David's Reviews > El impostor

El impostor

Enric Marco was born in an insane asylum in 1921. He was raised by an uncle and aunt as the Spanish Civil War was starting. At age 15 he joined the republic forces to fight Franco. He was sent to Germany to work to pay off Franco’s war debt to the Germans. He ended up in a concentration camp but survived to return to his home in Barcelona. After twenty years he becomes a union leader and then becomes the president of Amical de Mauthausen, a Spanish group representing the survivors of concentration camps. He gives talks, visits the camps. He is the “rock star” of historical memory. In 2001 he is awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi by the Catalan government. He is the face of the survivors.

But he is an impostor and it’s all lies. In 2005, the historian Benito Bermejo uncovers his deceit. And it all comes crashing down.

Marco is an enigma. Peel away the mask and there is another mask below. He tells so many lies that what is the truth? His story is a novel without fiction.

Enter Javier Cercas. Tempted by one of the filmmakers of the documentary “Ich bin Enric Marco” and prodded on by Mario Vargas Llosa and with access through his sister, he meets, films and records Enric Marco in 2009. With one of the best openings in a book, Cercas states “I did not want to write this book. I don’t know exactly why I did not want to write it, or if I knew it but I did not want to recognize it or dare to recognize it; or none of it.”

Having read two of his other books, “Soldiers of Salamis” and “Anatomy of a Moment” I knew what I was getting into and knew I was in good hands despite his doubts. Reading Cercas for me is a treat; for others not so much. He blends himself into the story, he looks at many sides. He tells the lies; he tells the truth. In one monumental chapter he reveals that Marco symbolizes Spain; all that is wrong with its history.

He challenges the norms, questions everything. For example, Marco was anti-Franco, anti-Nazi and kept telling anyone he had met that we need to remember the past. We must not forget the injustices, the inhumanities. Very good logic. But what happens when we discover that he lied, he made up things. Is he really bad. Are the lies wrong? Cercas argues both sides of telling the truth/telling lies (if your neighbour comes running to you asking to hide from an assassin, would you tell the assassin that you are hiding your neighbour?)

Marco was a narcissist. He wanted to be in the public eye. Sooner or later that vanity will destroy the narcissist. Yet so many people believed him. They propped him up. Are they part of the problem? Are we all part of the problem? But then who do we believe? Heroes? Leaders? Survivors? Liars? Presidents? Hmm....how many of us are gullible? Fake news? Hands up!

I was truly swept away by this book. It reads like a detective story but of a story so good, it really happened. Or so bad, it really happened.

Special thanks to João Carlos and his fine review that triggered me to find this book. Muito obrigado.