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The Anatomy of a Moment
- Thirty-Five Minutes in History and Imagination
- Narrated by: Tim Pabon
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
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The Anatomy of a Moment
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Summary
In February 1981, just as Spain was finally leaving Franco's dictatorship and during the first democratic vote in parliament for a new prime minister - Colonel Tejero and a band of right-wing soldiers burst into the Spanish parliament and began firing shots. Only three members of Congress defied the incursion and did not dive for cover: Adolfo Suarez, the then-outgoing prime minister, who had steered the country away from the Franco era; Guttierez Mellado, a conservative general who had loyally served democracy; and Santiago Carillo, the head of the Communist Party, which had just been legalized.
In The Anatomy of a Moment, Cercas examines a key moment in Spanish history, just as he did so successfully in his Spanish Civil War novel, Soldiers of Salamis. This is the only coup ever to have been caught on film as it was happening, which, as Cercas says, "guaranteed both its reality and its unreality". Every February a few seconds of the video are shown again and Spaniards congratulate themselves for standing up for democracy, but Cercas says that things were very quiet that afternoon and evening while all over Spain people stayed inside waiting for the coup to be defeated ...or to triumph.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Raman
- 18-10-13
History as a novel
Puritans may disagree with the liberties Javier Cercas, a novelist, takes with these real events and the way he gets into the minds of these real characters. It is not pure history. But I couldn’t care less. I was with the author the whole way engrossed in his tale.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Matt
- 23-11-19
A technically great book, but sags in areas
This story of this book is outstanding. To take 17 hours of history and give every moment meaning is really brilliant. However, there were lots of moments where this book DRAGGED. It felt like hard work and i felt disconnected from it. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable, but I felt really out of my depth in some areas, and past the point of caring with others. Too much details in some cases.
That being said, it did always win me back round, particularly the final chapter.
Tim pabon is a great narrator and well cast for this audiobook. He captured the nuance of cercas through translation. However there seems to be lots of weird pauses of the narration, like mid sentence. Also occasion background noises. This really takes you out of the moment.
Overall, a good book, but one I struggled to finish.
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1 person found this helpful