"In the great night of time" is the book of fate Ignacio Abel, Madrid's famous architect, whose life changed in a few weeks in 1936 during which he lost his position prfessionnelle, his family and his mistress. Antonio Munoz Molina excels in describing his character and his psychological evolution, despite a fairly agreed sentimental plot and characters (wife and mistress) somewhat stereotyped; the reports Ignacio Miguel and his son are, in turn, remarkably described. The gallery of the many secondary characters is successful despite, again, a tendency to cliché. The vision of the Madrid 1936 makes the price of this book away from héroïsants or negative stereotypes, it lets us see the first tentative and violent war civile.A such, the evocation of internal conflicts Republican camp is particularly striking. The style of the novel is very ordinary (at least, the French text); this does not alleviate that big novel that leaves, after all, a mixed impression: abusing conventional methods the author does not give us the reference Spanish novel of 1936.
