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A boy named Daniel selects a novel from a library of rare books, enjoying it so much that he searches for the rest of the author's works, only to discover that someone is destroying every book the author has ever written. Barcelona, 1945-just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And before long he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly. As with all astounding novels, The Shadow of the Wind sends the mind groping for comparisons- The Crimson Petal and the White? The novels of Arturo Peacute-Reverte? Of Victor Hugo? Love in the Time of Cholera ?-but in the end, as with all astounding novels, no comparison can suffice. As one leading Spanish reviewer wrote, ldquo. The originality of Ruiz Zafoacute's voice is bombproof and displays a diabolical talent. The Shadow of the Wind announces a phenomenon in Spanish literature. An uncannily absorbing historical mystery, a heart-piercing romance, and a moving homage to the mystical power of books, The Shadow of the Wind is a triumph of the storyteller's art.… (more)
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"About books?"
"About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow
These words appear just under halfway through The Shadow of the Wind, and are spoken by Daniel Sempere, its narrator. 178 pages earlier, as the story opens, Daniel is taken by his bookseller father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Part of this rite of passage is that Daniel must select a book--or, to be more accurate, he must allow a book to select him. With this selection comes the responsibility to keep the book alive, to make sure that it is not forgotten. The book he selects is The Shadow of the Wind, by the mysterious Julian Carax. Daniel reads the novel in one delerious, heated night, and spends the next decade pursuing its author and his story.
But no synopsis could do justice to this rich, gorgeous feast of a novel. Set in post-Civil War Barcelona, The Shadow of the Wind is full of Gothic settings, Victorian characters, Magical Realist flourishes. There are crumbling mansions and equally crumbling aristocratic families, brutal fascist police officers and the political refugees they pursue, girls as beautiful as angels and men so horribly deformed that no one can look them in the face. But, more than anything, there are words.
Ruiz Zafon has an ease with language that most can only envy. Open the book to any page and you will find gorgeous turns of phrase which in lesser hands (and with a lesser translator, one must imagine) would be merely trite and over-written.
Everything good that you've heard about The Shadow of the Wind is true...anything negative must have been said by someone without a touch of whimsy anywhere in his life.
The language flowery and verbose is incredibly distracting to anything that's going on in the plot. The plot while interesting at first, quickly starts to feel like a lead weight that the author uses to blugeon his readers with. Read The Ghost Writer by John Harwood, if you are in the mood for secrets, betrayal, books, and intrigue.
I honestly can't find anything positive to say about this book, which is rare. But it does solidify my suspicion that sometimes critics don't read every book to completion, especially if the plot sounds enticing and you can use the names Borges, Dickens, Eco, and Marquez in one breath to describe it. If any of the critics that reviewed this book so enthusiasically actually bothered to finish it, then I'd be highly suspicious of their critical reading skills. (One caveat is that my preference is not for classics, which this book reminds me of. But I find many classics to be nuanced while this book is just a shallow imitation with all the bad qualities such as flowery prose).
In a broad, all-encompassing tale of life in Barcelona more than half a century ago, in a time of great political upheaval and social distress, it is the story of Daniel Sempere; whose mother died from cholera when he was six, and whose father, the owner of a book store of rare treasures and second-hand collectibles, valiantly strives to nurture his child in a difficult world. At the age of ten, Daniel – in an attempt to assuage his still-lingering grief – is brought one morning, by his father, to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books; to follow a long-standing tradition of adopting a book and therefore “keeping it alive, for life.” The book he chooses is The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax, a little-known and scarcely-published author; but whose book affects Daniel to such a degree that he is driven to find his other writings. And here lies the rub: for someone is steadily and methodically, and by any means, destroying every book this author has ever written; an ominous character even approaching Daniel upfront to buy his copy, otherwise threatening dire consequences. Yet he will not part with the work he feels has chosen him, instead hiding it again in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.
Thus Daniel’s adventure begins: as he searches for the answers to his beloved book’s mystery, and that of its author, he learns, simultaneously, over the next ten years, the answers to many of life’s complexities. And it is within this potent mix that the truth is realised, as the world of Daniel, and his friends, coalesces around this book, and the sordid past inherent in its creation.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón constructs, within this tale, a cacophony of irrepressible characters, full of personality and wit, and incredible strength-of-mind and ability to overcome difficult situations; though suffering daily, none are willing to give up or give in. Foremost of these is Fermín Romero de Torres, an incorrigible romantic with a pearl of wisdom, and a very true depth of understanding, for nearly every instance of life; and who is pivotal in unravelling the story behind Julián Carax, and in Daniel’s maturity through his painful adolescent years. Almost, it seems, Fermín is the author’s instrument in disclosing the political and social injustices during, and after, the Spanish civil-war, but tempering the darkness with an exuberance and optimism that is contagious, and life-affirming, despite the conditions of the times. His acumen, in many cases, is worthy reading alone!
The Shadow of the Wind is a concoction of many things: part mystery, part fantasy, part history; it mingles strong desires and passions of life alongside basic bodily functions with such skill, and with such humour, pathos and understanding, that is riveting. Essentially though, to me, it pays homage to the written word, and the power inherent in the pages of a book. And to a reverence for books: where “in truth books have no owners. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.” And in choosing a book "...we adopt it, making sure it will never disappear, that it will always stay alive” even as all else “disappears in the shadow of the wind.” May I find many friends as remarkable, and impressive, as this one, for the rest of my reading life.
We're treated to Zafon's relentless metaphor/simile attack throughout the book -- and these are metaphors that would give the instructors at the Iowa Writers' Workshop reason to scold, and scold harshly, once they were through gagging. "I could distinguish the shape of the blue tram, moving away through folds of violet mist." "...conjuring up a halo of amber light that seemed to float in the air like a cobweb trapped between mantles of impenetrable darkness." "...and revealed the dancing shapes of the walls that wept with tears of dampness, the fallen ceilings and dilapidated doors." Those can all be found on one page: 299.
Sometimes this lurid prose fails to make any sort of sense: "The stone, dark and slimy with rain, shone like the skeleton of a huge reptile." (page 415) Richard Eder of the New York Times is the one who praised this book and made the comparisons with Eco, Borges, and Garcia-Marquez. He should know better.
Could the joke be on us? That's what Jennie Yabroff muses about in her review in San Francisco Chronicle. A satire on potboilers? But she has to conclude that Zafon wants us to take him seriously. She calls it a tiring, meandering tale, and I wholeheartedly agree. It consists mostly of one colorful character after another relating their piece of the story, usually in a lengthy remembrance with plenty of non-essential subplots thrown in that puts a halt to any shred of momentum that might build. It just wears the reader out.
The book opens with the young narrator’s father taking him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The father explains to the boy that visitors are allowed to choose a book only if they pledge to keep it alive. Ten-year-old Daniel chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. He falls in love with the book and becomes obsessed with finding out as much as he can about its enigmatic author. So our book becomes a mysterious quest to find the truth about Carax—how The Shadow of the Wind came into existence, and ultimately made its way into the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It is also a captivating coming-of-age tale.
At one point in the novel the main character Daniel, tries to explain to his girlfriend Beatriz his obsession with Carax. He tells her that his obsession is all “about accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who got out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It’s a story of love, of hatred and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.” Beatriz teases Daniel, saying that he talks like “a jacket blurb of a Victorian novel.” And how right she is!
This work does read like a Victorian novel, yet it is set in the period just after the Spanish Civil War. The book delivers a maze of stories within stories most with mysteries behind every revelation. The reader will be reminded of the styles of many long-gone literary giants. But don’t be lulled into expecting too much on account of the novel's florid literary style—if you do you may be disappointed and miss the fun! This is a work of contemporary fiction, not a literary masterpiece. Also, it is not a realistic drama, but melodrama. To enjoy it, you’ll need to turn off your reality sensors and step into a world where good and evil are clear, and characters are larger than life. I am not suggesting that there is fantasy, or surrealism here, merely the exaggerated perceptions of a young man who has not yet reached maturity, a boy who has spent his life reading perhaps a little too much fiction. In this fashion, Daniel’ naïve view of life reminds me of the young Catherine Morland in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.
There is much in Záfon’s prose that delights; there is also much that I found poorly executed and over-the-top—but on the whole, the novel is far better than most popular fiction. There is plenty to enjoy in this almost-500-page novel…but if you prefer, listen to the sumptuous unabridged audio version (16 CDs, 19 hours) where the reading is frequently accompanied by original music composed by the author to enhance the mood and adds to the melodrama. The reader, Jonathan Davis, is outstanding. Listening to this novel accentuates its sensory experience!
Although Záfon was born in Barcelona, he has spend almost the last two decades living in Los Angeles, making a living as a television screenwriter. This is his debut novel. Originally written in Spanish and published in Spain, the book was translated into English by the talented Lucia Graves, daughter of the famous British literary giant, Robert Graves. Záfon admits that he has a lifelong fascination for 19th-century English literature. But his first love is great storytelling, wherever he finds it—in books, television, or movies. He has spent a great deal of time painstakingly deconstructing the world’s best storytellers to discover their secrets.
This novel has become an international bestseller because the author learned his lessons well and does seem to possess some magical inside track to the art of great storytelling. With time, he should get even better. I recommend this book highly and look forward to the author’s next novel.
Along the way, as Daniel encounters numerous fascinating characters, we are taken back to Julián Carax's youth when, as a poor hatmaker's son, he was taken under the wing of a powerful businessman, and fell in love with at first sight with the man's daughter on his first visit to his sponsor's haunted mansion, thus setting in motion the train of events which Daniel uncovers, as he finds one clue after another. A tale of love, loss and obsession, about the bonds of friendship and the quest for revenge, truth and redemption, this is a richly told, multilayered story which satisfies at every page.
Please note the only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that I found the English translation wanting, though this is no fault of the translator; I look forward to reading the story again in the French translation, which will presumably better express the latin passion and immediacy of the original Spanish text. Regardless, the story itself transcends language, and I can't recommend this novel strongly enough.
The whole thing feels like it desperately wants be seen as some kind of profound parable, but the only result is that the characters are just implausible symbols. They are too bland even to hate – unlike the book itself, which I loathed.
About an hour back in the book, the question** occured to me; Is this completely devoted, self-sacrificing
**I have begun to believe that when a book is good, it leaves me with a thoughtful, insightful, contemplative question or conviction.
Man! I'll tell you - Don't think you have the book figured out until you have reached the last page, I don't care how good you think you are. I kept thinking I could see the bends and twists in the plot ahead of time, but I don't think I got any of them right.
And such a variety of characters - noble & self-sacrificing, greedy, naive, bitter & jealous, twisted & sadistic... you see it all, and there is a little bit of everything in the plot - love, romance, mystery, frustration, anger... passion, heartache, emotion, uncertainty, and intrigue.
I recommend this book without hesitation.
What a perfect, and beautiful circle of a story.
The writing itself is excellent – “flashing a mysterious smile probably borrowed from the pages of one of his worn Alexandre Dumas romances” is one of
Similarly, I loved the fact that I could follow the places in the book – I’ve been to Barcelona (only once, and only for a week), but fortunately the book was mostly set in the centre of town and out towards the area where I stayed when I was there, so I recognised many of the place names and the character of the city, which Zafón represents very well.
I struggled with the plot – the sheer number of childhood romances and implausible pregnancies bugged me, as did the jumpy timeline. The book is full of adventure and intrigue and all those wonderful plot ingredients, which I can see appealing to both male and female readers of all ages. I can certainly understand why this is a favourite with readers the world over, and I enjoyed the book, but it’s not right up there in the “I’m going to bully everyone I know into reading this” category.
Zafon captures the reader quickly. When Daniel, a ten year old boy, is brought to a mysterious place called The Cemetery of Books, his father swears him to secrecy and then explains: "According to tradition, the first time someone visits this place, he must choose a book, whichever one he wants, and adopt it, making sure that it will never disappear, that it will always stay alive. It's a very important promise. For life," explained my father. "Today it's your turn."
Daniel chooses a book - or perhaps the book chooses him. It is a book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, written by Julian Carax and it entrances the boy and takes him on a convoluted journey which is swathed in mystery. Who is the man with no face who has set out to destroy every book every written by Julian Carax? What became of the author?
Zafon's novel is filled with memorable characters - my favorite being Fermin Romero de Torres, a homeless man saved from the gutter by Daniel and his father and who comes with a dark and cryptic history of his own. Fermin's wonderful philosophy of life, filled with bawdy humor made me laugh out loud at times.
The novel's plot is twisting - weaving back in time and making unexpected turns. No one is who they seem to be. Characters in Daniel's found novel become intertwined with people he knows or has known. Zafon keeps the reader guessing with his compelling and dramatic story filled with betrayal, murder, missing people and romance.
The Shadow of the Wind is a giant of a book and a must read for bibliophiles and those who love epics with a Gothic flavor.
Highly Recommended.
But I detected the whiff of musty rotting lace even stronger than that. Dickens’s Great Expectations seemed to me a much closer relative to “The Shadow of the Wind”. The sense of the past being relived in the future, the idea that the young characters whose lives are ostensibly the focus of the book being only the newer versions of those who have gone before them…not to mention the constant theme of forbidden love.
This book in all senses is a book about time gone by. It is about passions that are larger than life, all consuming hatred, soul destroying despair. Nothing is small; no character is simply a bystander, no event without meaning. The writing drips with color without being too flowery, the words evoke one’s senses while still allowing the reader to bring his/her own imagination to the table. One feels as if this is a story that has always existed, has always been played out…I could almost feel the dust on the book jacket of my brand new copy of this novel.
I appreciate, too, the underlying theme of the love of books, of words. When one encounters “The Cemetery of Forgotten Books”, I felt my hands itching to go there, to see the shelves and shelves of treasures. Books and the power of their words come up again and again, which is an idea I can certainly appreciate.
“Once, in my father’s bookstore, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a place in our memory to which, sooner or later – no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget – we will return.”
While being an engrossing story that kept me turning the pages more than taking notes, the story, whose main timeline takes place in Barcelona in 1955, offers a few very prescient views of the future:
“Television, my dear Daniel, is the Antichrist, and I can assure you that after only three or four generations, people will no longer even know how to fart on their own and humans will return to living in caves, to medieval savagery, and to the general state of imbecility that slugs overcame back in the Pleistocene era. Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that.”
(As a side note, the author does pull one of those plot tricks that I am VERY dubious about. One of those, “In seven days time, SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT WILL HAPPEN” warnings. As an avid reader of Stephen King, I have become very wary of those dire predictions…and I still haven’t made up my mind whether they improve or harm the flow of the story, though I am leaning towards harm.)
The sense of history repeating itself comes up not only in the lives of the characters but in references to the world in general. “Nothing feeds forgetfulness better than war, Daniel. We all keep quiet and the try and convince us that what we’ve seen, what we’ve done, what we’ve learned about ourselves and about others, is an illusion, a passing nightmare. Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind.”
“The Shadow of the Wind” was a wonderful book to curl up with these past few days. I liked getting to enjoy damsels in distress, mysterious figures in the shadows, deathbed confessions, duels at dawn, the constant struggle of love trying to overcome hate…and an actual villain with no redeeming qualities. So often the books that I read, because they are generally based in reality, examine all of the shades of grey that make up human beings. I’d forgotten what an escape it is to very easily identify the “good guys” and the “bad guys.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book with a scene like this that I could enjoy instead of rolling my eyes, “When I peered into the corridor, I could already hear the footsteps below, near the staircase. I recognized the spidery shadow on the walls, the black raincoat, the hat pulled down like a hood, and the gun in his hand shining like a scythe. Fumero. He had always reminded me of someone, or something, but until then I hadn’t understood what.”
You can just smell the musty odors, see the dripping candle wax, feel the mysterious breeze go past your face, can’t you?
This book gives one the sense of a guilty pleasure without giving any reason to feel guilty. It is a wonderful story, one that should be dusted off time and time again.
Entranced by the novel, young Daniel sets out to discover who this Carax was, and what else he wrote. Daniel’s father, the book dealer, has never heard of Carax. Together they consult other dealers. One offers Daniel a considerable sum of money for his copy of The Shadow of the Wind—but won’t say why he prizes it so highly. Daniel, though, refuses to sell the book.
Years go by. Daniel hears a story about Carax and his books. Someone is going from town to town, shop to shop, seeking out the works of Julián Carax—and burning them. But who would do such a thing—and why? As Daniel matures, so does the mystery.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s novel is a love story of several layers of significance. There’s the adolescent Daniel, coming of age in Franco’s Spain, and doing what young boys do: listlessly lusting after young women. Daniel’s relationships, first with the blind girl, Clara, and later with his best friend’s sister, Bea, are also bonds of literary friendship: books, like beds, allow lovers to share sheets. As Daniel tells Bea one evening over a couple of coffees:
…this is a story about books.”
“About books?”
“About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It’s a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.”
But is the burner of Carax’s novels really Carax? As Daniel grows—both in life and into the investigation of his beloved The Shadow of the Wind—he discovers that Carax died years ago. It appears that Carax died, as Daniel has felt he surely would, of a broken heart. And yet, what if…?
“And yet, what if…?” is, of course, precisely what propels a reader through a great novel like Zafón’s. The wind of speculation keeps blowing shadows of mystery down the side streets, pulling us on into the labyrinth in pursuit of the story of the novel within the novel. Zafón is a great-hearted writer, keenly aware that books are bits of soul-stuff and just as prone to the vicissitudes of time and place as are their human authors and readers. Zafón sketches character and context beautifully, working in the political reality of Franco’s dictatorship with candor and humor, but without ever making a spectacle of life in a totalitarian regime. A bestseller in Spain, The Shadow of the Wind is craftily translated by the daughter of Robert Graves, Lucia Graves. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been very well received in the U.S., where the thriller genre has been stupefied by the likes of ignoramus Michael Crichton. The Shadow of the Wind harks back to an era when characters changed—not by growing an extra arm, but changed psychologically, seeing the world as the dangerous and potentially redemptive place it is. For fans of Jorge Luis Borges, Umberto Eco and other writers who craft twisting and turning plots with complex characterization, The Shadow of the Wind is not to be missed.
Originally published in Curled Up with a Good Book
I fell in love after 10 pages. His writing style is gorgeous and captivating. I felt myself get lost inside his world of words.
His storytelling was incredible. I loved the way he would intertwine all these people's stories to make one amazing journey.
I
His story writing is just so amazing. I didn't want it to end. I'm so glad I decided to pick this book up. I want to read more of his books.
I loved the concept of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books when I first encountered it, and the opening chapter that bore it's name, but among the disappointments of the novel is I felt it went no where. Many people adore this book; a close friend whose tastes I trust, if not always mirror, told me she hated it, and that among those reasons is how Daniel betrays that secret. Well before that he betrayed his guardianship by at one point giving the book away to a woman he has a crush on. But what I couldn't forgive was how the whole concept was developed, or not developed. Who chooses the books? Why aren't you supposed to tell anyone? To whom and for what purpose is the secret revealed? But you know when I really wanted to throw this book across the room? When Daniel takes someone back to that "Cemetery" of Forgotten books, he tells her to choose one, just as his father told him to choose one. And what does she choose? Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles! In what alternate universe is that a forgotten book? In that one choice, Zafon transformed a magical mystical place into... a used bookstore.
A petty point, I know, but it's hardly the only hole or improbability in the book. I've seen reviewers defend those lapses as "magical realism." I see nothing magical or realistic in this convoluted tale. I haven't read Marquez or Borges, whom I've seen Zafon compared to, but I have read Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel, Joanne Harris, Toni Morrison, and Alice Hoffman, and when they insert magic into their narratives, you know it--it's not an excuse for a muddled or implausible plot.
I've also read the events are meant to be a tribute to the Gothic tradition. Stephen King calls the book "full of cheesy splendor." Well, I'm all for that kind of cheese. I found Matthew Lewis' The Monk and Wilkie Collins The Woman in White and Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale and even some novels of Stephen King great fun, but this novel fell flat to me.
I also wasn't wild about the style. Here's a typical sentence from a random page: The steely sun snatched copper reflections from the roofs and belfries of the Gothic quarter. It's the kind of prose some might see as poetic and lyrical, and others as florid and purple. I'm on the purple side of the fence, and I don't think you can blame the author's pile-on of adjectives on the translation. Or the chunks of narrative in italics--an effect by itself I find cheesy and annoying. Or the soft porn sex scene early on.
I'm afraid when it comes to this one, I'm in the decided minority of detractors--even if I at least I can console myself I'm in good company with my friend.
The best summation of the book’s charms, such as they are, comes from the very first blurb on the back of my copy. It’s from Stephen King, who
For this is a supremely cheesy story, blending over-the-top Gothic settings and atmosphere with Boys’ Own characterizations with Harlequinesque romance and erotic flashes. What mystifies me is the comparisons others (e.g. The New York Times Book Review) have made between this book and far superior works such as Umberto Eco’s. Yes, I suppose there is a big ol’ dark musty library in this novel, so it must be just like The Name of the Rose . . . well, perhaps not.
In short, The Shadow of the Wind follows the adventures of Daniel, a young boy in mid-20th century Barcelona. He grows up in a bookstore, and his equally bookish father introduces him to a mysterious library from which he’s allowed to choose one volume; it turns out to be an almost magical novel whose backstory Daniel traces out through the remainder of the plot.
And as we work through nearly 500 pages of florid descriptions punctuated by 'blinding' (but utterly unsurprising) revelations, epic are the adventures of the courageous men and ravishing women; pure and holy are their loves; smoldering are their passions; dark is the doom that hangs over them . . . oh man, I’ve had enough of this. Let’s just say that Ruiz Zafon overwrites shamelessly, then subjects his readers to a lengthy and startlingly prosaic dénouement that undermines whatever sense of mystery and dread he manages to build up in the book’s first three-quarters.
After finally finishing The Shadow of the Wind, I felt an immediate need to cleanse my reading palate with something cool, fresh and bracing. It’s time for some Raymond Chandler.
I felt it was less a mystery, more that most of the
Can't for the life of me understand why this was a best-seller.
This is a marvelous drama inhabited by characters we come to care about. It has history, mystery, suspense, romance, friendship, and family. It has the extremes of love and hate, and a good deal of philosophy, all rolled into an arresting literary adventure you won't want to put down until you're reached the final page.
The Shadow of the Wind is translated from the Spanish and follows Daniel, a young motherless boy who is taken by his father to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books where he is to pick a book and treasure it forevermore. Daniel chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, an author who he can find out very little about. Carax’s books are disappearing, being bought by someone who chooses to burn them all. Despite being offered a substantial amount of money, Daniel protects his book and because of it, makes new friends such as Clara and Fermin. The book follows Daniel as he grows up and tries to find out more about Carax, which leads to events with shadowy characters and a fantastical backstory that will have you endlessly repeating ‘just one more chapter’. Although the ending solves most of the characters’ problems, it’s not cheesy.
This book has some great Gothic elements and would appeal to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights fans (don’t worry, there are romances in this book too). The translation is fantastic and Fermin has a lot of truly funny one liners. The imagery of the buildings and the feeling of Spain in the post-war era is tangible- I feel like I’ve visited Daniel’s book.
The Shadow of the Wind would have to rank as one of the best books I’ve read this year.
“Shadow of the Wind” was a really fantastic book. The plot was definitely complicated and twisting, but it worked. These are my favorite sorts of mysteries, rambling gothic plots, somewhat similar to “The Thirteenth Tale” in feel, though not in detail. One thing that “Shadow of the Wind” and “The Thirteenth Tale” do have in common, though, is the underlying love of books. This is a book-lover’s mystery, and this book lover loved it.
'The Shadow
A blurb within the author description declares it to be the best selling Spanish novel since 'Don Quixote,' revealing that this novel encompasses one of those moments in culture to be savored: where the whims of the masses converge to celebrate and support a truly deserving subject. I will take it as my duty as a bookseller to place 'The Shadow of the Wind' into as many customer's hands as I maunder and ambulate about my own Cemetery of Forgotten Books.
On the morning Daniel wakes to find he can no longer remember his deceased mother’s face, his father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. There, Daniel encounters a novel called The Shadow of the Wind by the unknown author Julian Carax. Unbeknownst to ten-year-old Daniel as he closes the covers on the story after that first voracious reading, Julian Carax’s final novel becomes the catalyst that sets the rest of his life in motion.
This is a story about ghosts – Julian Carax and the people, alive and dead, who bear his secrets. It’s a story about coincidences, or fate, and the blurry line between them only clear in retrospection. It’s a story about the uncanny intricacies of human connection, how the past is intrinsically interwoven with the present so that forgotten friends can become new enemies. First and foremost, it’s a story about love. Love for a novel that, upon discovering that someone has been seeking out and destroying every copy of Carax’s works since his inexplicable death, sends Daniel on a relentless, lifelong quest to unmask the mysterious author. Love in every conceivable form – true love, false love masquerading as true, tragic love, familial love, and love that drives a person to extremities, filling them up until it’s all they have left and condemning them when it eventually runs out. It’s a story about the disillusionment of realizing that, powerful as it is, love is an inept defense against many of life’s darkest shadows, and that there is too often as much bad in good things as there is good. And yet it is not a bleak or hopeless tale, illustrating as it does the redemptive power of love to hold us together afterward.
The Shadow of the Wind is a perfect example of a whole becoming more than the some of its (impressive) parts. It’s part mystery, part historical fiction, part portrait of a city (Barcelona emerging from the wreckage of the World Wars hot on the heels of the Spanish Civil War), and part love story. Zafón’s writing is poetic without being longwinded, powerful without being overbearing. His characterization leaves little room for categorization – in the course of the novel, you find yourself pitying and empathizing with villains, questioning and reproaching protagonists. He imparts wisdom – disguised as fathers, sons, and old friends, the institutionalized and the demoralized – without being heavy-handed, and executes breathtaking (literally - I gasped audibly several times while reading) action scenes and plot twists without a shred of melodrama. Daniel’s investigation intertwines the lives and fates of himself and Carax to the point where it becomes hard to discern deft parallelism from outright confluence of identity. Dissected, The Shadow of the Wind is all these things. Savored and digested, it is more.
The Shadow of the Wind is a novel so multi-faceted that in the course of reading it I experienced three sentiments somewhat rare to me: Before I had even finished it the first time through, I wanted to start rereading it so as to fully absorb and appreciate its every nuance; somewhere around the halfway point it had already made in onto my shortlist of awe-inducing books; and, like Daniel for Julian Carax, I was bent on tracking down more of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s work. All three were dangerous conclusions to make before the denouement – which so often disappoints, even in the best of books – but I needn’t have wasted a moment’s worry. Closing The Shadow of the Wind and setting it down in my lap, I actually had to inhale deeply to catch my breath.