Soldiers of Salamis : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Original, bold and absorbing trans-genre work
Review: I first read this title because I studied The Spanish Civil War at university and because it had a good review. And I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this title.

I was really impressed by its orignality in form, construction and honesty. I loved the way it flitted between personal narrative and history.

I won't give a synopsis of the story because it is more than adequately explained below. However, it is a wonderful illustration of the way collective human memory can redeem itself by recovering a few names from the forgotten multitude, or how, if you prefer, how the dead cling on through a few individuals.

This is also an important book, because it reveals the variety of experience in a war and what it means to different people and how some just get caught up in events. Moreover, it shows how there is never one single view that can demonstrate why a war happened or what it was about.

This is not a history of the Spanish Civil War, nor does it claim to be. It is a book about, human experience, collective memory, and the part played by chance in human events. It was by pure chance that I read this book review in a newspaper I was about to discard, but just stopped in the nick of time!

Rating:
Summary: Original, bold and absorbing trans-genre work
Review: I first read this title because I studied The Spanish Civil War at university and because it had a good review. And I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this title.

I was really impressed by its orignality in form, construction and honesty. I loved the way it flitted between personal narrative and history.

I won't give a synopsis of the story because it is more than adequately explained below. However, it is a wonderful illustration of the way collective human memory can redeem itself by recovering a few names from the forgotten multitude, or how, if you prefer, how the dead cling on through a few individuals.

This is also an important book, because it reveals the variety of experience in a war and what it means to different people and how some just get caught up in events. Moreover, it shows how there is never one single view that can demonstrate why a war happened or what it was about.

This is not a history of the Spanish Civil War, nor does it claim to be. It is a book about, human experience, collective memory, and the part played by chance in human events. It was by pure chance that I read this book review in a newspaper I was about to discard, but just stopped in the nick of time!

Rating:
Summary: Present history
Review: I want to say that I loved the book, I was born in Girona and I was delighted to read how Cercas described the city and surroundings in a magnificent way. Besides I was surprised about the two bad reviews down there, I think the novel it is a tribute to all the people who fought in the Spanish Civil War and that are often forgotten. I must say that it is very recommendable to read this book in order to understand present spanish politics. I hope this helps to some people.
Jordi

Rating:
Summary: Strange but beautiful and haunting quixotic tale
Review: In this unusual story of the Spanish Civil War, author Cercas experiments with the voice of his main character and with the form of this novel, which he describes as "a compressed tale except with real characters and situations, like a true tale." The unnamed speaker, a contemporary journalist in his forties, is investigating the story of Rafael Sanchez Mazas, a "good, not great" writer of the 1930s, who, in the final days of the Civil War (1936 - 1939) escaped a firing squad and lived to play a role in Franco's Nationalist government. The speaker believes that "forest friends" may have helped Sanchez Mazas survive the end-of-the-war turmoil, and he becomes obsessed with locating them, identifying the Popular front soldier who chose not to reveal Sanchez Mazas's whereabouts, and learning why they behaved as they did. As he investigates the story of Sanchez Mazas and the complex political alliances of the Civil War, the speaker realizes that he actually knows very little about this war, "not much more than I know about the battle of Salamis."

The speaker, who is obviously Javier Cercas himself, soon begins to expand the scope of his tale, investigating more than the verifiable facts about Sanchez Mazas and musing philosophically about the passage of time, the transcience of youth, the dubious legacy of war, and the nature of heroes. Wartime heroes live only as long as their friends remember them, and lives and memories are short: one must seize the moment and dance a paso doble in the time available.

The complex history of the Spanish Civil War in the first part of the novel is slow, full of unfamiliar names, places, and political alliances, but as the story of Sanchez Mazas unfolds, the reader gradually warms to the speaker's quest to learn everything he can about the incident in the forest. The scenes near the end of the book, set in a nursing home, are full of touching and emotional realizations, conveying powerful, universal messages about war and heroes from one generation to another (and to the reader) without being didactic. Cercas's style is honest and full of self-mockery, though some readers may be put off by his syntactically complex sentences, which are sometimes a page long. Focusing on what it means to be a hero, the novel is a tour de force in which the reader learns as much about the creative process of author Cercas as he does about the almost forgotten author Sanchez Mazas. Mary Whipple

Rating:
Summary: Strange but beautiful and haunting quixotic tale
Review: Not going to give a long review but when I saw a couple of 1 star reviews I couldn't resist. A fascinating tale amidst the complex machinations of the Spanish Civil War leades the narrator and author to explore not only historical issues but issues of heroism and historical truth. While the writing is at times a tad convoluted, I barely noticed, and I ended up loving this book more than I initially believed I would. I would have liked to have given 4.5 stars if I could.

Rating:
Summary: A poor, amateurish effort.
Review: This brief, light-weight novel uses a little known anecdote from the spanish civil war as a springboard for a quest of the forgotten heros of the time and a metaphor of that country's national tragedy. The results, however, leave much to be desired. Mr.Cercas' writing is insipid and lackluster, and his cardboard characters barely allow us to get into the story. There isn't much of a story, just a barebones, repetitive device in which a reporter interviews several characters who might know something about the anonymous hero that we meet at the end. The overhyped and contrived praise that the publishers of this book have choosed to display in the jacket copy emphazises if anything the serious flaws of what feels like an interesting idea that, in the hands of a writer of more skill, could have produced an interesting work. Mr.Cercas seems a sincere, honest writer, and by the end of this little book one has the sense that he really believes in what he is doing. The problem, and in this case it becomes a major one, is that good, even noble intentions, can't cover for weak storytelling and a simplistic, boring style. Perhaps this anecdote could have been much better served as a non-fiction book. As a work of fiction, nor the characters or the story summon more than a fading interest and a growing sense of disappointment in the reader. Those interested in the spanish civil war will be much better served reading the works of professor paul preston, or anthony beevor's and hugh thomas' excellent histories of the conflict. Any single page of those contains more insight, drama, better writing and a far more involving reading experience than this pale, amateurish piece of fiction.

Rating:
Summary: No ending
Review: This is a book about the author's search for an ending and not finding one.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic - but NOT a historical novel
Review: What caught my eye was the great photo by robert cappa on the cover of this novel, an image from his excellent series of shots taken during the spanish civil war. Intrigued by the subject matter, I dedided to buy the book. I am a history buff, and specially enjoy novels that use a historical background. I really wanted to like this, but I'm afraid the novel simply doesn't take off. The beginning is intriguing, and I wanted to learn more about Sanchez Mazas and his strange ordeal. But as I was reading on the main character/narrator, a washed up journalist who is at the end of his rope and needs to find redemption by solving this story (a tired cliche if I ever saw one), just wasn't compelling enough to sustain my interest. On top of that the writing lacked grace, and scenes I thought had potential fell flat on the page. There's an interesting story beneath this mediocre novel worth telling, and I take some of what is described in the novel has a factual basis, but this author seems unable to pull it off. There're some ludicrous attempts at comedy relief with the introduction of a very badly drawn character (the narrator's girlfriend) that seem lifted from a third rate sitcom, completely out of place in what, I guess, aspires to be a serious meditation on the moral relativities of war. At the end, we learn about a true hero's tragedy, and although we would like to know more about him, the only interesting character in this book, he just seems a distant figure that neither history or this book were able to do any justice.