BOOK REVIEW: Esta noche moriré by Fernando Marías

Introduction

Esta noche moriré (Tonight, I will die) by Fernando Marías is a short novel originally published in 1992. The edition I read, published by Alrevés Editorial to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the first edition in this collection (1996), includes a theatrical monologue based on this novel and adapted by Vanessa Montfort. Fernando Marías was a Spanish author (born in Bilbao, Biscay) whose debut novel La luz prodigiosa (The End of a Mystery) in 1990 won the Ciudad de Barbastro Award in Spain and was adapted to film in 2003. In this novel, a former mechanic suspects that a man he met years ago is actually the executed (or thought to have been executed) Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. Two years later, in 1992, Fernando Marías published the thriller Esta noche moriré (Tonight, I will die). This short novel recountshow a deceased criminal plans his revenge against the policeman who caught him and threw him in prison. Sixteen years later, the dead man’s vengeance finally reaches its culmination. Today, this short novel is considered one of the strangest and most fascinating works of contemporary Spanish literature. Fernando Marías passed away in February 2022. His death was rather sudden.

What is Esta noche moriré (Tonight, I will die) by Fernando Marías about?

“I killed myself sixteen years ago.” This is how Esta noche moriré (Tonight, I will die) by Fernando Marías begins, and these six words transport the reader into the mind of a man set on revenge; a man whose last act on this Earth, killing himself, is just another part of his intricate and meticulous plan to exact revenge on the man who put him behind bars.

On December 24^th, 1990, the policeman, Delmar, receives a letter. Corman, a white-collar criminal Delmar arrested sixteen years ago, confesses to him in this letter that he is about to kill himself. And he does kill himself, on December 24^th, 1974. But today, on December 24^th, 1990, sixteen years later and after Delmar finishes reading the letter he has just received, which was written before Corman’s death in 1974, Delmar will commit suicide too. What follows is a meticulous account of how Corman exacts his revenge, planned during his years in prison, from his suicide until the night, tonight, Delmar kills himself too.

This book is a psychological thriller in which one character (the criminal) does everything in his power to convince the other (the policeman) that he is mad. The novel traps you from its opening line, and I recommend you pick it up when you have a couple of hours (or more) to spare because you will not be able to put it down until you finish it.

Narrative Style

Esta noche moriré (Tonight, I will die) is a novel structured as a monologue or letter (hence, its epistolary form) from a criminal who tells his own story after committing suicide to the policeman who captured him and who is the target of a meticulous and disturbing post-mortem vengeance. The monologue/letter highlights the psychological relationship between these two characters and how its destructive nature eventually leads to both their demises. What is peculiar about this psychological thriller is that, at the time of narration, Corman is already dead, the victim is unaware that he has been a victim of a crime for many years and that the crime being committed has spanned a whopping 16 years after the narrator’s death.

Once Delmar finishes reading Corman’s letter, we encounter an omniscient narrator that tells us what happens to Delmar afterward; he answers the most pressing question on our minds: Does Delmar kill himself? Did Corman know his victim well and push him to the edge of the precipice? Did Delmar jump?

Character Analysis

Corman

Corman is the narrator and protagonist of this short novel. He is an intelligent and manipulative villain that meticulously plans his revenge in prison against the man who arrested him before committing suicide. Corman’s revenge is to make Delmar kill himself as well.

Before his arrest, Corman worked for a criminal organization that dealt in expensive and unique pieces of art, including, for example, a hitherto unknown autobiography of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dating back to the Renaissance, The Corporation is old enough and powerful enough today to provide the resources Corman needed at the time to take revenge on Delmar. Corman is obsessed with his revenge, and he doesn’t spare any of those resources to get what he wants.

Delmar

Delmar is the policeman that arrested Corman and who, sixteen years later, discovers that his personal and professional downfall was orchestrated by a criminal he put behind bars decades ago. In the letter, Corman confesses that he is about to kill himself. But before he does, Corman also tells Delmar what will happen after his death. Everything, Corman says, was (is) “meticulously planned to drive you insane and sow the seeds of despair. This despair will eventually lead you to commit suicide too, and your death will be the culmination of my revenge”.   

Themes

Obsession

One of the first things that stand out in this novel is the narrator’s obsession on getting the revenge he thinks he deserves from the man that put him in jail. What is more, this obsession goes beyond the grave; Corman is fully aware that he will be dead by the time that his revenge comes to fruition in 1990. But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t enjoy planning it any less. Knowing that all he needs to do is plan it (and Corman can plan it because he has time to spare) sometimes is enough for a man to let his victim know what he is capable of; sometimes that is all that the perpetrator needs to savor his revenge. It doesn’t matter how long it takes either. What is important is that in the end he’ll get the last laugh.

Revenge after death

This novel has been deemed unclassifiable; there is no specific genre ascribed to it on Goodreads. But if I had to classify it within genre fiction, I would say it is a psychological revenge thriller. This is the same genre of the quintessential revenge thriller of them all: The Count of Montecristo by Alexandre Dumas. The difference is that Dantés destroys those who betrayed him after his wrongful imprisonment while Corman is a felon. His day job is to manipulate the lives of geniuses to extract masterpieces out of them. An example is the autobiography of Fyodor Dostoyevsky I mentioned earlier, which the Russian author wrote in one of the lowest moments of his life: when his gambling debts were over the roof and the Corporation offered to pay those debts off in exchange for Dostoyevsky writing an autobiography. What Dostoyevsky did not know, however, is that the Corporation itself drove the writer to gamble in the first place to put him in a place where they could ask him for said autobiography.

Revenge is possibly the one human emotion that exacts the greatest pleasure in those who seek it, whether it has been fulfilled or if you’re simply planning it. And this is what the protagonist of this short novel experiences throughout the entire length of the book.

The fragility of the human mind

The novel is also a psychological thriller because Corman’s letter reveals that he has orchestrated everything that has happened to Delmar from his suicide in 1974 to tonight, sixteen years later, when Delmar will kill himself too, and ultimately destroyed him. We need to read to the very end of the novel to see if Delmar does kill himself, driven to despair, once he learns that he has been Corman’s puppet for 16 years.

Manipulation

Corman’s ability to manipulate was mastered when he worked for the Corporation, a clandestine organization that operates on the idea of making artists give them one of their masterpieces, before they are famous, so that they can let the world know about it later once that artist is dead (and has been for a while). So, sixteen years is a small amount of time for Corman to pay (and wait) in order to exact vengeance on the man who put him behind bars. It is a small amount of time to pay in order to destroy the one person he hates the most. It is calculated retribution. Corman manipulates Delmar in order to ruin him personally, professionally, and mentally. The culmination will be the destruction of his body, which Delmar will do for him when the policeman kills himself on the anniversary of his own suicide in 1990.

Conclusion

This book was the monthly pick for one of my book clubs, where I had to read an epistolary novel. Before, when I was in college and many years after that, the only epistolary novel that I could think of was Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. But there are thousands, among them Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Augustus by John Williams. This short epistolary novel is peculiar in that the villain is the protagonist, and it is his revenge story that is told even though he is a convicted felon. This highlights the fact that sometimes, in the eternal battle between good and evil, evil has some wins too.

Rating

I Liked it but I Probably Won’t Read It Again.

That is everything for today. Thank you for stopping by. My next post will be my review for Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela (Dear Diego) by Elena Poniatowska.