Javier Cercas’ Soldiers of Salamis is a novel set after the Spanish Civil War, where the narrator is attempting to understand the story of one soldier. The story focuses on a political prisoner, I believe, at the time and how they escape from a firing squad. I had found interesting in the novel the topic of loss. There are two significant losses present in the novel, in my opinion. One of them is the loss of literature, as the narrator states. The narrator had stated that a person “had won the war but lost literature” (Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis). There’s also a question of how someone in literature is presented. Such as, the narrator had wanted to write “A true tale, I thought, but didn’t say. That’s what I’m going to write,” though there is a question of whether the tale is correct (Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis). The narrator follows by stating that through storytelling, Figueras’ “father wouldn’t be entirely dead,” which is a role of tales and storytelling (Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis). The novel is about the history and a historical figure and event, where the second form of loss is presented in the novel. 

The second form of loss in the novel is the loss of information. As stated in the novel, a document is mentioned:”  ‘the diary Sánchez Mazas had with him when he was in hiding in the forest,’” (Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis). Historical documents and historical figures’ stories tend to change and evolve as time passes on. As that occurs, as stated in the lecture, memory and misinformation become an aspect of history. The novel also noted that the diary was “like a family heirloom, my father was very attached to it,” (Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis). The dairy being “like a family heirloom,” shows that historical items can be passed on within a family from generation to generation. I do not own anything like that. Though, I believe that as generations go by, the story behind these items of history change and evolves. What is possible is that there could be a change in the story and thus a loss of information. Therefore, the person’s memory gets lost in a way, or an aspect of a story gets lost. This topic is interesting to me regarding the novel as the novel pertains to a journalist or a writer discussing historical events. These historical events gain accuracy based on shared knowledge of the time and historical artifacts. Therefore, both information and historical artifacts are essential when discussing a historical event, regardless of who’s side the story is about. 

A question that I would ask my peers is: do you have a historical artifact or item? Do you know the story behind this artifact?