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 myself at the beginning of term and complete this week’s book of “Soldiers of Salamis” by Javier Cercas. Considering this has been a hectic week, it has been nice to take the time to read this book. I watched the video lecture before reading this book and I was intrigued to read about Bolaño since we just read his book “Amulet” last week. I was interested to see how this narrative portrayed Bolaño. I was also expecting the “[t]here’s nobody over here!” scene was going to be mentioned way further within the book. I found myself wondering about this scene as to why the soldier did that and sparked it inside him to feel the need to protect him?
The video lecture also stated from the book, “not a novel” but a “true tale”. This reminded me of the very beginning of the semester when Professor Beasley-Murray said in the lecture video of January 24, “a novel-that-was-not-a-novel” which is something that stood out to me then so when I heard “not a novel” I made the immediate connection. However, once I referred to that phrase, it was elaborating on the structure of the plotline within the “Paris Peasant” by Louis Aragon. While this novel uses that phrase to explain that “[i]t’s a story with real events and characters. A true tale” (p. 192). This also made me think of “W, or the Memory of Childhood” by Georges Perec. They both a story mixed with the truth but had a twist of fiction. W, or the Memory of Childhood had an autobiography and the other fictional story of the island. Soldiers of Salamis was based on true events reminded me of the autobiography portion, especially the narrative tone.
I was also intrigued by the statement, “I’m lying” on the very first page. I thought it was a fascinating introduction that really caught the reader’s attention. It reminded me of the icebreaker activity called two truths and a lie.
The questions I pose to my fellow classmates is, did you recognize any connections between previous books we have read? Also, do you have a theory why the title is “Soldiers of Salamis”?
“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.”
Yay!
And I’m interested in your comparison with Aragon… in some ways, who’d have thought? They are, after all, very different books in so many ways. But perhaps there are other connections between them? They are both, after all, in some ways reports on experience, the product of careful observation of what surrounds the writer or narrator. They are perhaps both trying to teach us new ways to see?
Hi Arielle,
I loved your blog post! The connection you mention between Cercas and Aragon is very interesting and I found that the authors’ search for accuracy and detail is similar in some ways.
To answer your question, I found a lot of connections between Amulet and Soldiers of Salamis like the characters’ responsibility for reconstructing history. I think the title alludes to the battle of Salamis where the Athenians defeated the Persians. However, I’m not sure why Cercas – and Mázas in the novel – chose this specific title and allusion to the battle.
Hi Arielle, I enjoyed reading your blog post this week! I have also started to make connections with our past readings. Since we are so far into the term it’s easy to see the connections start to form. One that stood out to me that connected to Soldiers of Salamis was W. or the Memory of Childhood because they both dealt with unreliable narrators and how memory is affected by war.
Hi Arielle,
I enjoyed reading your post! With this being the second to last novel of this term, I also made connections to the previous books we have read so far. Memory again was a huge theme in this novel and is a theme that has been in most of the books we have read so far. In W., we are told the memory of childhood can go on affecting life. And in Soldiers of Salamis, we see how other people’s recollections can form memories.