... His choice is "The Shadow of the Wind" by Julián Carax and when he reads it he's completely enchanted. It's 1945 and the world is emerging from war and Spain has the added burden of the memories of the Civil War. As the years pass Daniel realises that a lot of people are strangely, dangerously ... Read review
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My Book of 2005
Advantages: A closely-plotted detective story and coming-of-age novel. Disadvantages: I've finished it!
Hidden away in the back streets of Barcelona is the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and when ten-year-old Daniel Sempere is introduced to it by his father he's allowed to choose one book from the millions of dusty volumes stored there. His choice is "The Shadow of the Wind" by Julián Carax and when he reads it he's completely enchanted. It's 1945 and the world is emerging from war and Spain has the added burden of the memories of the ... ...becomes an obsession to discover the truth behind the disappearance of Carax and the girl he loved.
I delayed reading this book for quite a long time. It's a translation from the original Spanish and so often translations fail to live up to the promise. I was put off, too by the quote from the Daily Telegraph on the front "…an instant classic". I'm increasingly finding that book reviews in national newspapers are rarely critical ... more
Hidden away in the back streets of Barcelona is the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and when ten-year-old Daniel Sempere is introduced to it by his father he's allowed to choose one book from the millions of dusty volumes stored there. His choice is "The Shadow of the Wind" by Julián Carax and when he reads it he's completely enchanted. It's 1945 and the world is emerging from war and Spain has the added burden of the memories of the Civil War. As the years pass Daniel realises that a lot of people are strangely, dangerously interested in his book. What begins as curiosity about Carax, his life and his other books becomes an obsession to discover the truth behind the disappearance of Carax and the girl he loved.
I delayed reading this book for quite a long time. It's a translation from the original Spanish and so often translations fail to live up to the promise. I was put off, too by the quote from the Daily Telegraph on the front "…an instant classic". I'm increasingly finding that book reviews in national newspapers are rarely critical and seem designed only to sell books, so when I finally started to read the book, I expected little.
At the beginning of the story we meet Daniel as a shy, uncertain and motherless boy, frightened that he can no longer picture his dead mother. Over a period of ten years we watch him mature into a confident, responsible man. I've read many "coming-of-age" books where the accent has been on the sexual aspect of maturing. There is an element of that here but there's far more emphasis on emotions and obligations. We see Daniel's first, unrequited love for the older, blind daughter of a rich bookseller in Barcelona and the brutal shock he receives when he witnesses her involvement with another man. The relationship between Daniel and his father is skilfully conveyed as we see the parental ties slowly but inexorably loosen.
The "coming of age" aspect is only a small part of the book. For me it was primarily a closely plotted work of detection and an historical thriller. The story begins in 1945, not long after the end of the Spanish Civil War. Old scores are still being settled, loyalties change almost by the day and there's an atmosphere of fear about the activities of the police in the form of Inspector Fumero who is nothing more than a psychotic killer. In his presence I felt a complete sense of helplessness. As a teenager Daniel becomes aware of a shadowy man who is trying to buy up all copies of the books by Julián Carax with the intention of burning them. Who is he? Why is he doing this and why will Fumero stop at nothing to trace Carax?
There's a tremendous dramatic tension in the book with its stories of sudden disappearances and lives broken for the flimsiest of reasons. Ultimately it's a magnificent story about a doomed love that someone will go to any lengths to bury in the past. There's Gothic melodrama and even the hint of a ghost story. The plotting is superb as we realise that parts of Carax's book reflect the problems of his own life and then that events in Daniel's life are reflecting the life of the man with whom he's obsessed.
I've barely scraped the surface of the many (or even the main) characters in the book. It's a very varied cast and each is skilfully drawn. All are essential to the plot. They're all three-dimensional and very believable - male and female characters are all equally strong. That's very unusual. The star of the book for me though was the post-war city of Barcelona. It's beautifully drawn and very evocative, but then Zafón is a native.
I enjoyed too the detail about the book trade. Daniel's father is a bookseller and Daniel joins him in the business, but I was fascinated by the details about acquisition and sale of books and their care. I had a real sense of the story being set within a business rather than the way in which people earned their living being an inconvenient fact to be filled in, as in so many novels.
The translation is as close to perfection as you're likely to get. The translator is Lucia Graves, daughter of the poet Robert Graves. It's more usual for her to translate from English into Spanish or Catalan but she has excelled herself with this book. Zafón's style is expansive and witty but Graves loses none of the subtleties of the work. The book is very easy reading and I simply couldn't put it down.
There are sexual references in the book but nothing that I found offensive. Although there are some violent scenes I didn't find any that are gratuitously so - I'd regard this as adult reading but without any other restrictions.
I read a lot of books in 2005. This was the best of them all.
Quick facts:
• Paperback 512 pages (October 5, 2005) • Publisher: Phoenix mass market paperback • Price £7.99 but available on Amazon for £3.99 in January 2006 • ISBN: 0753820250
Advantages: An outstanding usage of the language Disadvantages: Some explicit violence perhaps
...is midnight in Barcelona, in the Fifties, and the story begins with a memorable description of the city , giving you the right mood to enjoy the fascinating plot you are going to read.
********** THE PLOT
********** Daniel is a young boy that lives alone with his father after his mother's death, some years ago. He tries to overcome this sad event with his imagination. One night, his father shows him a secret place where there are piles of forgotten ... ...to choose one of them. The aim is to look after it and prevent it from being lost.He will be the keeper of this book.
Daniel choose "the shadow of the wind", not because he has pondered over it, but he feels that the book is calling him. He read the book, an after that he become fascinated by the author, Julián de Carax, and he tries to know everything about him. What he finds in his search is almost disturbing. And then he begins his own trekking ...
chemuyil 30.09.2006 (18.10.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
“The Shadow of The Wind” is Catalan author Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s fourth novel but it has been his breakthrough novel in the United Kingdom. Reading the novel it is easy to understand why. It has all the makings of a “cult” novel whilst being accessible and easy to read for the average reader as well.
The story centres around the life of a young boy who loses his mother at an early age. His father being a bookseller it is the love of books which becomes ... ...a pretty close second.
The young Daniel is taken to his father to a mysterious repository of books “the cemetery of forgotten books” and this is what gets the narrative moving. According to Daniel’s dad the idea is that everyone should remember one book, sort of sponsor it, because when a book is forgotten it dies. Same with people really! It is a good device although frankly it does tend to be forgotten as the novel progresses.
Of course our young ...
JoePoirot 21.03.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Advantages: fantastic plot that's put together, many characters seemingly unimportant, very dramatic Disadvantages: At first, the language might be hard to read and becomes a chore, perhaps a bit long.
...years. He released Shadow of the Wind in Spanish in 2001, meeting with wide success, selling more than millions of books worldwide. ''' ' The city is a sorceress, you know, Daniel? It gets under your skin and steals your soul without you knowing it....' ''' I was drawn to the book that I saw standing in Waterstone's, the cover looked so mysterious and almost-philosophical that I felt compelled to purchase this. It was a great blind purchase based ... ...Barcelona is still wiping off the dust from the cruelties of the civil war and WW2, a young boy called Daniel Sampere who is a sensitive and thoughtful soul, who is shown by his father 'The Cemetery of Forgotten Books', hidden in the heart of Barcelona. It is a labyrinthine library where they store obscure and forgotten works of authors from not long ago. He is given a gift of one book, any book in the entire place. He is drawn towards a book of ...
Annallon 25.07.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Advantages: Emotional Melodrama Disadvantages: Some very slight mis-translations
"The Shadow of the Wind" was bought for me by a friend for which I am now very grateful as it's not the sort of book I ever would have thought of buying for myself, both from the point of view of the story line that the cover blurb promises but also because it is written by a Spanish writer of whom I'd never heard of before.
Daniel Sempere is a curious 10 year old boy living in Barcelona, who is taken by his father one day to the "Cemetery of Forgotten ... ...book titled "The Shadow of the Wind" by Julian Carax. Daniel reads the book and is so enchanted by what he has read he decides to discover more about the mysterious author. As Daniel grows up and continues his investigation things take a sinister turn as he is pursued by a strange man who is determined to relief Daniel of his prized book. Daniel joins forces with the former beggar Fermin, a man of unlimited resources and together they begin to find ...
etala 25.07.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Advantages: Well written, clever characterisation Disadvantages: Got confused about who was who
...what to make of it. The Shadow of the Wind is one of those books which I think is a slightly acquired taste, and you need to be in the right mood to read it. Perhaps a second read is the key. The story opens with the ten year old boy, Daniel, being shown a great secret by his father. A library of lost books, where the tradition is for new visitors, who only visit on invitation from another, to take a book. They then have a duty to keep it safe and ... ...takes a book, Shadow of the WInd written by a man named Julian Carax. Little does Daniel know, his selection leads him down a path where there is no turning back. His curiousity gets the better of him and he sets about researching Carax, to try and discover why the man's book never sold more than a hundred copies. The story winds through the lives of a number of different characters as Daniel follows the life of Julian Carax. The man's life is seaped ...
Billieuk 29.09.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
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Advantages: Gripping plot, interesting period of history (to me) Disadvantages: Poor characterisation, repetitive writing, assumes in depth knowledge of period
most history lessons focus on World War Two than the Spanish Civil War and, as a result, the author frequently attributes his readership with perhaps a greater knowledge of the period than should be expected. The various references to the political system, the key players, the blockade of Spain by the British and other events would be better explained to make the book more enjoyable to the average reader.
I bought the book because of the suggestion on the cover that if you liked CarlosRuizZafon (Shadow of the Wind) or Sebastian Faulks (I imagine that ?Birdsong? and ?Charlotte Gray? were in mind), then you would enjoy ?Winter In Madrid?. I did enjoy Shadow of the Wind and I am a big fan of Sebastian Faulks, and I did enjoy ?Winter In Madrid?. However, this novel comes nowhere near the works of Zafon or Faulks in terms of writing ...
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