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The complete review's Review:
Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind is an ambitious literary thriller; perhaps too ambitious. Much of it reads like a standard Victorian potboiler, but it's set mainly in Franco Spain [allowing for political under- and over-tones], and there's a strong literary [and bibliophile] cast to it too. The narrator, Daniel, is the son of a Barcelona bookseller, and the novel opens with a marvelous invention: the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It is this world that Daniel is initiated into in 1945, when he is just ten years old:
In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands.
It's a fantastic place, and Ruiz Zafon adds the appropriate twist to get things rolling, as Daniel's father explains to his son:
"According to tradition, the first time someone visits this place, he must choose a book, whichever he wants, and adopt it, making sure that it will never disappear, that it will always stay alive."
Daniel makes his fatal choice, a book called The Shadow of the Wind by a Julián Carax. As it turns out [and how could it be otherwise ?], this is a very special and extremely rare book. As soon as it becomes known that Daniel has a copy he gets several very generous offers for it but he knows his duty to the book. But, as someone has been going around for years collecting and destroying all copies of all of Carax's works, being guardian of the book isn't entirely without danger. Daniel slowly learns the story of the author, who wrote and published several other works in the 1920s and 30s that were published in Paris and then in Barcelona. He: "lead a ghostly existence between his job as a pianist in a variety club and his disastrous career as a remarkably unsuccessful novelist." Most traces of his life seem to have disappeared, but over the course of the novel Daniel manages to uncover quite a bit, learning bits and pieces from some of those who knew him. But for decades the shadowy figure calling himself Laín Coubert a figure in Carax's The Shadow of the Wind [the devil, in fact] has been trying his damnedest to eradicate the remaining traces, and especially the books that were left behind. And Coubert isn't the only sinister figure: there's also or is it the same person ? the novel's arch-villain, an opportunistic sadist who by the early 1950s had risen to chief inspector of the Barcelona Crime Squad, Francisco Javier Fumero, who seems unnaturally obsessed by Carax. Daniel only slowly comes to learn the whole story and only eventually becomes drawn into it completely. Along the way, among other things, he falls in love with a blind woman, Clara [who had also once been captivated by Carax's writing] and rescues another victim of Fumero's, Fermín Romero de Torres, who comes to work in the family bookshop and helps Daniel in his quests. Daniel does get drawn into the Carax-story, which is more mysterious and complex than he could have imagined. The pieces fall into place childhood friendships and humiliations, disappointed and discouraged love, deepest-rooted and long-lingering hatred and anger --, and conflict and confrontation are unavoidable. Several of the characters are unwilling to leave the past dead and buried [literally, in some cases], and Daniel finds himself in the middle of it all. It's a book full of passion and revenge, unrequited love, grave disappointments, and a bit of redemption. Daniel isn't particularly heroic, but he's a sympathetic central figure, not too ambitious and very human in his failings. Fermín is a great and resourceful sidekick, and many of the other characters are well-drawn too. Others are stock characters straight out of Victorian schlock, the purely evil Fumero especially. Straight out of Victorian novels, too, are some of the twists, from most of the love affairs to Laín Coubert's story and quest. Much of this is still good fun [and there's certainly enough suspense], but some of it is also simply a bit much. The heated writing works well in part. There are moments when it achieves its desired effect, as when one arrives at a scene finding:
The white marble was scored with black tears of dampness that looked like blood dripping out of the clefts left by the engraver's chisel.Is it worth it to read Shadow of the Wind?
It's worth it. If you're life is coming to an end and you are thinking of all the books you haven't read yet that you want to read, then that really depends on what else you want to read. Or if you are thinking, “Maybe fantasy isn't my thing after all,” then maybe you shouldn't read it.
Why is Shadow of the Wind so good?
Zafón's eloquent prose and vivid imagination draw us into a narrative tapestry woven with mystery, love, and the inexorable passage of time. At its heart, "The Shadow of the Wind" is a celebration of the written word, a testament to the profound impact literature can have on our lives.
Does The Shadow of the Wind have romance?
In The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Daniel's quest to find the author of a book leads him on a journey of mystery, adventure and romance.
What is the plot twist of The Shadow of the Wind?
Daniel discovers, from the note Nuria Monfort [the wife of the deceased Miquel Molinar] left for him, that Julián and Penélope are actually half-brother and sister; her father had an affair with his mother and Julián was the result.