Swann in Spain: Proust’s Ghost in the Novels of Javier Marías

Abstract

Since the publication of Corazon tan blanco (A Heart so White) (1992), many critics have compared the Spanish novelist Javier Marias to Marcel Proust. Both favor long, meandering sentences, in which they insert voluminous asides. In thematic terms, their narratives are constantly involved with meditation over the extent to which we can understand the past, or the degree to which we can know either ourselves or others. Beyond their common preoccupation with time and memory, I will consider some remarkable similarities between Marias’ and Proust’s formative years and the role translation played in the development of their style. I will show the many ways in which Proust “haunts” Marias: in his metaphorical use of the translating practice, in his love of deferral, and in his brooding first-person narrators, racked by the anxiety of ignorance.