Responsibility, memory and testimony in Soldiers of Salamis of Javier Cercas

The novels of Javier Cercas concern themselves, in general, with ethical issues and how these are embodied in the constitution of the hero: La velocidad de la luz, Anatom a de un instante, Las leyes de la frontera, and, of course, Soldados de Salamina. With this in mind, in the following pages, and drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, I intend to examine the basis of infinite generosity with which the narrator constructs one of his novelistic subjects, Miralles, showing that he responds to an ethical moment from which he constructs the subjectivity of the miliciano who saves the life of the Falangist Rafael Sanchez Mazas, after pointing the shotgun at him. From here, I will establish the structural principle of the novel, or the mechanisms used to organize it, and the motivations to which it responds: ethical responsibilities and their relationship to heroism, or 'ethical characters' in contrast to 'fate-driven characters', which, in turn, relate to such issues as the recovery of memory, both individual and collective.