Zafón, Carols Ruiz: The Shadow of the Wind
The Shadow of the Wind (2001)
Written by: Carlos Ruiz Zafrón
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 487 (Trade Paperback)
I first heard about this book on Pat's Fantasy Hot List, and I was intrigued because on the surface, The Shadow of the Wind looks like a mainstream novel, and since Pat's website is mostly devoted to fantasy, I figured there must be a fantasy element, most likely magical realism. That opinion was reinforced by a few other fantasy reviewers out there, so I decided I'd plunk this title on a wish list and wait. Thankfully, michaelmay got it for me for my birthday. And when I told digitalclone about the book, she decided we should read it as our challenge read for the month of January. So read it we have.
The premise: ganked from BN.com: In the postwar calm of 1945 Barcelona, ten-year-old Daniel Sempere awakes from a nightmare and, to his horror, realizes that he can no longer remember the face of his deceased mother. In an effort to divert his son's attention from this sharply felt fear and loss, his father, a rare-book dealer, first swears Daniel to secrecy, then takes him to a clandestine library where Daniel is allowed to select a single book.
Entranced, Daniel picks a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, written by the enigmatic Julián Carax, who is rumored to have fled Spain under murky circumstances, and later died. As Daniel begins to search for other works by his favorite new author, he discovers that they have all been destroyed--torched by a mysterious stranger obsessed with obliterating Carax's literary legacy from the face of the earth.
Though Daniel's copy of Carax's novel is the last in existence, he's unwilling to part with it at any price and dedicates himself to revealing the truth about Carax. Aided in his quest by the good-humored Fermín Romero de Torres, a former beggar whose "difficult life-lessons" enable him to keep a step ahead of trouble, Daniel begins to uncover a tale of murder, madness, and secrets that might best be forgotten. And as he wends his way through Barcelona society, both high and low, he comes to realize that his own part in The Shadow of the Wind is more than that of a mere reader.
Review style: spoilers to be found, because part of what charms me about this book lies in those very spoilers, and I want to talk about those spoilers in comparison to my expectations. So, if spoilers bother you, just jump to the "My Rating" section of the review.
Expectations were pretty high for this one. I wanted a gorgeous read and a lovely dose of magical realism. As the tale grew on, I wanted young Daniel to be the illegitimate son of Julián Carax and his beloved Penelope.
So let's talk about how those expectations were and were not met:
The prose is easy to get lost in. It's nicely written, but not compelling in such a way that made it difficult for me to put the book down, nor was I chomping at the bit to pick the book back up again. Another thing that interrupted the flow of the prose--and this may be in part due to the translation--is the fact that I kept expecting more of a Dickensian setting, rather than the 1950s one we received. Every time I read something about a car or a motion picture, I was jarred out of the story, because the voice feels so much older than that. Perhaps this is due to the fact that this is not an American author and therefore not an American style: perhaps this Dickensian style is common in Zafón's country, perhaps it's modern. And that's fine. I did enjoy it, but because I'm used to seeing the style in more historical settings, I was sometimes jarred out of the narrative.
Now, magical realism. I'm not the expert I'd like to be. I shamefully admit I have not yet read anything by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, nor have I read anything by Jorge Luis Borges, who Zafón has been compared to. Yet I'm no stranger to magical realism, and I really, truly loved Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate. I've got a good friend who dabbles in the genre as well. So I know it when I see it.
Save for the opening, with the awe-inspiring Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and then the maid's backstory with her visions of angel and its prophecy of her life, I never felt this book to be imbued with the magical realism that I'd expected from it. Maybe that's my fault for assuming (because there was assumption on my part), or maybe the magical realism is far more subtle and it just never registered on my radar. At any rate, the lack in this book led to a bit of disappointment, simply because I wanted something I never got. Part of the blame rests with me, so I don't fault the book in that regard, but still: there was some disappointment.
The real joy of this book, for me, was the mystery. I loved seeing how past and present connected, I loved how the story was peeled back layer for layer, giving us more and more to ponder over as we turned the pages. I awoke one Saturday morning convinced that Daniel Sempare the illegitimate son of Julián Carax and Penelope. Convinced! I was wrong. :) This is one expectation that in the end, didn't really affect my enjoyment of the novel, especially given that Daniel became the son of Julián's heart, if not soul. But what I really loved was the duality of past and present, of how history began to repeat itself. Julián's story came close to becoming Daniel's, though Julián's story was such that Daniel's story would never follow it word for word, but there was enough parallel that bonded these two despite their differences.
And let me make something clear: I love books where the present reflects the past. Where history repeats itself. I loved it dearly in Tana French's In the Woods, and I enjoyed the hell out of it here. Over and over, Daniel was told that he reminded people of Julián, and it was obvious that Daniel was falling into the same kind of tragic love story with Bea that Julián did with Penelope. Is it any wonder I thought Daniel was Julián's son?
And I'll be honest: due to the heaps of praise this book received, I kept reading forward, enjoying the book well enough, but wondering when the big epic bombshell was going to be dropped, when I was going to be knocked off my feet. And when it did happen, I raised my eyebrows and said, "Ah, there it is. Here's where the story's going to kick into high gear."
That truth? that Julián and Penelope were half-brother/sister, and that the child of their union, had it survived, would've most likely been in sad, sorry shape. More important was that Julián was still alive, living under the fictional guise of Laín Coubert, and seriously disfigured at that. The fact that Laín was really Julián was a surprise I figured out early on, before the book distracted me with Jorge Aldaya. But all along I wondered if Julián might be alive, and if so, who in the present day might he be?
At any rate, once the bombshell was revealed, the book started moving quite nicely: we finally got the full backstory of how all the people and pieces related to each other, we learned of everyone's motivations (that Julián would want to destroy his own work is not surprising at all), and we finally get to see how everything culminates in the end. I will admit I didn't care for Daniel's revelation that he would die, because it made me question the narrative itself, and it also prepared me for some kind of trick, like maybe Daniel Sempere would die, but he'd live under a new name? That sort of thing.
The end, though, I find more satisfying. I was discussing the book with digitalclone, and she explained how she couldn't stand Daniel due to his cowardice. Sure, his standing by while Fermín was beaten was understandable, and I don't know of anyone who wouldn't do the same in that situation, but Daniel's handling of Bea's family was, well, cowardly. For my part, I was pretty ambivalent toward Daniel. Certainly, the supporting cast far outshone him, and to be honest, I kind of didn't care one way or the other about Daniel. It's the risk of having a narrator who's more of an observer than a participant in the story. Just look at The Great Gatsby: EVERYONE in that book was more interesting than the narrator, but it was the narrator whose head we were stuck in. That said, Daniel was interesting enough, but I didn't feel one way or the other in terms of wanting him to succeed. I was more interested in seeing how the whole story would come together.
And it surprised me. I mean, it really surprised me. A happy ending I did not see coming. Sure, Daniel finally finds his courage and takes a bullet for Carax, thereby saving the wayward author, and miraculously, Daniel survives. What follows is a rather The Return of the King-esque (film) ending where we keep thinking we've read the final chapter of the book, only to turn the page and find another which we think is the end, only to turn the page and find another, and . . . you get the idea. But it was the ending, the way everything tied up after all, that made me decide I'd read Zafón's next book once it's released in trade, The Angel's Game. And that's a pretty powerful thing.
As far as nitpickery goes, I found myself often confused by the names. There were many important characters with the letter "F," and it got a little overwhelming. I also questioned 1) why it was so important that Daniel was so obsessed with Clara (save for the fact that his beating lead him to Fermin, who became a delightful character in the book), and 2) when Daniel needed to see and talk to Bea, why couldn't he visit the family under the premise of seeing Tómas? I guess Daniel just wasn't that clever, because if he'd had my mind, he would've seen that avenue as a very obvious one.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: I've heard very, very high praise about this book, so I'm afraid my expectations were a little TOO high. No doubt, there are some delightful and truly memorable characters in this book, and the mystery and the plots (and layers upon layers of subplots), were certainly delightful to read and discover. I also was completely blindsighted and charmed by the ending of the book, so much so that I've already put the Zafón's second novel, The Angel's Game, on my "must buy" list. Certainly, the writing is lovely, and it'll wrap you up into the world with ease, though I did find myself jarred from the text, as the prose made me think of a much older period, and my brain kept resisting the time in which the book was set. Also, while I enjoyed the book, I never had felt the chomping-at-the-bit feeling of wanting to get back to it. Certainly, it's a good, solid read, and worth it to anyone who enjoys fiction, but I think my expectations worked against me, as well as the book, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I might have if I hadn't had said expectations. Still, there's true beauty in these pages, and the book is worth checking out.
Cover Commentary: I rather like the cover I ended up with: the open book that leads into a pencil-drawn city of the past, with a man walking right into the pages. It's quite lovely and charming, and the font placement is rather perfect too.
Next up: Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews