Hi Everyone!
In this week’s blog post I am going to be reflecting on Soldiers of Salamis, a novel written by Javier Cercas. Right off the bat, the most interesting thing I found about this novel was the manner in which it blurs fact and fiction. Throughout the text, the readers are put in a situation where they never know whether parts of the novel and true (based on real-life) or completely made up. This uncertainty causes the readers to be in a constant state of guessing and figuring out what is what. An example of this is the many details about Roberto Bolano and his life are true and reflected correctly within the novel, however, Javier Cercas’s backstory in the novel vs in real life is wildly different. Although this often made it difficult to figure out and differentiate fact from fiction, it also made the novel a lot more fun and enjoyable to read as well as add in an interactive(ish) aspect to the novel.
In regards to this uncertainty of whether parts of the novel are real or fake, Professor Jon posed a question in his lecture asking if it mattered. Personally, I think it does not. Even though this novel is loosely based on real-life events and includes real-life people/characters in it, it was specifically stated to be a work of fiction and nothing more. With this in mind, I don’t think our author intended for these to matter or have too much of an impact. I think that the text itself doesn’t make any truth claims. In fact, any aspect of reality that is reflected in the text should be viewed as a coincidence instead. Moreover, I think that by combining aspects of fiction and reality the author brings forth an interactive aspect to the audience’s experience of reading this novel. Knowing that there are parts of the text that are correct and accurate (in terms of how it reflects in reality), the readers are able to solve a little mystery by trying to figure out what is true or not while reading the novel.
For the question of this post: 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?
: )
Lisa Fylypchuk
March 31, 2022 — 10:32 am
Hi Harshi. While reading this novel, I was initially confused about where the line was between fact and fiction. Even the couple of explanations that I found online while doing further research plainly stated that no one quite knows what it 100% factual and what is not. I believe that the point of this story is not to figure out truth from fiction, but to send a big, overarching message about the political and human impacts of Spain’s civil war. Perhaps the use of real-life characters and events serve to strengthen the storytelling so that the readers have a deeper, more emotional connection to the story.
Vidushi Singh
March 30, 2022 — 11:34 pm
Hi!
I found it quite interesting too how the book didn’t really have a clear distinction of what is fact vs what is fiction. To be honest, I kind of just assumed the book was fact and then after reading the lecture, I was a little taken aback, started second-guessing all that I had read. I think the blurred lines was just to keep the structure of the narrative going, to maintain a flow because keeping it strictly facts wouldn’t have allowed the POV to be illustrated in a way that is engaging to the readers as well. At least, that’s what I think.
– Vidushi
michael liudeng
March 30, 2022 — 6:29 pm
Hi Harshi! I really liked reading your argument on the significance of “lies” or untruthful aspects of the novel. I think that the blurring of facts and fiction communicated to me that to extract meaningful narratives or coherent stories from history, like what Cercas (the narrator) tried to do, we sometimes inject our own biases or fill in holes, like what the author tried to do. In that sense, the “mystery” some other people have mentioned is mainly incomplete and cannot be unravelled, but it’s only when we add in fictional aspects like Cercas did (the author), we can tell a meaningful narrative.
danielle wong
March 30, 2022 — 3:58 pm
Hi Harshi,
I also found it interesting how the line between fact and fiction was blurred. Sometimes, movies also do this– where the actors play themselves. It really makes one wonder which parts are true and which parts are fictional. I think that maybe he did it so the reader finds the novel more suspenseful. Since the reader already knows the name of the author, his own name could be in there to grab attention.
Tierra
March 29, 2022 — 12:42 pm
To answer your question about why Cercas blurred the line between fact and fiction, I think it simply makes for a better story. As you mentioned, he continuously keeps the reader guessing while reading the book, and I think he intended to make this element of mystery exciting and intriguing for the reader. I did find it interestingly contradictory of him to originally disagree with Bolaño’s suggestion to create a fictional tale and then ended up doing exactly that.
Jon
March 28, 2022 — 11:49 pm
“I think that the text itself doesn’t make any truth claims.”
Hmm. I’m not so sure. I think that the text (like other fictional texts, perhaps) is making a series of such claims… here, for instance, about the legacy of the civil war in Spain, or about the nature of heroism and resistance, democracy and history.
Jennifer Nagtegaal
March 28, 2022 — 11:12 pm
Thanks for your questions, Harshi! You will see that I have added them to our list of discussion topics here, and that many of your classmates have also raised questions surrounding truth and fiction in Soldiers of Salamis: https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/cercas-questions/
And, FWIW, I see a lot of potential tags that you can add to your list: truth, fiction, mystery, uncertainty…