#1492. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon is the first of four novels in a series called The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The book was originally written in Spanish and was translated by Lucia Graves. The book was originally published in 2001 and the translation appeared three years later. At some time before the creation of our blog in 2009, I read two of those books, and I remember being enthralled with the plots as well as the rich language. I think I must have read the second book first (The Angel’s Game) which is actually a prequel and then The Shadow of the Wind, but that was long enough ago that I’m not sure. The books are really for bibliophiles who fall in love with their books as does the protagonist, Daniel Sempere. In the first book, Daniel is admitted by his father (a book shop owner) to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in the heart of Barcelona, but it is a secret library that only a few know about. It is the charge of each patron of the library to choose one book which he will keep secret and hold dear to his soul. Daniel’s book was written by Julian Carax, but nearly all of his books have been destroyed and Daniel strikes out on a quest to discover who would do such a thing to the author he has come to love.

 

I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this read although I slowed down from my usual reading pace just to revel in the richness of the words. There was a great cast of characters who I quickly learned to care about. However, the story did grow rather convoluted and long, so I was ready for it to end by the time the author brought the reader to that point. A murder mystery is wrapped into the story, and it’s a love story. Finally, it is a great travel book about Barcelona. I am tempted to return to visit the second book, but at the moment, my reading queue is much too long.

 

West Coast Don

 

The Angel’s Game: Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I know that EC Don and I both read and reviewed Zafon’s earlier book, his first, “Spirit of the Wind.” If you liked Zafon’s prior work, you’ll like this. It is not the typical man-book we read, but it is an excellent murder mystery. Like his other book, this book takes place in Spain, this one being in Barcelona in the early 20^th century, ending in 1930 with an epilogue in 1945. This book is written in the first person, as if the author is writing an autobiography, and he pulls that off with style. A lot of the story is about the agony and ecstasy of being a writer which is his occupation in the book. He re-visits the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (a subtheme in “Spirit of the Wind”), but that is really a minor theme in this story. Before telling you about the story, let me quote the first paragraph that should capture any bibliophile who has also earned a money and/or honor from the effort to write, as the coastal Dons have done in their respective genres:

“A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on, he is doomed and his soul has a price.”

Or here’s another quote as the main character, David Martin, tells his apprentice, the 17-year-old Isabella about the task of being a writer:

“Natural talent is like an athlete’s strength. You can be born with more or less ability, but nobody can become an athlete just because he or she was born tall, or strong, or fast. What makes the athlete, or the artist, is the work, the vocation, and the technique. The intelligence you are born with is just ammunition. To achieve something with it you need to transform your mind into a high-precision weapon.”

Martin gets a bit metaphysical when he tells Isabella, “All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being.”

A final passage I won’t quote, because it is too long, but it is a eulogy written for an old book seller, Senor Sempere, an important figure to Martin throughout his life. Like the rest of the book, the eulogy is written with unmistakable love, and it is no accident that Zafon chose a bookseller for this important role. There will be a time when I’m asked to give a eulogy, and I hope it will be possible to quote or paraphrase some of Zafon’s beautiful words.

The story has to do with the coming of age of a young writer, and eventually, once his skills mature, his attempts to write a book for which he has been commissioned by an elusive and mysterious man, Senor Carelli. Martin finds it a difficult chore to write a mystical work that did not spring from his own mind. Some moral and most amoral characters are woven in and out of the story as Martin goes about his effort. The language used is more flowery than most of the novels we read and write about. I thought there were times when the dialogue got a bit boggy, but not too much. I enjoyed this one – a good change of pace and it is worth your time to read this one.

WC Don

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I’m not quite sure what I just read. I ordered the book from the library based on a praiseworthy review somewhere and thought it worth a chance. The book turned out to be around 550 pages; a bit longer than I’m used to. Only author I like that holds my attention for that long is Robert McCammon (who has a new title coming out in October, Mr. Slaughter – stay tuned). Most books I read are about a story, a mystery, a mission.

This was about the life of Daniel Martin and about books, set in Barcelona just after some Spanish war in the pre WWI years. Daniel’s father comes home a changed man and his mother takes off leaving Daniel and father to struggle on their own. When Daniel was 14, his father was gunned down by street thugs, who we find out later was the original target and the guilt of the original target permeates the story. Daniel seeks shelter in the hidden recesses of a Barcelona daily newspaper. One writer (of some substantial means) takes Daniel under his wing as a private sort of go-fer. As Daniel grows up, his mentor suggests to the editor that the boy has some writing talent and deserves some space. He is given the back page of the Sunday edition to write fantasy tales of Barcelona’s dark side that become a hit with the public. The editor puts Daniel in touch with some shady publishers who get him to continue writing similar books under a pen name, on a 10-yr exclusive contract.

Flush with money from the books success, Daniel rents a vacant Tower House where he can look ever the city, feel its tales, and squeeze the stories out of his brain. A benefactor writes Daniel offering him an obscene amount of money to write a book that will change the hearts and minds of all who read it. At first he is hesitant, but takes the job anyway. His only contact with the benefactor is by letters and the occasional meeting filled with philosophical give and take.

Meanwhile, his mentor at the newspaper has decided to marry a much younger woman who grew up with Daniel and is the only woman Daniel really cares for. In addition, he becomes close to a bookseller and through the bookseller, he takes on a female apprentice writer to be his assistant who moves in with him. She continually challenges him when he veers of the noble path of a writer of stories.

We follow Daniel as he struggles with the book, the love-hate relationship with his apprentice, his longing for his lost love, and the mysterious benefactor. As he continues to progress on the book, he begins to descend slowly into a madness surrounding the history of the Tower House. Its previous owner was a lawyer who was involved with shady dealings and disreputable people.

One evening, Daniel is bemoaning his contract with the publisher during a visit with his benefactor who promises that the contract will be settled to Daniel’s liking. The next day, the 2 publishers are burned to death and Michael is the prime suspect of a detective and his 2 muscle-bound partners each itching to beat a confession out of Daniel.

As Daniel’s slowly encroaching madness becomes more engrossing, the bodies start to pile up, but none are due to his hand. He wonders if all the deaths are somehow related to his benefactor. We begin to wonder if he hasn’t made a deal with the devil.

Out of the blue, his childhood sweetheart contacts him saying she will leave her husband so she and Daniel can run off to Paris. But she is gone when he comes back from buying train tickets and he tracks her to a sanitarium where she has been admitted where he helps nurse her back to some semblance of normality, at least until she walks off on the lake ice, falls in, and drowns under his vain attempts to break the ice and save her.

The police get back into the picture, pressing him on the woman’s disappearance, but after significant interrogation and threats and circumstances, Daniel ends up killing all 3 cops, then runs out on Barcelona never to return.

Maybe 10 years later, (he is now around 40), His benefactor shows up (not having aged a day) where Daniel is living in a beach hut on the coast of somewhere, bringing a young child, a child who turns out be that love of his life returned to him now as the child he grew up with for him to raise, to love, to marry, to care for, until she dies of old age. But Michael will not age.

See what I mean? What did I just read? There must be some overarching theme of lost love found again, making deals with the devil, supernatural mystery, or what else all intertwined in an elaborate Gothic tale. Shifting time and characters through time add to the allure of the story. An interesting sidelight, but a critical story item, is a place called "The Cemetery of Forgotten Books" where Daniel finds a book that offers interesting and bizarre details of the mystical book he is writing, of the previous owner of the house, and so much more I can't even recall.

Other reviews say this story relates aspects of Spanish history, but I’ll have to take their word for that. I will say that the writing was outstanding despite the dozens of speaking parts, the complexity of interconnected plots, and it held my interest all the way through, despite it’s length. This is an eloquently written book that should capture the imagination of anyone who decides to make the effort to escape today and fully visualize 1900’s Barcelona and all levels of its society. Looking for something different in the way of a story? This is certainly different, and definetly worth a try. But when you are done, tell me what you read. I’d be curious.

East Coast Don

WC Don offers a favorite line occasionally. Here is one I kind of liked: Envy is the religion of the mediocre. That sort of philosophical pedagogy surfaces all over the book, especially when the benefactor and Michael are dueling.