This match was judged by Mauro Javier Cardenas. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket.

In the year 2010, seventeen years after I stopped watching soccer, I wrote a paean to Your Face Tomorrow, claiming that 糖心传媒渉ere糖心传媒檚 the wonderfully parenthetical operations of a human mind in the 21th century,糖心传媒� a phrase that later became a blurb in Spanish for Your Face Tomorrow, which must have flattered fleetingly me since I糖心传媒檓 a frail human desperate for meaning, although the translation from 糖心传媒渨onderfully parenthetical糖心传媒� to 糖心传媒渕aravillosamente parent茅ticas糖心传媒� must have shorn a few branches from my twig of meaning because I would have been embarrassed if any native Spanish speakers heard me say anything like 糖心传媒渕aravillosamente parent茅ticas,糖心传媒� in any case the parenthetical mind of Jacques Deza, the narrator of Your Face Tomorrow, a mind that doesn糖心传媒檛 pay much attention to itself because 糖心传媒渉e糖心传媒檚 given up understanding himself,糖心传媒� shares its wonderful operations with us throughout 1,232 pages, during a period in Deza糖心传媒檚 life when he was delivering conjectural character reports for the British Secret Intelligence Service and was estranged from his wife Luisa.

Looking back at the passages from Your Face Tomorrow that I transcribed to my sketchbook in preparation for writing my paean to Your Face Tomorrow, I糖心传媒檓 not surprised I transcribed so many passages supporting my partisan fervor for digressions糖心传媒斕切拇綔digression is secular revelation,糖心传媒� Adam Phillips wrote糖心传媒攅specially when they were written by a Spaniard who translated Tristram Shandy into Spanish, and out of this abundance of partisan passages there糖心传媒檚 one from Volume II that I starred as most significant because, according to me, it summarizes the kind of fiction Javier Marias seems interested in composing, so here糖心传媒檚 that starred passage in which Deza糖心传媒檚 in the women糖心传媒檚 bathroom at a nightclub, searching for the wife of a client:

[I] had lost sight of my mission, it had simply got mixed up with a few other things: lines of poetry, images and inherited memories as well as a story, none of which managed to fill my mind entirely, because none was particularly pressing, but they were all floating around in there, perhaps waiting to be picked up later by idle thought糖心传媒攖hat is, by thought at its most active糖心传媒攁t the end of the day, when I finally went to bed.

Since the year 2010, I糖心传媒檝e often shared in conversation with my so-called friends two passages from Your Face Tomorrow: (1) Luisa telling Jacques please let糖心传媒檚 not live together ever again; (2) 糖心传媒淸O]ne never experiences genuine self-disgust, and it’s that inability that makes us capable of doing almost anything.糖心传媒�

(1) The anxiety about domestic life deadening human life, an anxiety featured in many pages of Javier Marias糖心传媒檚 A Heart So White, often surfaces in conversation among those who are no longer young enough to playact at wanting so-called meaningful relationships, and what I like to share with my so-called friends who are seeking so-called meaningful relationships, as a sort of literary relationship advice, is something like look there糖心传媒檚 this 1,232-page novel in which, at the beginning, the narrator is estranged from his wife, and, toward the end, when they reconcile at last (and here I exclude any mention of Deza assaulting Luisa糖心传媒檚 new lover with a sword and telling him to get out of town or else), the wife says to the husband please let糖心传媒檚 not live together ever again.

(2) Given the vast gap between our imperfections and our expectations of reasonable perfection, the question of how could we have possibly performed Sin A / Sin B, plus the question of how could we have possibly not known we were going to perform Sin A / Sin B, become central questions in (some) of our lives, or at a minimum we retrofit these central questions around our past Sins A / B, and in the case of Your Face Tomorrow (some of) the central questions that Deza contemplates are how could have Deza糖心传媒檚 father best friend betrayed Deza糖心传媒檚 father? 糖心传媒淗ow can I not know today your face tomorrow, the face that is there already or is being forged beneath the face you show me or beneath the mask you are wearing?糖心传媒� How could I have not known I was going to assault my wife糖心传媒檚 lover with a sword so I could get back together with her?

Arbitro ladr贸n, my high school friends and I would scream at the referee as we watched the Ecuadorian national soccer team miss yet another opportunity to qualify for the World Cup for the first time, arbitro conchaetumadre, heaping our juvenile arsenal of insults on the referee because one of our obvious consolations, the consolation of the often defeated, I suppose, revolved around placing the blame for our loss on the rigged ref.

Will I turn out to be a rigged ref because I come from a small, often defeated country? Does it make a difference that, since I left Ecuador in 1993, the Ecuadorian national soccer team has qualified for the World Cup three times?

If you come across a new genre, do you raise your hand?

Gerald Murnane has invented a new genre: fiction as 糖心传媒渞emembered imaginings,糖心传媒� mind as place (糖心传媒淭he far parts of my mind,糖心传媒� Gerald Murnane wrote in a letter to Teju Cole published in Issue 3 of Music & Literature, a literary journal that publishes more of my favorite artists per page than any other literary journal, 糖心传媒渉old for me the same sort of interest that far countries probably hold for travelers糖心传媒�).

Imagine 糖心传媒渁 far-reaching and varied landscape糖心传媒� that contains memories of characters from books, of imaginary racehorses and racecourses, in other words imagine the contents of Murnane糖心传媒檚 mind exiting Murnane糖心传媒檚 head and populating a landscape that Murnane then dedicates himself to contemplate through his sentences, a contemplation that thankfully does without psychological insight (because who doesn糖心传媒檛 enjoy a break from the murky diagrams of human motivation?), a contemplation that consists of unearthing patterns of images as a way to both architect the landscape and invent meaning, meaning defined here as (to quote Murnane from Issue 3 of Music & Literature) 糖心传媒渢he discovery of connections between things that previously seemed unconnected,糖心传媒� and now here糖心传媒檚 a relevant landscape quote from Barley Patch:

He had always thought of the images in his mind as being arranged somewhat in the way the names of townships were arranged on maps of mostly level countryside and that the images were connected by feelings in the way that the names of townships were connected by lines denoting roads.

Let糖心传媒檚 track the progression of one fragment of Murnane糖心传媒檚 pattern making in Barley Patch. The chart below, from left to right, tracks the pattern of images that emerges from King-in-the-Lake, the name of an invisible racehorse. Names of racehorses have a peculiar effect on the narrator of Barley Patch:

The sound in his mind of one or another name would often seem to denote not a mere painted toy and not even an actual straining, racing racehorse but a knot of what he might have called compressed mental imagery . . .

The name of the invisible racehorse leads to 糖心传媒渁n image of a man lying on the bed of a lake of clear water,糖心传媒� which leads to a poem by Matthew Arnold, which leads to the 糖心传媒渧iew that might have appeared to a man lying in the bed of a lake of clear water.糖心传媒� Follow the arrows to the conclusion of the pattern making: an imaginary contest in invisible racecourse.

I will wash my hands, I thought when I heard I was going to judge Marias vs. Murnane, I will let one of my guinea pigs choose for me and I will add a formal constraint to the pig proceedings so as to not appear unserious. Besides. I wouldn糖心传媒檛 mind being remembered as the guinea pig critic, or, as my compatriots might say, el cr铆tico de los cuys.

Alas.

In the year 2014, one year after I started watching soccer again due to my eight-year-old daughter was scoring 3 goals per game for her elementary school soccer team, I decided to reread Your Face Tomorrow for the purposes of this competition, hoping to relive the engrossing experience of reading Your Face Tomorrow in the year 2010.

Writing rhythmic prose is easy, apparently W.G. Sebald said to his writing students, and as I reread Volume I of Your Face Tomorrow I was dismayed to conclude rhythmic prose can be a decent cover for the unfurling of banalities. Deza complains that people like to tell everything, for instance, but instead of just writing hey people like to tell everything, he has to unfurl a banal rhythmic list of everything that people like to tell, 糖心传媒渢he interesting and the trivial, the private and public, the intimate and the superfluous, what should remain hidden and what one day will inevitably be broadcast, the sorrows and joys and the resentments,糖心传媒� and it goes on, all over Your Face Tomorrow these banal rhythmic lists. I don糖心传媒檛 approach fiction like a critic or a financial analyst, assessing the net flow of pluses and minuses per novel. I have a preferred continuum of fiction, and if a novel adds many pages to this continuum, as Your Face Tomorrow has done, I don糖心传媒檛 relegate that novel to my kitchen cabinets (I don糖心传媒檛 love any one novel by Stanley Elkin, for instance, but I love so many pages of Stanley Elkin). This is a goddamn match, however, not a vague intertextual pseudo-Jungian notion of fiction reading. Judgments must be made.

Who would want to compete against an Australian narrator who, as a boy, moved among the characters of the books he read, devising his own strict rules of narrative interference, unable to alter the course of the narrative but free 糖心传媒渢o take advantage of the seeming gaps in the narrative糖心传媒�? When one of the characters in one of the books he read abandons his wife, for instance, our Australian narrator knows that, from his 糖心传媒渟tandpoint as a shadowy presence among the characters,糖心传媒� he cannot reverse the character糖心传媒檚 decision. 糖心传媒淎nd yet, I was able in some mysterious way to add to whatever remorse he might have felt from time to time . . .糖心传媒� I like to think of myself as a shadowy presence among these 1,771 words, adding to my own remorse for ruling against a writer like Javier Marias who has added so many pages to my so-called continuum, unable to alter the course of this match, however, no matter how much I tried.

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Excerpts from Mauro Javier Cardenas糖心传媒檚 recently completed first novel, The Revolutionaries Try Again, have appeared in Conjunctions, BOMB, Guernica, Antioch Review, and Witness. His interviews and essays on/with L谩szl贸 Krasznahorkai, Javier Marias, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Juan Villoro, and Antonio Lobo Antunes have appeared in Music & Literature, San Francisco Chronicle, BOMB, and the Quarterly Conversation.

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