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Cruel is not kind
Insight
Books Cruel is not kind “I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.” This quote from Hamlet is the main thread Javier Marías weaves through his latest novel, Thus Bad Begins. Set in post-Francoist Spain, narrated by 26-year-old Juan de Vere—‘young de Vere’ to the older men with whom he works and socialises— the story focuses on the marriage of “long, indissoluble misery” between famous but now slightly-down-at-heel film director Eduardo Muriel and his sad, voluptuous wife, Beatriz Noguera. Juan, hired through family connections to act as personal assistant to Muriel, quickly becomes absorbed in the family home, sleeping in the spare bedroom and busily helping his boss with daily duties involved in filmmaking. Layers of tension build around this seemingly simple dynamic: it is immediately apparent that Juan notices Beatriz’s beauty, and that she is neglected, and, it is revealed, verbally abused by her husband. No surprises as to what will happen between the young assistant and the beautiful wife. Marías lays out another dynamic, however, very early in the novel: Muriel asks Juan to take an old friend, the highly respected, powerful paediatrician Dr Van Vechten, into his confidence, to attempt to “draw him out”. Muriel has heard that Van Vechten “behaved in an indecent manner towards a woman or possibly more than one”, which he says is “unforgivable, the lowest of the low”. Juan’s respect and admiration for Muriel, combined with youthful curiosity, compel him to take on the task, though he feels conflicted in doing so. Why, he wonders, would Muriel object to the mistreatment of women, when he is so cruel to his own wife? Rather than unfold in a certain direction, the narrative ebbs and flows. Is Juan acting as Hamlet—or is it Muriel? Both spend a great deal of time equivocating, making
and renouncing decisions. Nothing is ever really decided, and Marías is masterful in building, then deflating, rather than resolving, tension. This can be frustrating, but feels more realistic than a grand, fictional resolution. Similarly, rather than a grand, fictional resolution revealing why Muriel treats Beatriz so terribly, we do learn his reason, but are left to ponder why Muriel and Beatriz persist in their miserable folie à deux, their complicit and persistent folly. Like a pair of fighting eagles who lock talons and hurtle, plummeting, towards the ground—and almost certain death unless they release each other in time— why do two people, wretched as a couple, remain locked together? Though Juan follows Muriel’s distasteful instructions to “draw out” Van Vechten, the book is really 500 pages of inner monologue, Juan ruminating on the interwoven situation of Muriel, Van Vechten, and Beatriz from a point in the future, when he is older than Muriel ever lives to be. The tale is a long reminiscence, even though the nostalgia is not particularly happy. “Some people”, reflects Juan, “take pleasure in deceit and trickery and pretence and have enormous patience when it comes to weaving their web.” Thus Bad Begins also has a powerfully political undercurrent, like a riptide, revealing the neglect and abuse of several generations of people, particularly women, living under the Franco regime. The novel unflinchingly illustrates the victimisation of women, and no man in the book is innocent, not even young Juan de Vere. Muriel and Beatriz’s marriage is a microcosm of the terrible silence that muffled a country, and the complicity, a silent mass hysteria, with which thousands of people—abusers and abused—kept silent, for fear of their lives.
Thus Bad Begins Javier Marías Penguin Books, 2016. Pp512. £18.99. ISBN 9780241972809
Kelley Swain
On psychiatry’s secret service Stephen Stahl is well known for his brilliantly illustrated texts of psychopharmacology, and as the editor of CNS Spectrums. His appearance in this novel as an avatar— psychiatry professor Gus Conrad—hints at autobiographical experiences, but this is blended with historically-resonant intrigue, and reveals his skilful ability as a fiction writer to give us a page-turner. Conrad is called to the Pentagon to meet the Vice Chief of the Army and the Chief of Army Psychiatry. Here, he is taken to task in relation to a (fictional) headline of an edition of the Washington Post: “Inadequate Psychiatric Care at Fort Hood Just the Tip of the Iceberg for the Army”. www.thelancet.com/psychiatry Vol 3 July 2016
Stahl’s cleverly constructed text explores the basis for this allegation via a fictionalised account of the history of Shell Shock and its variants. With a prologue in France in the autumn of 1915, the novel shifts time periods from the battlefields of WWI to the Pentagon, Cambridge, and London’s Maudsley Hospital—although much of the sinister action takes place in America. The dramatic tension of the book is built between the opinions of the Vice Chief, that “PTSD is just another name for slackers and drama queens”, and the views of Conrad, who is dismissed by the Vice Chief as a “left-wing bleeding heart academic”. It revolves around the failure of the
Shell Shock Stephen Stahl Harley House Press 2015. Pp 448. US$17·95 ISBN 9780986323713
617
Books Cruel is not kind “I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.” This quote from Hamlet is the main thread Javier Marías weaves through his latest novel, Thus Bad Begins. Set in post-Francoist Spain, narrated by 26-year-old Juan de Vere—‘young de Vere’ to the older men with whom he works and socialises— the story focuses on the marriage of “long, indissoluble misery” between famous but now slightly-down-at-heel film director Eduardo Muriel and his sad, voluptuous wife, Beatriz Noguera. Juan, hired through family connections to act as personal assistant to Muriel, quickly becomes absorbed in the family home, sleeping in the spare bedroom and busily helping his boss with daily duties involved in filmmaking. Layers of tension build around this seemingly simple dynamic: it is immediately apparent that Juan notices Beatriz’s beauty, and that she is neglected, and, it is revealed, verbally abused by her husband. No surprises as to what will happen between the young assistant and the beautiful wife. Marías lays out another dynamic, however, very early in the novel: Muriel asks Juan to take an old friend, the highly respected, powerful paediatrician Dr Van Vechten, into his confidence, to attempt to “draw him out”. Muriel has heard that Van Vechten “behaved in an indecent manner towards a woman or possibly more than one”, which he says is “unforgivable, the lowest of the low”. Juan’s respect and admiration for Muriel, combined with youthful curiosity, compel him to take on the task, though he feels conflicted in doing so. Why, he wonders, would Muriel object to the mistreatment of women, when he is so cruel to his own wife? Rather than unfold in a certain direction, the narrative ebbs and flows. Is Juan acting as Hamlet—or is it Muriel? Both spend a great deal of time equivocating, making
and renouncing decisions. Nothing is ever really decided, and Marías is masterful in building, then deflating, rather than resolving, tension. This can be frustrating, but feels more realistic than a grand, fictional resolution. Similarly, rather than a grand, fictional resolution revealing why Muriel treats Beatriz so terribly, we do learn his reason, but are left to ponder why Muriel and Beatriz persist in their miserable folie à deux, their complicit and persistent folly. Like a pair of fighting eagles who lock talons and hurtle, plummeting, towards the ground—and almost certain death unless they release each other in time— why do two people, wretched as a couple, remain locked together? Though Juan follows Muriel’s distasteful instructions to “draw out” Van Vechten, the book is really 500 pages of inner monologue, Juan ruminating on the interwoven situation of Muriel, Van Vechten, and Beatriz from a point in the future, when he is older than Muriel ever lives to be. The tale is a long reminiscence, even though the nostalgia is not particularly happy. “Some people”, reflects Juan, “take pleasure in deceit and trickery and pretence and have enormous patience when it comes to weaving their web.” Thus Bad Begins also has a powerfully political undercurrent, like a riptide, revealing the neglect and abuse of several generations of people, particularly women, living under the Franco regime. The novel unflinchingly illustrates the victimisation of women, and no man in the book is innocent, not even young Juan de Vere. Muriel and Beatriz’s marriage is a microcosm of the terrible silence that muffled a country, and the complicity, a silent mass hysteria, with which thousands of people—abusers and abused—kept silent, for fear of their lives.
Thus Bad Begins Javier Marías Penguin Books, 2016. Pp512. £18.99. ISBN 9780241972809
Kelley Swain
On psychiatry’s secret service Stephen Stahl is well known for his brilliantly illustrated texts of psychopharmacology, and as the editor of CNS Spectrums. His appearance in this novel as an avatar— psychiatry professor Gus Conrad—hints at autobiographical experiences, but this is blended with historically-resonant intrigue, and reveals his skilful ability as a fiction writer to give us a page-turner. Conrad is called to the Pentagon to meet the Vice Chief of the Army and the Chief of Army Psychiatry. Here, he is taken to task in relation to a (fictional) headline of an edition of the Washington Post: “Inadequate Psychiatric Care at Fort Hood Just the Tip of the Iceberg for the Army”. www.thelancet.com/psychiatry Vol 3 July 2016
Stahl’s cleverly constructed text explores the basis for this allegation via a fictionalised account of the history of Shell Shock and its variants. With a prologue in France in the autumn of 1915, the novel shifts time periods from the battlefields of WWI to the Pentagon, Cambridge, and London’s Maudsley Hospital—although much of the sinister action takes place in America. The dramatic tension of the book is built between the opinions of the Vice Chief, that “PTSD is just another name for slackers and drama queens”, and the views of Conrad, who is dismissed by the Vice Chief as a “left-wing bleeding heart academic”. It revolves around the failure of the
Shell Shock Stephen Stahl Harley House Press 2015. Pp 448. US$17·95 ISBN 9780986323713
617