| Monday, May 3, 2010 5:06PM | | | | Javier Cercas/Amanda Vaill | Posted By: Judith Benét Richardson
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| Tags: Fascism, Spanish Civil War, novels, justice, truth, lies, Javier Cercas, Amanda Vaill, Eduardo Lago | I came to this session because of my interest in the Spanish Civil War. This was my father's war; when the brigadistas had their reunion in Spain a few years ago, I attended this moving event with members of my family.
Javier Cercas read from his book SOLDIERS OF SALAMIS a passage in which the a republican fighter escapes the Fascists, and a Fascist soldier who discovers him does not turn him in. Cercas read in Spanish; the passage was then read in English by Amanda Vaill.
She started her interview by asking him how he began writing novels, but this soon led to an interesting discussion of how his main character, often named Javier, is like him and not like him. Cercas said in his first novels, the Javier was more like him than in later ones, but that he concealed personal details as with a mask.
Then to answer a question about truth of novels, Cercas said that as the reader, you must let yourself be deceived by the author to get at truth - "to call a writer a liar is like saying a football player plays ball." Perhaps he meant "novelist" more than "writer."
Vaill questioned him at length about his unreliable narrator; toward the end of the session she spoke about her very different approach as a biographer. It would have been interesting to hear much more from her on this subject, as she is now writing a novel.
The most interesting part of the interview to me was the idea that this novel had sold well in Spain because it saw the fascist protagonist as human. Other novelists earlier in the weekend had spoken about understanding the "other." Cercas said he wanted to understand the fascists and is proud of being called a revisionist.
The questioning at the end was lively, and Eduardo Lago spoke about the current situation in Spain - this animated the audience into strong feelings about the judge in Spain who wishes to open an inquiry and overturn the law of silence that enabled Spain to move forward and become a democracy after the Civil War.
But for me the illuminating moment came when I realized why my father had always said if his mother hadn't died when he was five, he might never have gone to Spain. I never understood this, but after hearing Bernardo Atxaga and Javier Cercas speak, I realized it was because my dad was so angry at the Catholic church after his mother died, that the Republican repudiation of the power of the church was a powerful force in my father's life.
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