I found this week’s reading to be intriguing, really informative and pretty emotional. I haven’t really ever known much about the civil war in Spain and I found that through the interviews and piecing stories together I was able to understand a lot. However, I felt that through switching through the three different “parts” of the novel that I got a little confused. I found that overall it was a good read and as I said last week, I’m really starting to appreciate stories that focus on memory and making connections between the texts.
I think an undeniable main theme of the novel is the battle between fact and fiction, and with having a lack of background on the history, this was even more true for me personally. I found what Jon said in his lecture really stayed with me while I read the text. “How much of what we are told here is conjecture or sheer invention?” I wonder if the author did this on purpose, meaning blurring the lines between the truth and imagination to keep his audience guessing and more engaged. I also really agreed with how Jon depicted the story telling as a “guessing game” between fact and fiction. I found this to be an interesting part of the story because in my opinion, a story without any imagination doesn’t always engage it’s audience like I felt I was while reading Soldier of Salamis. I think overall this sort of “guessing game” aspect really added another layer to the story.
As I said in my first paragraph, I’m really starting to enjoy reading stories so focused on memory. I like how this text made the connection to our reading last week in speaking of Bolano, and it make me think back to some of the other texts we’ve read and compare them a little bit. Although all touch heavily on memory, they are all unique in their own way. As we read a few weeks ago, in Perec, those memories were altered from the trauma of a childhood, whereas here, Javier seems to almost blur the lines between the memories and fiction to add something extra to the story.
Given this, my question this week is would you rather read a novel that stretches truth and memory into imagination, or one that is guaranteed to be true to real events? And does this answer change at all depending on the type of text? (In this case a historical novel.