The Age of Disenchantments, Aaron Shulman
The Age of Disenchantments, Aaron Shulman
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The Age of Disenchantments
The Epic Story of Spain's Most Notorious Literary Family and the Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War

Author: Aaron Shulman

Narrator: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Unabridged: 12 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ecco

Published: 03/05/2019

Synopsis

A gripping narrative history of Spain’s most brilliant and troubled literary family—a tale about the making of art, myth, and legacy—set against the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War and beyond.In this absorbing and atmospheric historical narrative, journalist Aaron Shulman takes us deeply into the circumstances surrounding the Spanish Civil War through the lives, loves, and poetry of the Paneros, Spain’s most compelling and eccentric family, whose lives intersected memorably with many of the most storied figures in the art, literature, and politics of the time—from Neruda to Salvador Dalí, from Ava Gardner to Pablo Picasso to Roberto Bolaño.Weaving memoir with cultural history and biography, and brought together with vivid storytelling and striking images, The Age of Disenchantments sheds new light on the romance and intellectual ferment of the era while revealing the profound and enduring devastation of the war, the Franco dictatorship, and the country’s transition to democracy.A searing tale of love and hatred, art and ambition, and freedom and oppression, The Age of Disenchantments is a chronicle of a family who modeled their lives (and deaths) on the works of art that most inspired and obsessed them and who, in turn, profoundly affected the culture and society around them.

About Aaron Shulman

Aaron Shulman is a journalist whose work has appeared in publications including The Believer, The American Scholar, The New Republic, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. A collaborative writer and editorial coach, he works with visionary scientists and thinkers to bring their research to a wide readership. Shulman first lived in Spain while studying abroad and moved back in 2010 after falling in love with a Spanish woman. There, he published pieces about Spanish culture, social movements, and the economic crisis. In 2012, he watched “El Desencanto,” the 1976 documentary about the Panero family, and from that night onward became hopelessly obsessed. He now lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Peter on June 23, 2019

In 1972-73, my junior year in college, I lived with the Panero family (the subject of this book) in Madrid during a six-month study abroad period. Franco was still living. Leopoldo Panero, the patriarch of the family, had been dead 11 years. I knew that he had been a well-known poet, but nothing els......more

Goodreads review by Stephen on June 08, 2019

I cannot recommend a better historical narrative book than this gem, a fascinating tale that ticks all boxes, Civil wars, poets and writers, crazy families, politics, different decades, Franco, Spanish history, love, death. This is a big book but a fast absorbing read and brilliantly researched and......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on March 11, 2019

Won with gratitude in a Goodreads giveaway. This book is a tapestry of literary success and failure, family dysfunction and tragedy, set against war and repression in a nation's history. It is the twentieth century saga of the poetic Panero family of Spain, and the frustrated success and patriarchal......more

Goodreads review by Gary on March 19, 2019

The fascinating true-life story of how one man's choice of survival, comes to define not only his legacy but the lives of the family he will eventually leave behind. The writer, Aaron Shulman's exacting account of the Spanish writer, Leopoldo Panero, and his literary family also tracks the rise and......more

Goodreads review by Grant on March 02, 2019

I've been reading some non-fiction recently where the topic, idea was appealing (one on Arthurian legends, another on exploring urban areas underground) but the prose--eech. Can be clunky, painful. Shulman writes very, very well. He is in control of his material, unspools the stories here well. I've......more

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