At High Table in an Oxford college, the pretty, young tutor Clare Bayes attracted all eyes, not least to her fetching d-colletage. No one's eyes were sharper, however, than those of the visiting Spanish lecturer, invited as a guest on this occasion, and in due course the two young people were lovers, unbeknown to Clare's husband. And if the Spaniard was at pains to cover their tracks, his beloved left evidence of adultery with gay abandon - and all this in a university that was a forcing house of gossip and intrigue, a place where 'at every word a reputation dies'. This affaire between the canny Latin and the flighty English woman forms the central thread in a brilliantly wrought tapestry of Oxford life, at once affectionate in its insight and hilarious in its ironic portrayals of Senior Common Room worthies. (20021018)
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‘A dazzling example of the Oxford novel, with all the deceptively innocent wit and humour and all the rueful nostalgia we could want’ -- Times Literary Supplement
‘An intelligent and well-executed book with exceptionally funny set pieces’ -- Independent on Sunday
‘Crackles with deliciously sly observations about Oxford mores’ -- Independent
‘An intelligent and well-executed book with exceptionally funny set pieces’ -- Independent on Sunday
‘Crackles with deliciously sly observations about Oxford mores’ -- Independent
Book Description
'Probably the wittiest novel set in British academia since David Lodge's Changing Places' Daily Mail (20021018)
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By RachelWalker
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
I must agree with the other negative reviewer; this book is not bad per se, but it is just so completely outclassed by Marias' other books that I've read (A Heart So White and Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me), which are both so much more ambitious and original and exciting, that I just could not at any stage muster much enthusiasm for it. Javier Marias is hugely intelligent, and certainly one of the world's most key novelists at present, but not on the evidence of this book. It's clever, it's well-written, it's witty, but it doesn't have any of the moments of profundity that his other two I've read have, none of the gravitas. It is nothing more than a novel of academic life on an Oxford campus. Compared to A Heart So White, this is trivial stuff, and that other novel completely eclipses this. If you're new to Marias, read A Heart So White because it's a work of genius; only read this if you've loved his other works and are a completist.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
A highly satisfying novel. Marias constructs a thoughtful but not over-complex narrative and adds plenty of very pleasing (and accurate) vignettes and impressions about life in Oxford. People who are familiar with the city will definitely get a lot out of this book. Even those who are not, however, will be fully able to appreciate the superb approaches to themes including love, sloth, loneliness, and growing old. Fans of W.G. Sebald would be likely to enjoy this book. Highly recommended.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Few Spanish writers have published books about Great Britain because spanish weren't living abroad time enough for understanding foreign countries except South America, and a little, Germany and France in the case of emigrant workers of industry, but this late have finished thirty years ago. Until perhaps 1970, ordinary Spanish and Portuguese writers were prone to dense, mostly rural dramas if not tragedies when religious factors were very important, and strong and sperpentic passions destroyed the personages if they not take catholic confession; summing up, these works were undigestible. For that, certain renaissance of literature in spanish had to be born in South America, but nevertheless, a great proportion of Spanish- American writers uses to taste a marked pulsion towards melancholy or a lujuriant phantasy that -in spite of his quality- is alien to Spanish, that can be bitter o brigth and live but usually not have these qualities. Well, times have changed a little; Javier Marias seems to like english culture and also, personages that would have been something great in life according to standards or current criterions, but that invariably have a hidden weakness that frustrate his social or money success. "All Souls" is a lively novel about the academic world and life in Oxford, I think is realistic, and deliberately no pretends to tell deep questions, though he describes British character very finely, withouth topics, as the love affair of the spanish teacher with a married Englishwoman that is clearly superficial and mostly seems a result of the loneliness of both; but that ligthness is rare in spanish literature. This novel isn't usual as the whole works of Javier Marias and merite to be read.
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