Javier Cercas Mena (born 1962) is a Spanish writer and professor of Spanish literature at the University of Girona, Spain. He was born in Ibahernando, Cáceres, Spain. He is a frequent contributor to the Catalan edition of El País and the Sunday supplement. He worked for two years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States. He is one of a group of well-known Spanish novelists, which includes Julio Llamazares, Andrés Trapiello, and Jesus Ferrero, who have published fiction in the vein of “historical memory”, focusing on the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist State. Soldiers of Salamis (translated by Anne McLean) won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2004, and McLean’s translations of his novels The Speed of Light and Outlaws were shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2008 and 2016 respectively. (Wikipedia)
Cercas on the Truth of Betrayal
Writing is rendered a battle of betrayal and counter-betrayal, whereby it is not truth (fidelity) that leads to the real, but subterfuge (perfidy) that gives us the really real, the heart of the matter!
- Cercas, Javier. Soldiers of Salamis. Trans. Anne McLean. New York: Vintage, 2018.
Cercas Videos
Javier Cercas on How to Deal With Your Nation’s Past | The Good Fight with Yascha Mounk:
Sánchez Mazas [This clip is mentioned on pages 43-44 of Soldiers of Salamis]:
Soldados de Salamina – Fusilamiento y Escape de Mazas:
Miralles offers Cercas Nescafé as they have their final interview—“interrogation,” Miralles calls it—in his residential home, about his encounter with Sánchez Mazas. The drink is presented with apologies, as a poor substitute: “Decaffeinated, of course. They’ve forbidden me the real stuff.” To make it palatable, Miralles spikes it with clandestine cognac: “If you don’t add a bit of this, [. . .] this stuff tastes like shit” (230). The gesture hints at an allegorical reading: that a little extra may have been added to the narrator’s story, to spice it up and make it more potent. Nescafé itself dates to the period that the two men are discussing: it was launched by the Swiss company Nestlé in 1938, just before the end of the Spanish Civil War. During World War II, foil packets of instant coffee were a staple in the rations of American GIs (while Nazi-occupied Europe, cut off from supplies from Latin America, had to make do with still less convincing ersatz stopgaps). In Spain, CAFÉ (and later, NESCAFÉ) was sometimes a coded allusion to the Falange: “Camaradas, Arriba Falange Española,” “Comrades, Up with the Spanish Falange” (or “No Estás Solo, Camarada, Arriba Falange Española,” “You’re Not Alone, Comrade, Up with the Spanish Falange”).
- Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Melville’s Short Novels. Ed. Dan McCall.
New York: Norton, 2002. 3-34. - Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962.
- Spinoza, Benedict de. A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works. Ed. and Trans.
Edwin Curley. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Jennifer’s Cercas slides
Here you can find Jennifer’s slides used for today’s discussion of Cercas’s Soldiers of Salamis.
Patricio’s Cercas slides
Here you can find Patricio’s slides used for today’s discussion of Cercas’s Soldiers of Salamis.
Cercas Questions
- What are the differences, and what the overlaps, between Cercas the narrator and Cercas the author?
- What are the differences, and what the overlaps, within the book between Cercas the writer and Cercas the journalist? Why does he insist that what he is writing is “not a novel”?
- How does this book’s take on either history or memory (or the conjunction of the two) compare to other books we have read such as Nada or The Old Gringo?
- Why does the book include the image of a page (supposedly) handwritten by Sánchez Mazas? What is the significance of his notebook, and of the page torn from it?
- What does Cercas say about the relationship between writing and life (or death, for that matter)?
- What are we led to think or feel about Sánchez Mazas?
- What are we led to think or feel about Miralles? Why and how does his story become the “missing part” in the book?
- What does it mean that “at the eleventh hour it has always been a squad of soldiers that has saved civilization”? What does this book have to say about civilization (and barbarism)?
- What is the meaning of the book’s title: Soldiers of Salamis?
- What is the “essential secret”? Is it ever revealed?
The following questions are taken from your blog posts…
On Cercas and Cercas (and Sánchez Mazas):
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?
I want to ask if you think there would be a difference in the story if the narrator’s name was another name rather than the author’s name Javier Cercas? And why do you think that the author chose his own name as the name of the narrator rather than another name?
Why was the narrator so intent on finding out the exact truth of this story?
What significance did Mazas’ story play in Javiers life? Javier came across Mazas’ story at a bad pace in his life, do you think it helped him get his life together and give him passion for journalism?
On Writing:
Do you agree with Javier’s colleagues that his choice of leaving a newspaper writing job to write novels is an act of betrayal?
What roles do writing and war play in the novel?
On the Book’s Parts and Components:
What are some aspects of the third part’s narrative significance as per its interconnectedness with the previous two parts?
Do you think Part 2 is necessary for the book? Would the novel work if it was just published without the inclusion of Part two?
The Title:
How do you draw the connection from the Battle of Salamis to wartime Spain? What do you think the title is implying?
Do you know why the title is Soldiers of Salamis?
On Truth and Fiction
Do you agree with authors such as Bolano and Cercas stretching the truth in a way to further excite the book they’re writing?
We got a brief account of the failed execution and subsequent escape of Mazas within the first couple pages of the novel and from this I would like to ask my classmates: did you believe this story to be true right away? Or did you initially have doubts about whether the story was exaggerated or just simply made up as a whole?
Do you think Miralles was the soldier who spared Sanchez Mazas’ life? Or was it not him, like Miralles himself said? Or does it not matter?
How are we to know the social dilemmas before we start critiquing a person and do you think the narrator has taken a neutral stance on this political matter? What do you think Rafael Sanchez Mazas would say about himself? Could it possibly be a lie?
Would you rather read a novel that stretches truth and memory into imagination or one that is guaranteed to be true to real events? And does this answer change at all depending on the type of text? (In this case a historical novel.
Will you be loyal to the ‘reality’ (facing the reality) or will you betray it by fighting against it?
When you watch movies/shows that are based on real life events or individuals, do you care if the events being portrayed are true or not?
How do different perspectives and the way we remember things alter the retelling of stories that are passed down?
Bolaño says that “All good tales are true tales, at least for those who read them, which is all that matters.” What is the nature of this truth?
Why do you think Cercas decided to blur the line between fact and fiction? Do you think the use of real-life characters and events was simply meant to be a source of inspiration? Or serve as a structure/frame for the story? Or do you think they actually mattered and played a more important role in all of this?
Did you find Cercas’ search for realism to inhibit or enhance your involvement in the story?
Why does the author specifically make the differentiation between fact and fiction difficult to decipher? Is it to encourage speculation from the reader or is there another deeper meaning?
On Failure:
What role does failure play in the novel?
On Memory:
To what extent is memory collective or individual in nature?
How do you think the authors in our previous readings interpret memory in comparison to Cercas?
On Heroes:
What is the definition of a hero?
On Politics, Ethics, and Morality:
Do you think a civilized country is one where people don’t waste their time with politics? Do you agree with Aguirre?
Is there a proper way to discuss good writers who did horrible things? And if so how do we approach discussing their work in the context of the creators life?
Is dereliction of duty necessarily bad? Should we always choose to obey the orders or choose to follow our moral boundaries?
Is morality possible in wartime, as Cercas suggests?
Why do you think the republican soldier did what he did?
Why do you think the soldier let Mazas go?
Who do you think had the more ethical view of society, was Mazas right in his participation and actions during and following the Spanish Civil War? Should we accept the use of arms as a necessary evil for the protection of the nation’s citizens? Or should we abandon the use of military arms, as they fuel a self-fulfilling prophecy of destruction?
From a moral standpoint, is writing with some truth but some fiction, even with a disclaimer that the text is a work of fiction, ethical? While this specific ‘novel’ is not harming anyone, we know that spreading false information that is damaging to a person’s reputation is called “defamation of character”. Therefore, I ask whether the intertwining of truth and fiction could result in such issues.
Characters:
Which character or part of the novel stood out to you? What/who did you resonate with the most?
Other
Do you think loyalty comes without betrayal? Did you see any connections between Soldiers of Salamis and Amulet? Did you see any other connections between Soldiers of Salamis and other course novels or even your own hardships? Explain a personal experience that came to mind while reading this book. Finally, why did the soldier leave Sánchez Mazas to be? Do you think “forest friends” helped him?
Could this story be considered an ode to life?
Do you have a historical artifact or item? Do you know the story behind this artifact?
Did you feel that what the narrator shared of his own life and feelings made your reading experience better? Was it frustrating or distracting at any points?
Did you recognize any connections between previous books we have read?
How did you react to the way Cercas presented his story? Did you find it to not leave enough to the imagination or was it just enough?
What has been your favorite book that we have read in class? And why?
Do you feel in a state of surrealism often and do you delve into it or disregard it?
