Javier Marias, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me **** 1/2

Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me is a prime example of a book I love but I expect would exasperate most other readers. It starts (and, spoiler alert, ends) with an unexpected death, and the narrator insinuates himself into the dead woman's family, but those coming to the book for its plot will soon get lost in the winding train of thought. The narrator ponders what it all means rather than what happened.

Let me quote Ema from Goodreads, who says it better than I ever could:

Marías talks about death, about memory, about guilt, about the power of names. He also talks about the life of a story, prone to be transformed with every additional mouth that will pass it on. The plot of Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me is merely an excuse for the writer to travel down the meditative path, to reach depths of thought that left me wondering and made me feel exalted. So many truths that I haven't thought of before, so many approaches that now seem obvious. He made me look at my possessions and ask myself: do these objects hold any interest to other people, or is it just me who justifies their existence and utility? And do I really need all these things around me?

I can't get enough of this kind of novel, where an eccentric or downright crazy narrator eloquently circles around his or her personal obsessions. I especially loved the first third, wherein our narrator haunts and is haunted by Marta (the woman who died).