All souls

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All Souls (Spanish: Todas las almas ) is a novel by the Spanish writer Javier Marías from 1989 . The novel describes the roughly two-year stay of a Spanish guest lecturer for literature and translation at Oxford University and is thus based on autobiographical events. Javier Marias himself lectured at Oxford in 1983 and 1984. The title of the novel is derived from the All Souls College , at which the narrator begins his lectureship.

The novel does not have a coherent plot in the strict sense, but rather tells partly bizarre episodes and describes a multitude of strange personalities. Recurring themes in the novel include the love affair with the married lecturer Clare Bayes and the relationship with Dr. Cromer-Blake. A number of passages can be understood as an environmental study of the "preserved in syrup" city of Oxford and some of the customs of Oxford University.

characters

Clare Bayes

During his stay in Oxford, the narrator had a love affair with Clare Bayes, a married and attractive Oxford lecturer, which, however, except for one occasion, was lived without sexual intercourse. The frequent meetings take place either in the narrator's apartment or in hotels outside Oxford, with the lovers usually taking care to take separate trains back to Oxford. Clare Bayes is described as chatty and permissive in her gestures, she smokes frequently and exudes a lot of energy: “Everything about her was expansive, excessive, nervous, one of those beings for whom time was not made (...). “Despite frequent caresses and kisses, sex only ends in a hotel.

The narrator gets to know Edward and Clare Bayes during their second of three lecture periods in the context of a so-called high table dinner , a regular dinner within the Oxford colleges that is as strict as it is dissolute . The reader will learn just as little details about Edward Bayes as about his son Eric Bayes, who spends most of the year in a boarding school. The son is only at home during a long period of illness, and during this time Clare Bayes avoids any meeting with the lover.

Towards the end of the novel, the reader learns of a tragic childhood story that has been hinted at several times before. In Delhi , Clare Bayes, the young daughter of a diplomat, has to see how her father banishes her mother, who is pregnant by a lover, from the house. A few days later, the child and his nanny sees a woman who she thinks she recognizes as her mother, walking up to a man on a distant bridge. As a night train approaches, the woman jumps into the river, while the man clings to a bridge pillar and refuses to commit suicide - the tragic end of a love affair and tells of Clare Bayes that night when the Spanish lover made one last attempt undertakes to win her over as a permanent partner and to take her with him from Oxford to Spain.

Cromer-Blake

Another important point of contact for the Spanish guest lecturer is Cromer-Blake, who also teaches at Oxford. He introduces him to Oxford society and becomes a friend and protector. For the narrator he is “my fatherly and motherly figure and my guide in this city”. The reader does not learn much about him personally. The narrator happens to witness Cromer-Blake begging another man for sexual intercourse. "Two of the three have died since I left Oxford (...)" are the opening words of the novel and the concurrent riddle that is posed to the reader in the course. Cromer-Blake leaves the author two diaries, from which are sometimes quoted towards the end of the book. The handling of Cromer-Blake's deadly illness, which he tries to keep secret as well as his homosexuality, is hinted at.

Further

  • Toby Rylands
  • The porter will
  • Alec Dewar
  • The Indian doctor Dayanand
  • Rook
  • Alan Marriott
  • Muriel
  • John Gawsworth

Literature and Sources