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 very rough personal life. I can honestly relate more with Cercas more because I can relate with him and he feels like just a regular person like any other person that’s trying to get by in life. His journey to relevancy really got him to connect to an individual he even never met before in Sanchez Mazas. Even though they lived in two different timelines, The connection between them was very crucial as Cercas was able to overcome his demons by writing, researching, and telling the story of Mazas while we get to learn more about the his history and the conflicts of 60 years ago. But the character the seemingly stole the show was Antoni Miralles, the well respected soldier with prestige. His moral character was very admirable and the little things like hiding a smoke from the nuns or showing emotion when dancing with his partner shows how human a soldier can really be. More importantly, this novel gives us the biggest question to ponder, is he the soldier that spared Mazas’s life? I’d like to think so.
The theme of this book revolves around the concept of memory and history. How 60 years have gone by and how those conflicts and war still affect present time. People are still so fixated in uncovering the histories of the olden days as they want to prolong the memories of their ancestors whether it is good or bad. The more they uncover, the more they realize how society ended up to where it is because of the actions of the past. A really great point Cercas mentioned was that not only the winners of war or life are remembered, but even the losers and anyone can be remembered as long as individuals have the willingness to learn their stories. Hence, why the dead are still alive to this day through storytelling and remembering history.
Finally, I really adored how the utilization of literature gave us a fiction novel with a nice plot and story while also giving us a true history lesson about the characters and the events that was depicted, It was a perfect blend of both.
my question for this week is do you agree with authors such as Bolano and Cercas stretching the truth in a way to further excite the book they’re writing?
-Xyrus Ramos Aparri
4 Comments
“Hence, why the dead are still alive to this day through storytelling and remembering history.”
– yes! Well, alive in some way at least. We read on page 232, “if I told his story, Miralles would still be alive in some way, and if I talked about them his friends would still be alive”…
Thanks for the question. I have added it to our list here:
Oops, meant to include that URL:
https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/cercas-questions/
“People are still so fixated in uncovering the histories of the olden days as they want to prolong the memories of their ancestors whether it is good or bad.”
Well, some may want to remember… but others may want to forget. Why might people in Spain want to *forget* the civil war?
Most likely cause of the bloodshed and horror that took place in order to fight for their freedoms. Or others may just want to act like the war never happened to “save face” in some way