BOOKS OF THE TIMES: Interpretation of Language, Lives and Spies

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For the best part of a decade the Spanish novelist Javier Marías occupied himself with "Your Face Tomorrow," an ambitious, sprawling project that became both a commercial and critical success across Europe. The third and presumably final volume, "Poison, Shadow and Farewell," has finally appeared in English, and for better or worse, it is largely of a piece with the 700 pages that preceded it.

On the surface "Your Face Tomorrow" is a strange hybrid. It is almost as if Henry James or Marcel...