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🦋 Peripatetic

Cercas' Soldados de Salamina is one of the most difficult books to put down that I've read in recent memory. (And thanks for turning me on to Cercas, Rise!) I'm fascinated by how he is putting his book together -- at every moment the focus is strongly on whatever bit he is talking about at the moment, rather than on fitting it in to the rest of the book; and yet the quite diverse elements of the book seem to be fitting together well, in an almost instinctive way. I really enjoyed his note about the composition process at the beginning of part 3:

Escribía de forma obsesiva, con un empuje y una constancia que ignoraba que poseía; también sin demasiada claridad de propósito. ...Por descontado, yo suponía que, a medida que el libro avanzase, este designio se alteraría, porque los libros siempre acaban cobrando vida propia, y porque uno no escribe acerca de lo que quiere sino de lo que puede; también suponía que, aunque todo lo que con el tiempo había averiguado sobre Sánchez Mazas iba a constituir el núcleo de mi libro, lo que me permitía sentirme seguro, llegaría un momento en que tendría que prescindir de esas andaderas, porque -- si es que lo escribe va a tener verdadero interés -- un escritor no escribe nunca acerca de lo que conoce, sino precisamente de lo que ignora.

I was writing obsessively, with a drive and a constancy which I had not known I possessed; but also without too clear of a thesis. ...Needless to say, I figured that as the book progressed, its design would come clear; books always end up taking charge of themselves -- one does not write about what one wants to write but about what one is able to write. I was also thinking that, although what I had learned about Sánchez Mazas would make up the nucleus of my book, the core that would let me feel safe, there would come a moment when I would have to dispense with this safety net: If the writing is to hold any real interest, an author never writes about what he knows, but precisely about what he does not know.

posted morning of Sunday, August 15th, 2010
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Cercas has hit upon a clever structure for the book. The nucleus being attracted by an invisible charge. I must have finished this in a flash. So curious was I in what the next research lead will bring. Glad you liked it. Cercas is doing a variation of this method with The Speed of Light which I'm currently reading. At the back of the story he's like giving an unintended creative writing workshop.

posted evening of August 15th, 2010 by Rise

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