The Tenant and the Motive are two darkly humorous novellas from the award-winning author of Soldiers of Salamis. Written with the lightest of touches and layered with sardonic wit, they are masterpieces of understatement that linger long in the memory. The Tenent is a mischievous take on the American campus novel, delivering Kafkaesque twists on a theme of academic rivalry and backstabbing. Out jogging one day visiting linguistics professor, Mario Rota, twists his ankle and from then on his life starts to unravel. A rival professor appears at the university, takes over his classes and bewitches his girlfriend. Where will Rota's nightmare end? More important, where did it begin? The Motive is a perfectly judged satire about a writer who takes literature much more seriously than he does life. Alvaro becomes obsessed with finding the ideal inspiration for his novel. First he begins spying on his neighbours, then he starts leading them on. The result is a reversal of the usual maxim that art follows life, with dire consequences for those around him, not least himself.
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Editorial Reviews
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Praise for Soldiers of Salamis 'Magnificent' Mario Vargas Llosa 'A truly wonderful, magnificent novel' Allan Massie, Scotsman 'A classic' George Steiner
About the Author
Javier Cercas is the author of novels, stories and essays. His novel Soldiers of Salamis has sold over 500,000 copies in Spain, been filmed and has been published in 20 languages. He lives in Girona, where he teaches Spanish Literature at the University.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Two light but darkly humorous novellas,
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This review is from: Tenant and the Motive (Paperback)
"The Tenant" and "The Motive" are two light yet darkly humorous novellas by one of Spain's leading contemporary authors, who is best known for his novel "Soldiers of Salamis," the winner of the 2004 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. In the first novella, a university professor of linguistics experiences a Kafkaesque turn of events after an ankle sprain, as a renowned (but unknown to him) fellow linguistics professor moves in next door to him, takes over his office and classes, and steals his girlfriend while he remains powerless to change his fate. In "The Motive", a part-time lawyer and budding writer envisions a novel in which a young couple in financial straits murders an elderly man for his hidden money, but he has trouble putting voices to the characters. The writer befriends a couple and an old man who live in the same building as he, and, in a reversal of the concept of "life becomes art", he injects himself and alters their three lives, using taped conversations to write his story. These novellas were a joy to read, and I'll be looking for more of Cercas' works in the near future.
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