks that he's going to kill him. And then also just this discussion that
00:29:55
Speaker
They have on the way home where days are saying what the hell dude you know like where this wacky sword come from and why
00:30:08
Speaker
Why were you brandishing about and acting like you were going to kill De La Garza? And then Super kind of goes into this soliloquy about how powerful a factor of fear can be. And I found this kind of amusing because I wasn't quite so sure for myself, but that people have become accustomed or expectant
00:30:34
Speaker
of more typical weapons like short knives or guns. But when you brandish this kind of crazy big sword at people that no one uses anymore, that that is really the most effective way to instill fear on someone because they just don't know how to react to it. And clearly,
00:30:59
Speaker
neither De La Garza nor Deza knew how to react to the sword. We're about to tie this into a couple movies, but you've seen Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie. I have, yes. When the friends are planning their heist, their chef friend, who is the straightest of all of them having a real job and all that,
00:31:24
Speaker
They're discussing what kind of weapons they should bring. And he goes, and knives. Knives because they're quiet. And they're like, why knives? Because they're quiet and because they tell them that we know what we're doing. And everyone goes, that's scary, dude. Like, where did this come from out of you of all people? But I kind of thought about that as I was reading it. But when asked about why a sword would occur to him or why this idea of fear as being such a powerful tool,
00:31:50
Speaker
He actually ties it back to the Cray brothers, the Cray twins, who were East End gangsters in the 50s and 60s, but like celebrity gangsters. I mean, I think the Rolling Stones hung out at their clubs. And Tupra mentions the film, The Crays, that came out in the early 90s or 1990 or something. And it had the Kemp brothers in the lead roles who were from Spandau Ballet, which is
00:32:19
Speaker
weird and kind of a neat, well, like, I mean, Deza says he's never seen it. Of course, Marius has seen it. He probably also, like, celebrates Spandau Ballet's entire, like, catalog, you know? Like, I mean, he just throws these things back. I do. I love Spandau Ballet. Give me true and gold and all of that. So have you ever seen, have you seen The Craz? I have not. I actually saw it as a kid. My parents made interesting movie choices for us. But
00:32:45
Speaker
It's good. I mean, my memory of it is it's quite good. There's a recent telling of it called Legend that had Tom Hardy playing both roles.
00:32:54
Speaker
they had this mythical status and they ruled by fear. They would show up with really big knives, swords, and they would just do it in the middle of the street. They made sure that everyone knew that they came for them, that it would be brutal. Whoever came after them may not make it out, and the reprisal would be swift and terrifying. And that's how they were able to
00:33:15
Speaker
build the empire they did and control as much as they did and that's the that's the lesson that tupra took from them which quickly leads to uh deza and mind you this is like
00:33:28
Speaker
the last 20-ish pages of the volume that this is all happening in. I mean, we're getting a lot of movement and a lot of discussion between two people in somewhat real time than we've gotten almost the entire rest of it at this point. But Deza is wondering, what did you, ask Tupra, what did you study at Oxford? Like, all right, you're pulling lessons from the craze, what else you have up your sleeve? And Deza's response is, I read medieval history, which,
00:33:57
Speaker
I guess actually makes a certain amount of sense in terms of that idea of ruling by fear and ruling via the sword. Yeah, by far, and maybe this is part of my disappointment with this volume, is that this is like a 330 page book. 200 pages of it happen in the disco with De La Garza.
00:34:21
Speaker
And I just thought it was a bit much. I was entertained by De La Garza in the first volume by his, you know, obnoxiousness and by his just following Deza around and speaking to him in Spanish, assuming that no one else could understand all of these crude and rude comments that he was making about the women and getting with that woman and look at the legs on that one and etc.
00:34:51
Speaker
But this just seemed...
00:34:54
Speaker
Well, first of all, I guess, unrealistic. It was hard for me to believe that someone working at the Spanish embassy in London could conduct themselves in public like this and keep a job because, I mean, it was just acting like a total buffoon on the dance floor and off the dance floor the entire night that he was there. But then also just annoying. I mean, I just thought that it went to
00:35:23
Speaker
Too long and was exaggerated. Yeah, it definitely had a Strange feel to it. I mean, I think what makes
00:35:32
Speaker
especially in the party scene at Wheeler's house, what makes Dale Garza amusing there is that they sort of the point counterpoint and that Deza can lose him occasionally, but then see what he's doing across the room. And there's also just, I don't know, there's a certain structure to that. We kind of know what's going to happen at Wheeler's house on a certain level.
00:35:56
Speaker
It doesn't feel as strange and it's certainly not as heightened an environment as what, I mean, why the hell are they at this disco to begin with? I mean, my assumption was simply because it's noisy and loud and the conversation can be had with no one able to record it or listen in on it between Manoia and Tupra, but it just felt like a very, I don't know, it felt strange for them to be there, certainly.
00:36:23
Speaker
If there is a weakness to what Marius does, I do think it's that he can weave in and out a little bit too much, really break away from the momentum of his plot in some pretty significant ways so that it's all the more jarring when he drops you back into the action and it makes it feel
00:36:44
Speaker
Especially when what he's recounting, what Deza is recounting is conversations with his father about the Civil War. And then suddenly you're dropped back into the accessible bathroom in a disco tech with a guy on the ground and struggling to breathe. There is a larger thematic point there, but in terms of the reader's experience of it, yeah, it can certainly not work.
Wartime Experiences and Moral Implications
00:37:14
Speaker
I guess in the first volume, the big 200-page digression was Deza up all night at Peter Wheeler's house after the party, rifling through Wheeler's books, trying to find the connection that Wheeler had with the Spanish Civil War, and then digging up all of these other interesting facts about Andres Ninn.
00:37:43
Speaker
and different things about that period of time historically. To me, that worked. Even though he was learning all of these things, throwing all these facts that at least I wasn't aware of onto the page at the same time that he's remembering back, conversations that he had with his dad about the
00:38:13
Speaker
the friend of the father who spread disinformation and got his father jailed. I just felt like thematically that all worked and was good and interesting, but this just protracted scene at the club, I just
00:38:34
Speaker
And I think you're right. Part of it was, I mean, he tells us that Tupira was obviously a regular at this club that, you know, everyone knew him and, you know, the staff knew him and, you know, took care of him and got him a seat and, and referred to him, you know, by his alias. So maybe that's why they were there. But it just did seem like, you know,
00:39:01
Speaker
Why would you pick this place to go, especially when this guy that you're trying to get cooperation from, Manoa, is not a young man and certainly doesn't seem to be entertained by the dancing. Maybe it was just for a diversion for the wife. I don't know. I don't think I reacted as, I mean,
00:39:28
Speaker
on the second reading, I think I reacted as strongly against it as perhaps you did, but I definitely don't. It definitely felt more out of place than a lot of the other. And also, there's the pacing in this one. I do like this one a lot. I think it also, and we'll get to this in a second, I think it makes even more sense after the final volume. I think it's really,
00:39:55
Speaker
tricky I mean there's no way to do it because it's such a big novel if you treat it as a whole but I was even kind of taking a glance at some of the reviews at the time and it's tricky to kind of handle this one because it is the middle piece of this larger work so while fever and spear is setting a lot of things up and has a certain arc to it neither one of these is a is a finished arc at least not by how Marius is constructing it and this definitely seems to have that sort of uh
00:40:22
Speaker
middle of the trilogy feel to it, where it's building off the first one but setting up the last bit. And the pacing just feels a little weird. I don't know. It definitely seems to kind of speed up, slow down in some ways that don't always feel perfectly tuned.
00:40:48
Speaker
I was really hoping that Tubera would decapitate De La Garza because I sure don't want to see De La Garza. I knew it. I knew that that was what you were actually upset about, that De La Garza wasn't simply like,
00:41:02
Speaker
Rubbed out, written out of the novel, written out of all future possibilities. You never want to see this dude again. Lori, there's a whole bit at the end of this one where they're working through who can and can't kill. Deza is thinking through who in his life could kill or under what circumstances or would not. He very much puts himself in the category of capable of killing and his wife in the capable of not killing.
00:41:28
Speaker
Peter Wheeler, he says, could kill. But Toby Ryland says, couldn't, or at least he couldn't, wartime, which I think is a really interesting temperament distinction between the two brothers. But yeah, you're throwing your hat in the ring with the killers, I suppose, at least on the page. You're happy to kill your darlings or your clowns, as it were. Mentally. Mentally, I want him dead, yes.
00:41:57
Speaker
I'm not going to tell you if he shows up again or not. You might, you might be in luck. We'll see. Do not, do not tell me. I think it's worth digging in a little bit into the conversation that Deza has with his father, Juan. I mean, it's, it takes up a good.
00:42:14
Speaker
what, it's about 40, 50 pages, the conversations with Lon. It's harkening back to the conversation, not quite as much, I don't think, in the first volume with his dad. And his father is giving it even more detail of what the war was like and what the consequences of the war
00:42:36
Speaker
were for people for how they move through the world, but also even how how days as parents decided, like how they decided to raise the kids, what what they needed to know, what they weren't going to let them know what they would have to find out on their own. I think he spends enough time on that. And it's pulling together a very. Contrary perspective to how to see the world. Yeah, I think that what was, I mean, an interesting
00:43:07
Speaker
takeaway for me was just realizing.
00:43:11
Speaker
how much that's had to have been a decision point for all of the parents that had children, you know, post Franco. I don't know whether it's still a decision point, but certainly when this book is to take place and when Des is a child, you know, his father says to him as an adult, we could have just told you everything that happened. All of the gruesome details.
00:43:40
Speaker
But we didn't want you to grow up with fear and suspicion and paranoia. We didn't want to burden you with looking at humanity that way. And so we decided just to not tell you for the most part until you were much older and you started asking questions. And you just have to think that that was a decision that so many families had to make.
00:44:07
Speaker
Yeah, Wong goes into it a little bit, saying, it seemed to us that it wasn't something we could tell our children, so let's explain. It wasn't explicable even to ourselves who had witnessed it from start to finish. There hadn't been enough time for us to begin to forget. And besides, though still all too fresh in our minds, the regime made sure of that. There was never any process of psychological healing, no attempt at assuagement. The regime showed a consistent and thoroughly totalitarian lack of generosity, which was evident in every order and every sphere of life.
00:44:34
Speaker
But then he also follows it up on the very next page with, the tendency today is to enclose children in a bubble of foolish happiness and false security by not bringing them into contact even with the mildly disquieting, by keeping them ignorant of fear or even of its existence. Indeed, I understand that nowadays you can buy and that some people actually give or read to their children, censored, doctored, or saccharine versions of classics like Grimm or Perot or Anderson stripped of all the darkness and cruelty of anything that's threatening and sinister and probably with all the upsets and deceptions removed.
00:45:04
Speaker
I mean, he's reflecting the fact that like they were traumatized that these parents so and there was absolutely no attempt or interest by the government to deal with any of this.
00:45:16
Speaker
Franco's regime was perfectly happy to be a totalitarian regime. They were perfectly happy to make sure that the folks that fought against them never forgot that they lost. There's a whole thing about Real Madrid being Franco's favorite team, which is why they won all the time, which isn't entirely true. But that sort of thing was, and that was partially because Barcelona was the counterpoint. And as the Catalan club and the Catalan nationalist club, it was going to, it was of course going to be set up in opposition to Real and a lot of people's hearts and minds.
00:45:45
Speaker
But at the same time, one doesn't think children should be coddled, that there is a place for kids to learn and to understand and to see that the world isn't entirely sunny. And that fear, which is Topra's thing, fear is real. And fear is something that you should be aware of and have contact with such that you can deal with it, I think, is part of what he's getting at. But in the very next page, he also begins to talk about
00:46:14
Speaker
what you're told and how he recounts the things that he's seen, the bombardments, the bodies, all that. But what really sticks with him that he relates to his son is a militia woman describing murdering a rich family and picking up the baby from the crib and smashing its head against the wall. But also a story that's told to him after the war that
00:46:42
Speaker
answers for him. I mean, a friend of his disappeared and he knew he was dead, but he hears how his friend was killed, how his friend was murdered, and it was brutal, and it was awful, and he was tortured before he died. But what Juan says to his son is like, I saw things, but the things that stuck with me the most were the things that were told to me, the things that, you know,
00:47:04
Speaker
The things that I'm passing on to you are the things I heard. The words and the stories that were formed around that are what carries such weight. I mean, the narrative as such. And that's certainly been a huge part of what
00:47:18
Speaker
Mariusz has grappled with and dealt with in his novels. I think, especially with what Tupper says towards the end, which is why I think convinces him that he and Deza need to have a longer conversation, that Deza suggests that you can't just go around beating people up or slicing people's heads off in bathrooms. And Tupper's very short response is, why? Why can't you do that? I mean, Tupper certainly has an understanding of society and its rules and mores as something that's
00:47:48
Speaker
really optional, at the bare minimum, highly flexible. But I would think that for Tupra, it's much more of a, as you please. And Juan is someone who lived through a time when all of those rules went right out the window. I mean, he existed in a period where social structure completely altered and things that would otherwise be unacceptable.
00:48:15
Speaker
bashing a baby's head against a wall became celebrated by some people who, after the war, he might be having dinner in the same restaurant with.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think that I am looking forward to beginning volume three, which I have not yet because I want to see how this conversation continues because it seems to be right now set up as a stark moral difference that Jupyter obviously believes that
00:48:45
Speaker
that violence in some instances other than direct self-defense is justified.
Anticipation for Volume Three
00:48:53
Speaker
And Dez is not there, at least not yet. And so, yeah, I am looking forward to the continuation of that conversation. And I'm also looking forward to how the first volume ended and this one started and figuring out like,
00:49:10
Speaker
what's going to happen with this friend, this acquaintance of Paris Nunez and how Des is going to interpret this person for the purposes of either recommending or not recommending.
00:49:29
Speaker
him or her to tupra and why this is important. So there's a lot of threads that are dangling, like little cliffhangers out there that I'm looking forward to. And of course, which I've said in the previous recording, I really want to know what happened to Wheeler's wife. So that's the main one that I'm looking for in the final and concluding volume.
00:49:57
Speaker
Yeah, again, I ain't telling you nothing on that one, which neither confirms nor denies. I want to make that very clear. I'm not suggesting there is. I'm just not going to say anything. I think before we wrap up, I think Dance and Dream is far clearer in this one as titles for the parts than Fever and Spear may have been, though I think
00:50:20
Speaker
I think he kind of answers that a bit on the fever point and he does directly, Deza does kind of directly confirm your suggestion in the last episode that the fever in some ways was referring to the night he spent ripping through the, ripping through the library and he does actually refer to that evening as a feverish experience.
00:50:40
Speaker
And he does use different phrases about fever and spear and dreaming and sleeping throughout this volume. I mean, they're at a discotheque and everyone's dancing, which is clearly part of it, but it's also certainly the dance of, I think, the social interactions. The conversation with Louisa in some ways was a dance, a movement forward, a movement back. And there is certainly a very strange dreamlike quality to the next part, pulling in the
00:51:09
Speaker
conversation with his father, a lot of it sort of I think has that sort of ungrounded feel to it, which
00:51:18
Speaker
In some ways, it's unusual for Marius. I think a lot of his stuff, even when he's knocking around some three-page long sentences and some high-minded philosophy, it's still quite grounded in what the person is doing in the moment. And I think here it's a little bit more unmoored. I think it's going in some other directions than he's done before.
00:51:45
Speaker
I'm also looking forward, I think at the end of the next episode, we'll spend some time kind of reflecting on what we've read of Marius. But yeah, I really do think this is, this is something of a summation of what he'd done in the first part of his career, and that everything that came after was him moving into a different direction. Yeah, that will be that will be really kind of interesting to kind of think of things
00:52:11
Speaker
and what we've read together in retrospect, because we've read a lot of it. We've read a lot of Marais and some of it was a reread for me. A lot of it was a first read. Almost all of it was 100% enjoyable and it reaffirms the confidence that I have at the store in putting these
00:52:32
Speaker
putting Marius's novels in people's hands because, well, I've experienced the feedback and it's always wonderful. He's just such a damn good writer and very intriguing in the way he brings up a lot of these moral questions. It's not your typical kind of moral conundrum that so many novels just
00:53:01
Speaker
you know, repeat and repeat from previous novels or things that people have read. I mean, he sets up very unique situations, I think, in which to test his character's morality.
00:53:16
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think before we go, we will be remiss if we do not bring up your favorite character from the first volume who makes an appearance in the second volume, the dancing man across the way. The dancing man, yes. When you were talking about dancing, I was thinking of the dancing man because, yes, he is in this one as well up there in his flat, dancing around with his,
00:53:42
Speaker
his two lady friends so yeah i'm i'm sure he's going to be in the third one doing the same well and what's in and this one um deza starts dancing himself he hears the music uh there's a lot of talk about music in this volume i'm not just because of the discotheque but other
00:54:00
Speaker
other songs but he hears the music and he starts dancing and he has the lights on so he eventually looks up and realizes they're dancing just like he is and when he stops they wait for him to come join the party and what does Deza do? He closes the windows and turns off the lights and sits in the darkness because he cannot possibly go across the way.
00:54:20
Speaker
Yeah, they have their window open and so he hears what music they're dancing to and he realizes he's got the same music and so he turns it on and starts dancing kind of with them but across the street from them. But yeah, unfortunately, he just needs to be a little more fun, I think. I think so too. Dancing with the neighbors sounds a lot more fun than hanging out in the accessible bathroom with De La Garza to me.
00:54:47
Speaker
I would agree with that. So maybe in part three, he joins the party, but we will find out and we'll report back next week. All right. Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Lori.