Week 11: Cercas’s “Soldiers of Salamis”

The novel, “Soldiers of Salamis” by Javier Cercas is an interesting mix of war, memory, and imagination. I enjoyed the novel as a story, especially with its “happy ending” and open end.

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One of the main aspects of this novel would be its mix of reality and imagination. While it includes real people’s names and lives, much of the events are fictional. It’s easy to forget that some parts of it were real or that some parts were not. The novel told of significant people’s lives with their names on them, but a lot of their actions and experiences only ever existed in the form of a book. To answer the lecture’s question, it felt like the characters’ thoughts and feelings were real, but the plot and the journey felt made-up. I think after reading the other novels from this course, it feels weird to have a story and ending that came together so well that it ended on a high note. As for the importance of the falsehoods and errors in this text, I think they can impact one’s perception of certain people whose names were used but whose lives don’t quite match. If it’s someone’s first time hearing of a person, then the text and its possible inaccuracies may serve to be one’s first impression. I think it’s important to keep in mind what may or may not be true as you read the text, and to not dismiss it as just fiction but also not rely on it to be completely factual.

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Something that reminded me of “Amulet” by Roberto Bolaño was when Cercas stated, “[Miralles] remembers because, although they died sixty years ago, they’re still not dead, precisely because he remembers them” (236). In last week’s novel, Auxilio stated that she was the memory, suggested that she was the mother of Mexican poetry, and metaphorically witnessed history’s birth. One interpretation is that she is the mother because she remembers her history and is keeping it alive, letting it grow. Similarly, Miralles remembers the people from his life and because of that, in a way, he keeps them alive in his mind. Regardless of when it happened and how long ago it was, they are not dead because his memory keeps them alive.

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Overall, I enjoyed Cercas’s “Soldiers of Salamis”. It may be because of its different plotline (or presence of it) or its storytelling, but its content ending was quite noticeable and stood out from the other novels we’ve read recently. A question I have is, why do you think Cercas chose to write himself in the novel with a life different than his real one? The lecture mentions changes in his birth date and his family, but the focus of the novel is Cercas’s mission to find the truth about Mazas and Miralles. What difference could this have made?