Author: Javier Cercas
Publication Information: Knopf. 2018. 384 pages.
ISBN: 1524732818 / 978-1524732813
Book Source: I received this book through the Penguin First to Read program free of cost in exchange for an honest review.
Opening Sentence: "I did not want to write this book."
Favorite Quote: "Bermejo didn’t simply expose Marco’s deception, he also exposed — or so felt many who sought to turn him into the villain — the culpable credulity and the lack of intellectual rigour of those who fell for Marco’s deception."
I am not even sure where to begin with this. It is certainly not what I expected. Actually, I am not ever sure what it is. The title states that is a "true story". The book description calls it "a hypnotic narrative that combines fiction and nonfiction, detective story and war story, biography and autobiography." Fiction and nonfiction - isn't that just fiction?
The book begins with the statement that the author did not want to write it. The entire first chapter is in fact about the author's struggle and decision to write the book. That beginning, especially to a theoretically nonfiction history, makes me wonder if I want to read it.
I decide to keep going for the same reason that I picked up the book in the first place. The history of Enric Marco is one I know nothing about, and it sounded so bizarre that I wanted to know more. I was not aware that Spanish people were among those sent to concentration camps during World War II.
Enric Marco was born in Spain in 1921. He claimed that he was a Holocaust survivor. He claimed to have been in the concentration camps Mauthausen and Flossenbürg. He wrote a book about his experiences. He spoke on behalf of survivors. He received a medal. He headed an association of survivors. Apparently, it was all a lie. A historian named Benito Bermejo exposed his fraud but not until decades later in 2005!
That is the story I hoped to read - the what, the how, and the why of Enric Marco's life. That is not unfortunately the story this book tells. This book is more a memoir of the author Javier Cercas himself. He is a writer and professor of Spanish literature.
In the context of Enric Marco, the author struggles with his own life and his own thoughts of being an impostor. In fact, in an NPR interview, he has said that we share a common humanity with Enric Marco and that he is an exaggeration of what we are. He distills down Enric Marco's motive to the basic need we all have to be loved, but disparages the fact that Enric Marco did it without regard to the truth. What? I just don't buy it.
Aside from the content, the writing style of the book is very difficult to understand. An example ... "This was an implicit pact that forbade using the recent past as a weapon in a political debate; had that period been forgotten, such a pact would have been irrational: it worked precisely because everyone remembered all to well. So, where is the truth in the half-truth that is the pact of forgetting?" Perhaps, it is my lack of knowledge about the history. Perhaps, it is just the writing style. I found myself getting lost in the sentences and having to reread paragraph after paragraph slowly in an attempt to understand. That issue combined with the content made this not the book for me.
In a way, the book reminds me of The Man in the Monster. The telling of a history turns into an exploration of the author and the author's relationship with the subject. I am clearly not the reader for this type of book.
I am not even sure where to begin with this. It is certainly not what I expected. Actually, I am not ever sure what it is. The title states that is a "true story". The book description calls it "a hypnotic narrative that combines fiction and nonfiction, detective story and war story, biography and autobiography." Fiction and nonfiction - isn't that just fiction?
The book begins with the statement that the author did not want to write it. The entire first chapter is in fact about the author's struggle and decision to write the book. That beginning, especially to a theoretically nonfiction history, makes me wonder if I want to read it.
I decide to keep going for the same reason that I picked up the book in the first place. The history of Enric Marco is one I know nothing about, and it sounded so bizarre that I wanted to know more. I was not aware that Spanish people were among those sent to concentration camps during World War II.
Enric Marco was born in Spain in 1921. He claimed that he was a Holocaust survivor. He claimed to have been in the concentration camps Mauthausen and Flossenbürg. He wrote a book about his experiences. He spoke on behalf of survivors. He received a medal. He headed an association of survivors. Apparently, it was all a lie. A historian named Benito Bermejo exposed his fraud but not until decades later in 2005!
That is the story I hoped to read - the what, the how, and the why of Enric Marco's life. That is not unfortunately the story this book tells. This book is more a memoir of the author Javier Cercas himself. He is a writer and professor of Spanish literature.
In the context of Enric Marco, the author struggles with his own life and his own thoughts of being an impostor. In fact, in an NPR interview, he has said that we share a common humanity with Enric Marco and that he is an exaggeration of what we are. He distills down Enric Marco's motive to the basic need we all have to be loved, but disparages the fact that Enric Marco did it without regard to the truth. What? I just don't buy it.
Aside from the content, the writing style of the book is very difficult to understand. An example ... "This was an implicit pact that forbade using the recent past as a weapon in a political debate; had that period been forgotten, such a pact would have been irrational: it worked precisely because everyone remembered all to well. So, where is the truth in the half-truth that is the pact of forgetting?" Perhaps, it is my lack of knowledge about the history. Perhaps, it is just the writing style. I found myself getting lost in the sentences and having to reread paragraph after paragraph slowly in an attempt to understand. That issue combined with the content made this not the book for me.
In a way, the book reminds me of The Man in the Monster. The telling of a history turns into an exploration of the author and the author's relationship with the subject. I am clearly not the reader for this type of book.
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