This week’s reading, Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas, was a long but entertaining read. The three parts and the switch between fact and fiction made it stand out from the previous novels we have read.
The fictional Cercas describes his growing fascination with the story in the first part when he learns about the night Sánchez Mazas is to be executed in the forest, and the Republican soldier who hunts for him amongst the trees finds in him yet turns away and lets him live. The second part tells the story of Mazas before his capture and intended execution. The third part is more fiction, where the journalist Cercas is determined to seek out the Republican solider who let Sánchez Mazas go free. These three parts and the switch between fact and fiction, although confusing, made me an attentive reader and helped me remain interested through this long read.
This book had a lot to do with history and took place during the Spanish Civil war. I don’t read many books about war or know much history about the context of this book, so all the content was new. Still, with the book switching between fact and fiction, it had me at parts confused or searching things up to put them in the proper context of the book. However, after reading books that are so different from what I normally read during this class, I have been made more open as a reader and it has also become a learning experience.
Getting closer to the end of this term, it’s hard not to create connections with the past readings. It was interesting to see Bolano make an appearance in the last section of the book, it definitely made reading his name more interesting after reading Amulet last week. Also, memory again was a huge theme in this novel and is a theme that has been brought to attention in most of the books we have read so far. From coming across this theme of memory quite a lot this term, it is interesting to compare and contrast how each author interprets memory in the novels. For W., we are told the memory of childhood can go on affecting life. For Amulet, we are shown the memories of how a single instance of trauma can affect memory and the future. Then in Soldiers of Salamis, we are seeing how memories can be formed by other people’s recollections.
My question for the class is: How do you think the authors in our previous readings interpret memory in comparison to Cercas?
Posted in Blogs, Cercas | Tagged with Fact, fiction, history, memory, war
It definitely would’ve been to my advantage to know more about history and especially Spanish history to follow this book better. When I’m reading about historical events and names my eyes tend to glaze over and I find myself finishing a page of the book without retaining anything that was written on it. That being […]
Posted in Blogs, Cercas | Tagged with fiction, history, memory, narration, Spain, truth, war
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. One of the main aspects of this novel would be its mix of reality and imagination. While it includes real people’s names and … Continue reading Week 11: Cercas’s “Soldiers of Salamis” →
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with fiction, history, Imagination, memory, reality, Romance Studies, story, war, Weekly Posts
The Old Gringo was an interesting read indeed. This book touches on memory, life, death, religion, revolution, and history. It recounts the journey of a man who travels to Mexico during a civil war, to die a fulfilling death. The Old Gringo, later revealed as the author Ambrose Bierce, leaves behind little, other than a …
Continue reading “The Old Gringo and Reflections of Oneself”
Posted in Blogs, Fuentes | Tagged with fiction, mirrors, reality, reflection, women
The W or Memory of Childhood is a book with two stories, the first being W, and the second being The Memory of Childhood. W was a fantastic story of a man who was on the search for a boy but came across a mysterious island (W) and quickly emerged into their society. W is not the pretty island we think, however. Their morals and sins are based on a game like the “Olympics,” and people must survive, but only the fittest do. This shocked me, and the details in the story made the island come to life. The second story is a memoir of Perec’s past childhood. He is confused because he has many gaps in his memory and cannot remember his childhood clearly. This fogginess is something that I believe definitely is from PTSD from the war and violence when he was a child. I learned in my psychology class that the brain would adapt and forget specific memories if they are too painful and cause a blockage in your memory. This is apparent in Perec’s story as he continuously mentions how he forgets and doesn’t remember his childhood exactly. He believes he has a vague idea of his childhood but cannot put the pieces together. It’s like looking through foggy glasses, and most things are blurry, but no matter what you do, they never clear up. I tried to figure out how the two stories were connected while reading, and it was so confusing. Until I came across this quote, “when I was thirteen I made up a story … [It] was called W and it was, in a way, if not the story of my childhood, then at least a story of my childhood.” After that, I realized that the story of W is not complete but like a symbolic story of his childhood. These ideals were what he had to do as a child to survive and be the fittest. This W voyage is a story of his childhood, and his brain is using what he can to remember his childhood by creating the memories into “fictional” stories that aren’t really fiction at all. The way it jumped back from story to story made it harder to follow along, but it made them feel more connected. If we simply just read the W story and then his memoir, I feel that the effect of the two stories forming and creating each other would not be as apparent. My question for this text is, do you think the author decided to include alternating chapters to connect the stories more in the text? And How do you think this helped shape the story’s themes/similarities to be more connected?
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with childhood, confusion, fiction, memory loss, ptsd, war
The W or Memory of Childhood is a book with two stories, the first being W, and the second being The Memory of Childhood. W was a fantastic story of a man who was on the search for a boy but came across a mysterious island (W) and quickly emerged into their society. W is not the pretty island we think, however. Their morals and sins are based on a game like the “Olympics,” and people must survive, but only the fittest do. This shocked me, and the details in the story made the island come to life. The second story is a memoir of Perec’s past childhood. He is confused because he has many gaps in his memory and cannot remember his childhood clearly. This fogginess is something that I believe definitely is from PTSD from the war and violence when he was a child. I learned in my psychology class that the brain would adapt and forget specific memories if they are too painful and cause a blockage in your memory. This is apparent in Perec’s story as he continuously mentions how he forgets and doesn’t remember his childhood exactly. He believes he has a vague idea of his childhood but cannot put the pieces together. It’s like looking through foggy glasses, and most things are blurry, but no matter what you do, they never clear up. I tried to figure out how the two stories were connected while reading, and it was so confusing. Until I came across this quote, “when I was thirteen I made up a story … [It] was called W and it was, in a way, if not the story of my childhood, then at least a story of my childhood.” After that, I realized that the story of W is not complete but like a symbolic story of his childhood. These ideals were what he had to do as a child to survive and be the fittest. This W voyage is a story of his childhood, and his brain is using what he can to remember his childhood by creating the memories into “fictional” stories that aren’t really fiction at all. The way it jumped back from story to story made it harder to follow along, but it made them feel more connected. If we simply just read the W story and then his memoir, I feel that the effect of the two stories forming and creating each other would not be as apparent. My question for this text is, do you think the author decided to include alternating chapters to connect the stories more in the text? And How do you think this helped shape the story’s themes/similarities to be more connected?
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with childhood, confusion, fiction, memory loss, ptsd, war
It took me a while to get used to how the chapters alternate between autobiography and fiction, but I did end up enjoying this novel. I liked Perec’s writing style, in particular, and I appreciated how he was able to make use of the more mysterious parts of his own life while also giving an […]
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with fiction, history, memory, postmodernism
It was interesting to read the beginning of the book about the French translation, and as a French speaker myself I was able to fully comprehend (or at least I think I could) what was being explained on page 6 of the introductory pages. In French, the letter W is “double-vé” meaning double letter v, …
Continue reading “The “Double Life” in Perec’s “W, or the Memory of Childhood””
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with autobiography, childhood, double life, fiction, memory
This weeks reading originally was very hard for me to follow, and I found I actually had to restart twice to be able to form the proper differentiation between the two narratives. However, once I grasped the back and forth I found Perec’s work very enjoyable and insightful. It got me thinking a lot about […]
I admittedly found this novel fairly hard to follow; the switching back and forth between different narratives was initially confusing. However, on the theme of memories that have been fractured in some way, perhaps the fragmented writing style of the author is appropriate. The autobiographical portions of the novel take a somber tone as the […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with autobiography, childhood, fiction, memories, trauma
