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spoko's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
2.0
This isn’t the fault of the book, strictly, but wow—what an unpleasant group of people to spend time with. There wasn’t a single member of this family that I felt any empathy or attachment with. Felicidad was probably the closest, and in any other book she would have been my least favorite character.
The author clearly seems taken with the family and their saga, so I’m not accusing him of painting an ugly portrait. (I’m contrasting Shulman with, say, Robert Caro, where you come away hating the subjects of his biographies because he hates them so much). But I did not enjoy reading this. In addition to the characters themselves, the writing was inconsistent. For much of the first section, I wondered who exactly it was written for. It seemed to be: people who are obsessed with this “literary family,” and know virtually nothing about them. I wouldn’t think there would be a lot of overlap there.
Just as I was about to give up, the writing improved. The narrative is stronger through the middle section of the book, leading up to and during the filming of The Disenchantment. The final section coasts on this push, so that I was able to finish. In the end, I did come away with a bit more understanding of what Spain went through during WWII & Franco’s reign. And I suppose I learned a lot about this family, though I literally couldn’t care less.
The author clearly seems taken with the family and their saga, so I’m not accusing him of painting an ugly portrait. (I’m contrasting Shulman with, say, Robert Caro, where you come away hating the subjects of his biographies because he hates them so much). But I did not enjoy reading this. In addition to the characters themselves, the writing was inconsistent. For much of the first section, I wondered who exactly it was written for. It seemed to be: people who are obsessed with this “literary family,” and know virtually nothing about them. I wouldn’t think there would be a lot of overlap there.
Just as I was about to give up, the writing improved. The narrative is stronger through the middle section of the book, leading up to and during the filming of The Disenchantment. The final section coasts on this push, so that I was able to finish. In the end, I did come away with a bit more understanding of what Spain went through during WWII & Franco’s reign. And I suppose I learned a lot about this family, though I literally couldn’t care less.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
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