Student Blogs

This book was simply just ‘okay’ in my opinion. Not the best but also not the worst. I think that it was written well however I just think that I don’t particularly find much interest in the subject and themes surrounding war. I often find that war books are so depressing and sad which obviously […] read full post >>

Cercas’s novel was a very nice blend of truth and fantasy to it just like Bolanos Amulet. The main difference is the narrators and authors. Bolano felt like a big-league writer who was already very established. while Cercas is a person who is struggling to find his groove in the writing industry and has a […] read full post >>

A common theme I have come across in the books we have been reading recently is war. Last week having read Amulet, in which a woman hides from the army invasion in her university bathroom and the week before that with The Trenchcoat and its totalitarian control and paranoia. I think it is awfully relatable […] read full post >>

This week, the assigned book was Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas. To be completely honest, I started this book very confused. I wasn't quite sure whether or not this book was a work of fiction or a biographical re-telling of true events. After watching the lecture video and doing some googling, I finally understood that it was a sort of mix of both, a historical fiction about real people that existed and real events that happened. When I went into this book, I went in without much knowledge on the history of Spain and its civil war. This text kind of forced me to do some learning about Southern Europe in the 1900s to understand the context that lies behind this story. 

As we near the end of this semester, I can see how there are a few major literary themes that have been consistently present in the texts that we read in the beginning, all the way to now. One of these major themes is memory and its significance in storytelling. From Proust, Paris Peasant, The Shrouded Woman, W or the Memory of Childhood to Soldiers of Salamis, the importance of memory is a recurring topic. In the first part of Soldiers of Salamis, the narrator, who is a journalist, attempts to hunt down the details of the story behind the escape of Sanchez Mazas from a firing squad. Throughout this hunt, he ends up meeting various people who are distantly connected to Sanchez Mazas. The narrator is always questioning the truth and the reliability of the accounts that are told to him. There is also one moment where he wonders whether the tales that people remember are what actually happened, or simply the memorized script that has become reality just out of having been recited so many times. 

Here is a quote that I liked: "[...] I also decided that the book I'd write would not be a novel, but simply a true tale, a tale cut from the cloth of reality, concocted out of true events and characters, a tale centered on Sanchez Mazas and the firing squad and the circumstances leading up to and following it. This quote stood out because I think it represents a merge of the narrator's journalistic drive and desire to be a "real" writer. It summarizes his obsession with uncovering the true events and his desire to put it together into a written tale. 

Here is my question for this week: Why was the narrator so intent on finding out the exact truth of this story?

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This week, the assigned book was Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas. To be completely honest, I started this book very confused. I wasn't quite sure whether or not this book was a work of fiction or a biographical re-telling of true events. After watching the lecture video and doing some googling, I finally understood that it was a sort of mix of both, a historical fiction about real people that existed and real events that happened. When I went into this book, I went in without much knowledge on the history of Spain and its civil war. This text kind of forced me to do some learning about Southern Europe in the 1900s to understand the context that lies behind this story. 

As we near the end of this semester, I can see how there are a few major literary themes that have been consistently present in the texts that we read in the beginning, all the way to now. One of these major themes is memory and its significance in storytelling. From Proust, Paris Peasant, The Shrouded Woman, W or the Memory of Childhood to Soldiers of Salamis, the importance of memory is a recurring topic. In the first part of Soldiers of Salamis, the narrator, who is a journalist, attempts to hunt down the details of the story behind the escape of Sanchez Mazas from a firing squad. Throughout this hunt, he ends up meeting various people who are distantly connected to Sanchez Mazas. The narrator is always questioning the truth and the reliability of the accounts that are told to him. There is also one moment where he wonders whether the tales that people remember are what actually happened, or simply the memorized script that has become reality just out of having been recited so many times. 

Here is a quote that I liked: "[...] I also decided that the book I'd write would not be a novel, but simply a true tale, a tale cut from the cloth of reality, concocted out of true events and characters, a tale centered on Sanchez Mazas and the firing squad and the circumstances leading up to and following it. This quote stood out because I think it represents a merge of the narrator's journalistic drive and desire to be a "real" writer. It summarizes his obsession with uncovering the true events and his desire to put it together into a written tale. 

Here is my question for this week: Why was the narrator so intent on finding out the exact truth of this story?

read full post >>

This week I read Soldiers of Salamis, a novel in which the protagonist begins by expressing his unhappy life, with his father's death, the departure of his wife, and his having to give up his fiction career to become a journalist again. He later interviews Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, who is giving a lecture at the university and tells the story of his father's confrontation with a firing squad. His father was shot in the Collell Sanctuary, escaped, was arrested in Barcelona, but took advantage of the chaos to hide in the forest before the arrival of Franco's troops and was found by a soldier who let him go. The journalist of this story was interested in Rafael Sanchez Mazas, and he began to collect stories about him, intentionally or unintentionally and decided to be the narrator of this story. The author of the novel is a seeker, not only in search of the details of the story and the forgotten hero but also in pursuit of his dream of becoming an author, which failed in its first attempt. Through these many searches, the author eventually reconstructs himself and a history that gradually becomes clearer.

The novel is divided into three parts, but the last part is, in my opinion, the climax of the whole story. In this part, the protagonist learns Miralles' account through an interview with Roberto Bolaño, giving the whole story a soul. As a witness of the civil war, Miralles saw young men who were once as passionate as he died on the battlefield, forgotten by the people and abandoned by the world. So in this section, the protagonist and Bolaño explore the theme of "heroes.

"I think there's almost always something blind, irrational, instinctive in a hero's behaviour, something that's in their nature and inescapable. Also, you can be a decent person for a whole lifetime, but you can't be awe-inspiring without a break, and that's why a hero is only a hero exceptionally."

Who is the real hero in this civil war? Perhaps in the eyes of Cercas, the author of this book, the legendary Mazas is not his favourite object, and the soldier who turned away may be the hero he most wanted to find. But after searching in vain, Cercas had to invent an epilogue in order to give the story a perfect ending: Miralles crossed the West-France border, joined the French resistance and attacked Germany with the Allies. At the end of the war, he lives in anonymity in a French sanatorium. Eventually, Cercas used the novel to do justice to the soldiers who died without a name.

 Soldiers of Salamis celebrate the countless unsung heroes of war while at the same time provoking a redefinition of the word "hero" from a human perspective. My question for this book is: What is the definition of a hero in your eyes?

read full post >>

This week I read Soldiers of Salamis, a novel in which the protagonist begins by expressing his unhappy life, with his father's death, the departure of his wife, and his having to give up his fiction career to become a journalist again. He later interviews Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, who is giving a lecture at the university and tells the story of his father's confrontation with a firing squad. His father was shot in the Collell Sanctuary, escaped, was arrested in Barcelona, but took advantage of the chaos to hide in the forest before the arrival of Franco's troops and was found by a soldier who let him go. The journalist of this story was interested in Rafael Sanchez Mazas, and he began to collect stories about him, intentionally or unintentionally and decided to be the narrator of this story. The author of the novel is a seeker, not only in search of the details of the story and the forgotten hero but also in pursuit of his dream of becoming an author, which failed in its first attempt. Through these many searches, the author eventually reconstructs himself and a history that gradually becomes clearer.

The novel is divided into three parts, but the last part is, in my opinion, the climax of the whole story. In this part, the protagonist learns Miralles' account through an interview with Roberto Bolaño, giving the whole story a soul. As a witness of the civil war, Miralles saw young men who were once as passionate as he died on the battlefield, forgotten by the people and abandoned by the world. So in this section, the protagonist and Bolaño explore the theme of "heroes.

"I think there's almost always something blind, irrational, instinctive in a hero's behaviour, something that's in their nature and inescapable. Also, you can be a decent person for a whole lifetime, but you can't be awe-inspiring without a break, and that's why a hero is only a hero exceptionally."

Who is the real hero in this civil war? Perhaps in the eyes of Cercas, the author of this book, the legendary Mazas is not his favourite object, and the soldier who turned away may be the hero he most wanted to find. But after searching in vain, Cercas had to invent an epilogue in order to give the story a perfect ending: Miralles crossed the West-France border, joined the French resistance and attacked Germany with the Allies. At the end of the war, he lives in anonymity in a French sanatorium. Eventually, Cercas used the novel to do justice to the soldiers who died without a name.

 Soldiers of Salamis celebrate the countless unsung heroes of war while at the same time provoking a redefinition of the word "hero" from a human perspective. My question for this book is: What is the definition of a hero in your eyes?

read full post >>

I cannot believe this is the second to last book for this course. I’m surprised how fast this semester has flown by. I’m also excited that I can honestly answer someone if they ask, “when the last time you’ve read a book?” and I reply by saying one of these books. I decided to push …

Continue reading "Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas"

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The Soldiers of Salamis is a novel based loosely on real events, told by a narrator with the same name as our author, Javier Cercas. Whether it’s supposed to be him or that’s just an aspect of the fiction/non-fiction dichotomy of the story, I am not sure. The fiction/nonfiction story is divided into three parts— […] read full post >>

Soldiers of Salamis, Javier Cercas. I want to start by saying how much I enjoyed the title of the book, which I’m not sure if it makes a lot of sense with the story but I still like the way it sounds.  My thought about this book is that I enjoyed this week’s novel and […] read full post >>

I liked how this novel, although it was separated into 3 parts, tied together. Some of the other texts we’ve gone over throughout the semester have been confusing or difficult to put together due to uncertain timelines, memory rambling, or whatever it may be. This one seemed to stay on track for the most part. […] read full post >>

Javier Cercas’ “Soldiers of Salamis” was a gripping tale about the nature of ideology, truth, narrative, and the power these things can hold. Calling to mind the novel “W”, “Soldiers of Salamis” also features two distinct narratives in which the second is presented as being written by the protagonist of the first. The story surrounding […] read full post >>

 

I really enjoyed the concept of ‘Soldiers of Salamis’, by Javier Cercas. By far one of my favourite themes in the books we’ve read so far is the mix of real and imagination – I love when the authors take something real but add their own narratives to it. As we come to the end of the course, I’ve begun to realise this is probably my favourite part of the books we have read so far. ‘Soldiers of Salamis’ was no different. I enjoyed the fact that the way the story was written was fairly easy to read (at least to me), but still made you think.

Throughout the story though, I was wondering why the author decided on some falsehoods and not others. Some of his characters are real, others were not; some of the events happened and others did not. The dates and facts are made up in some instances completely. I wondered where he got his ideas, some of which are seemingly random. It was reminiscent to me of ‘Amulet’, where the story is based off of a real character but most of her life is entirely made up. Do the authors have meanings behind the changes the make, or in some cases are they just adding what they like? While I know there is often a larger meaning, I think it is interesting to remember that authors will also sometimes just add things to their writing for the sake of it; that they don’t even necessarily have to have a reason.

Building off of the mix of reality and imagination that Cercas uses in ‘Soldiers of Salamis’, it’s interesting to see the dichotomy of truth and invention. In the story, they are presented often as in stark contrast with each other, one good and one bad, which is almost ironic considering the fact that Cercas uses both of them to weave his story. In reality, while writing, he treats both his realities and his inventions the same; which is how the story of ‘Soldiers of Salamis’ is born. Along with this, we have to trust the narrator, however the narrator is also shown to lie, and after watching the lecture, we can also see that Cercas himself makes up a lot of lies for the story. Because of this, there’s an emotion of distrust present, which made me more critical of everything occurring in the story. This leads me to my question: what effect does an unreliable narrator have on you? Does the fact that the narrator lies sometimes affect how you read the story or do you simply take it as it comes?

P.S sorry there are no specific examples, I don’t have my book with me currently, so I’m just speaking about some of my thoughts from while I was reading the book!

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I really enjoyed the concept of ‘Soldiers of Salamis’, by Javier Cercas. By far one of my favourite themes in the books we’ve read so far is the mix of real and imagination – I love when the authors take something real but add their own narratives to it. As we come to the end of the course, I’ve begun to realise this is probably my favourite part of the books we have read so far. ‘Soldiers of Salamis’ was no different. I enjoyed the fact that the way the story was written was fairly easy to read (at least to me), but still made you think.

Throughout the story though, I was wondering why the author decided on some falsehoods and not others. Some of his characters are real, others were not; some of the events happened and others did not. The dates and facts are made up in some instances completely. I wondered where he got his ideas, some of which are seemingly random. It was reminiscent to me of ‘Amulet’, where the story is based off of a real character but most of her life is entirely made up. Do the authors have meanings behind the changes the make, or in some cases are they just adding what they like? While I know there is often a larger meaning, I think it is interesting to remember that authors will also sometimes just add things to their writing for the sake of it; that they don’t even necessarily have to have a reason.

Building off of the mix of reality and imagination that Cercas uses in ‘Soldiers of Salamis’, it’s interesting to see the dichotomy of truth and invention. In the story, they are presented often as in stark contrast with each other, one good and one bad, which is almost ironic considering the fact that Cercas uses both of them to weave his story. In reality, while writing, he treats both his realities and his inventions the same; which is how the story of ‘Soldiers of Salamis’ is born. Along with this, we have to trust the narrator, however the narrator is also shown to lie, and after watching the lecture, we can also see that Cercas himself makes up a lot of lies for the story. Because of this, there’s an emotion of distrust present, which made me more critical of everything occurring in the story. This leads me to my question: what effect does an unreliable narrator have on you? Does the fact that the narrator lies sometimes affect how you read the story or do you simply take it as it comes?

P.S sorry there are no specific examples, I don’t have my book with me currently, so I’m just speaking about some of my thoughts from while I was reading the book!

read full post >>

I struggled for quite a while to get into Solders of Salamis. I’m not sure that I enjoyed it completely, but it did give me a lot to think about in relation to history and loyalty and writing. The Spanish Civil War is one that I haven’t studied very deeply. The little that I do […] read full post >>