Fionnuala's review of Soldiers of Salamis (original) (raw)
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Fionnuala's Reviews > Soldiers of Salamis
The first two parts of this book revolve around a rather unheroic but entirely factual figure, Sanchez Mazas, a founder member of the Falangist group in Spain in the 1930's and later a minister in Franco's government with the status of national hero, who, we are told right at the beginning, escaped death by firing squad during the Spanish civil war.
The narrator, a journalist and writer called Javier Cercas, who is fictional, becomes obsessed with this ‘reprieve from death’ story, and sets out to uncover the facts of the case, tracing written accounts and interviewing surviving members of both the Nationalist and Republican sides. The first part reads like a diary of this research, the second part, like the article the journalist might finally write based on that research: a dry factual examination of the motivations of Sanchez Mazas, writer and poet, who helped bring Franco to power. Journalist Cercas leads the reader into a position where he/she becomes impatient and thoroughly frustrated with this endless circling around the miraculously twice reprieved life of such an unheroic and really rather pathetic figure, and then, in the third part, author Cercas changes gear and gives us what we wanted all along: the story of a true hero. This part is full of everything which seemed to be missing in the first two parts: humanity, heroism and hope.
So author Cercas achieves, by the most subtle of methods which include a fascinating fictional conversation with Roberto Bolano, far more than he could ever have done by any outright criticism of Falangist philosophy.
Brilliant!
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Reading Progress
April 25, 2012 –Started Reading
May 19, 2012 –Finished Reading
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