By Javier Marías, from To Begin at the Beginning, a reflection on the art of writing fiction. The book was published in October by Sylph Editions as part of their Cahiers Series. Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa. Thus Bad Begins, Marías’s thirteenth novel, appeared last month and is discussed in this month’s Reviews section.

When my Cuban great-grandfather, Enrique Manera y Cao, was still a young man, perhaps around 1873, perhaps before, when, at any rate, he was still a bachelor, he went out for a ride one morning and, on his return home for lunch,…