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Ian "Marvin" Graye's Reviews > Berta Isla
Berta Isla
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by
CRITIQUE:
"The Clandestine Life"
If you ask me, this 532 page novel focuses more on Berta Isla's (1.) husband, and could easily have been called "Tomas Nevinson", except that this was to be the title of its sequel (which was the last novel Javier Marias wrote before his death).
I say this, because the novel is primarily about the clandestine life of Tomas, who gets entangled in espionage activities, the detail of which is never definitively revealed (which after all is their nature).
Berta and Tomas went to the same school in Madrid. Tomas' father was English, and his mother Spanish. He spoke English and Spanish fluently, and amused his family and friends with his mimicry of other people's accents. He was interested in language, literature and culture, and eventually went up to Oxford to study. At the end of his time there, unbeknown to Berta, he was approached to work in the UK secret service, which valued his language skills, only partly as a translator. Berta's parents were both Spanish, and she taught English literature in Madrid.
Later, it's revealed that there might have been a connection between (which there was in reality), hence the value of Tomas' language skills to the attempts by the secret service to infiltrate these groups. Tomas might also have seen action in the Falklands War in 1982, after which he went missing for 12 years, presumed by some to be dead. (3.)
Tomas is prohibited by law from revealing any of his espionage activities to Berta. She spends all of her time in Spain teaching and taking care of their two children, ignorant of Tomas' whereabouts, other than that he might be in England. Ultimately, she begins to suspect that he might be legally dead, and that she might be entitled to a divorce, which she declines to activate, hoping that he might still be alive:
Pretence and Concealment
Javier Marias implies that there might be some resemblance between clandestine espionage activities and marital or personal infidelity. Keeping a secret for the purposes of one involves a similar temperament, practices and skills to the other. If you're clandestine in relation to your work, would you be equally clandestine in relation to your personal relationships?
A More Extraordinary Life (and Another Love Story)
On the other hand, does it simply make for a more extraordinary life? Even if sometimes Tomas must find safe haven in "a tranquil, orderly life" teaching at a school in a small country town? He describes Oxford in similar terms as "a peaceful place, outside the universe."
As for Berta, Marias quotes Flaubert (2.):
To which Tomas adds:
For she continued to love him (or so she believed), even during his long absence or death.
The Spectre of Fiction - "In the Realm of Chimeras"
Marias alludes to many writers such as Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Flaubert, Herman Melville and T. S. Eliot who have inspired him. In some cases, the novel seems to be a lengthy extrapolation on the original quotation or inspiration.
He also uses his trademark long sentences, with no detriment to the pacing of the novel.
The narrative is assembled, ghost-like, implied, rather than explicit, but never less than stimulating.
FOOTNOTES:
(1.) Pronounced "Isle - a" or "eye - la", not "is - la".
(2.)
(3.) In April, 1982, I went on my first extended holiday in England and Scotland. I travelled from London to Edinburgh to see two concerts: one by the Jam, and the other by Orange Juice. I then caught a train to Liverpool to see a band called Blancmange, after which I went to Exeter to see another band I didn't know as well (I think it was Theatre of Hate). On the way from Liverpool to Exeter, the trains were full of soldiers who were meeting up with troop ships in Portsmouth. I had first learned that there was a war, when I saw a chalk board outside Sloan Square tube station in Kings Road, Chelsea urgently calling all troops back to base. The radio waves (remember them?) were full of Roxy Music's "More Than This".
SOUNDTRACK:
(view spoiler)
"The Clandestine Life"
If you ask me, this 532 page novel focuses more on Berta Isla's (1.) husband, and could easily have been called "Tomas Nevinson", except that this was to be the title of its sequel (which was the last novel Javier Marias wrote before his death).
I say this, because the novel is primarily about the clandestine life of Tomas, who gets entangled in espionage activities, the detail of which is never definitively revealed (which after all is their nature).
Berta and Tomas went to the same school in Madrid. Tomas' father was English, and his mother Spanish. He spoke English and Spanish fluently, and amused his family and friends with his mimicry of other people's accents. He was interested in language, literature and culture, and eventually went up to Oxford to study. At the end of his time there, unbeknown to Berta, he was approached to work in the UK secret service, which valued his language skills, only partly as a translator. Berta's parents were both Spanish, and she taught English literature in Madrid.
Later, it's revealed that there might have been a connection between (which there was in reality), hence the value of Tomas' language skills to the attempts by the secret service to infiltrate these groups. Tomas might also have seen action in the Falklands War in 1982, after which he went missing for 12 years, presumed by some to be dead. (3.)
Tomas is prohibited by law from revealing any of his espionage activities to Berta. She spends all of her time in Spain teaching and taking care of their two children, ignorant of Tomas' whereabouts, other than that he might be in England. Ultimately, she begins to suspect that he might be legally dead, and that she might be entitled to a divorce, which she declines to activate, hoping that he might still be alive:
"You have to understand, Berta...it was essential that, during that time, no one should know I was alive, because if anyone found out, I would probably be dead. Besides, they were my orders."
Pretence and Concealment
Javier Marias implies that there might be some resemblance between clandestine espionage activities and marital or personal infidelity. Keeping a secret for the purposes of one involves a similar temperament, practices and skills to the other. If you're clandestine in relation to your work, would you be equally clandestine in relation to your personal relationships?
"He started leading a double life, and both lives involved pretence and concealment."
"I will be a fiction, a spectre who comes and goes and departs and returns."
A More Extraordinary Life (and Another Love Story)
On the other hand, does it simply make for a more extraordinary life? Even if sometimes Tomas must find safe haven in "a tranquil, orderly life" teaching at a school in a small country town? He describes Oxford in similar terms as "a peaceful place, outside the universe."
As for Berta, Marias quotes Flaubert (2.):
"She, like anyone else, (had) had her love story."
To which Tomas adds:
"...and I was that story, dead or alive."
For she continued to love him (or so she believed), even during his long absence or death.
The Spectre of Fiction - "In the Realm of Chimeras"
Marias alludes to many writers such as Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Flaubert, Herman Melville and T. S. Eliot who have inspired him. In some cases, the novel seems to be a lengthy extrapolation on the original quotation or inspiration.
He also uses his trademark long sentences, with no detriment to the pacing of the novel.
The narrative is assembled, ghost-like, implied, rather than explicit, but never less than stimulating.
FOOTNOTES:
(1.) Pronounced "Isle - a" or "eye - la", not "is - la".
(2.)
(3.) In April, 1982, I went on my first extended holiday in England and Scotland. I travelled from London to Edinburgh to see two concerts: one by the Jam, and the other by Orange Juice. I then caught a train to Liverpool to see a band called Blancmange, after which I went to Exeter to see another band I didn't know as well (I think it was Theatre of Hate). On the way from Liverpool to Exeter, the trains were full of soldiers who were meeting up with troop ships in Portsmouth. I had first learned that there was a war, when I saw a chalk board outside Sloan Square tube station in Kings Road, Chelsea urgently calling all troops back to base. The radio waves (remember them?) were full of Roxy Music's "More Than This".
SOUNDTRACK:
(view spoiler)
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Reading Progress
October 11, 2018
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October 11, 2018
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October 11, 2018
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Ian
(last edited Oct 13, 2018 01:23PM)
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rated it 5 stars
Oct 13, 2018 01:19PM
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I need to read more by the author. A heart so White was amazing.
