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The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Start date: October 15, 2014

Finish date: November 1, 2014

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Apr 24, 2009 Aberjhani rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, novels

The Shadow of the Wind and the Power of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Literary Magic

It would be easy to say that The Shadow of the Wind, at its core, is a compelling historical drama that explores the mystery of why someone is making it his business to seek out and destroy the final remaining copies of books by a writer who never achieved much success with them in the first place. But that would be too much of an understatement and far too inaccurate. The story begins when an antiquarian bookseller intr The Shadow of the Wind and the Power of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Literary Magic

It would be easy to say that The Shadow of the Wind, at its core, is a compelling historical drama that explores the mystery of why someone is making it his business to seek out and destroy the final remaining copies of books by a writer who never achieved much success with them in the first place. But that would be too much of an understatement and far too inaccurate. The story begins when an antiquarian bookseller introduces his ten-year-old son, Daniel Sempere, to “The Cemetery of Forgotten Books,” a gargantuan warehouse of seemingly endless shelves of books no longer read and in danger of eternal obscurity. Daniel is allowed to wander through the corridors and choose a book that he must “adopt,” and promise “that it will never disappear, that it will always stay alive.” He chooses The Shadow of the Wind, written by Julián Carax, and with that one choice his life changes forever.

In addition to falling in love with the novel, Daniel also falls in love with the mystery behind the life of the man who wrote it. Far from being the celebrated author that he presumes Carax is, Daniel learns that despite the brilliance of his work and the fact that he published as least three novels, Carax is about as uncelebrated and obscure as a writer can get. Even Daniel’s father, who owns the bookshop where Daniel works with him, knows nothing about the author, despite the fact that he apparently was born in their very own hometown. Daniel’s fascination with Carax seems peculiar because he is only ten when he reads The Shadow of the Wind, described as “a ghostly odyssey in which the protagonist struggled to recover his lost youth, and in which the shadow of a cursed love slowly surfaced to haunt him until his last breath.” But whether the boy’s fascination is weird or not, it develops over the next decade into a full-blown obsession that impacts every aspect of his life, and evolves even beyond that into something more like divine destiny.

The Shadow of the Wind (Zafón’s novel, not Carax’s) is set in mid-1900s Barcelona, Spain, with flashbacks to earlier days and visits to Paris as well. With its sometimes brooding dark skies, rich cultural landscape, and classic architecture, the setting includes elements of the Gothic that serve Zafón’s story well. In fact, from the moment readers walk with Daniel into the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, we enter a labyrinth, which following pages reveal as a major motif and literary technique applied throughout this absorbing masterwork. Daniel’s description of Carax’s novel turns out to be an accurate one of Zafón’s as well: “Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories, as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors, its identity fragmented into endless reflections.”

With each year that passes as Daniel grows from boyhood into adolescence and young adulthood, he collects an assortment of clues about Carax and meets a number of characters worthy of supporting roles in a novel by Charles Dickens or Ralph Ellison. A beautiful blind woman who breaks his heart, a homeless man who becomes his best friend, a corrupt policeman who becomes his worst enemy, and a reclusive author who takes on the identity of one of his own most terrifying characters: these are just a few of the people who come to play definitive roles in his quest to solve the enigma known as Julián Carax. Each has a story that guides the reader into one branch of the novel’s labyrinth even as it leads you into the next. We also begin to see the “endless reflections” hinted at in the above quote as Daniel discovers scenes and developments within his life beginning to mirror those in Carax’s.

Just as characters in a New Millennium novel might do, those in The Shadows of the Wind sometimes debate the prophesized demise of literature due to the development of technology. In contemporary times, educators and parents debate the popular tendency to access information via the Internet rather than acquire knowledge via the study of books; in the era of Daniel Sempere and Julián Carax, those who took their daily instructions for living from the printed word questioned the impact of such innovations as the radio, movies, and television. When Daniel asks his friend Fermỉn whether he likes the cinema, he describes it as, “…a way of feeding the mindless and making them even more stupid. …The cinema began as an invention for entertaining the illiterate masses. Fifty years on, it’s much the same.” Then he experiences a silver-screen epiphany in the form of Hollywood bombshell Carole Lombard and gains a deeper, albeit mostly erotic, appreciation for what he calls “the seventh art.” It makes you wonder what Fermỉn might have to say in this day and age when so many classics of literature, in addition to the ultra-modern graphic novel, have been successfully adapted to film.

If this novel truly is a triumph of the storyteller’s art as many have described it, then it is also one of the literary translator’s art. The original Spanish edition, titled La Sombra del Viento, came out in 2001, and translator Lucia Grave’s English version was published in 2004. Since then, Zafón’s work in general has been translated into more than forty languages and The Shadow of the Wind in particular has sold 12 million copies plus around the globe. One has to give props to the translators because, experts or not, it had to prove considerably challenging to capture the finer nuances of the author’s style, the subtleties of his humor, and the quiet brilliance of his universality.

by Aberjhani
author of The Bridge of Silver Wings 2009
and ELEMENTAL The Power of Illuminated Love

...more

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Aug 11, 2008 Joe Mossa rated it it was amazing

wow, those spanish guys can write. they are romanitic to the max power,love ,mystery,suspense,violence,tenderness,humor. it is all there,,memorable characters, explicit descriptions, castles, tunnels, - like HARRY POTTER only 100 times better, like INDIANA JONES only 100 times smarter, like LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA..like no other writing. my all time favorite is richard russo s BRIDGE OF SIGHS but they are so different that it wouldn t be fair to compare the two.

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Oct 25, 2009 Cooper rated it did not like it

Starts off brilliantly -- vivid story about the mystery of a forgotten novel and a young man's journey to find it's author. Unfortunately, 1/3 of the way through the book, the author's voice takes a 180, and not for the better. Instead of an interesting tale of a mysterious book, it turns into a predictable telenovela. Too long and too many unnecessary scenes. The story changed from 'what's next' to 'who cares.' ...more

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Sep 14, 2009 Robert rated it it was amazing

Shelves: want-to-re-read

I really thought this book was exceptional. I felt that it touched memories and thoughts in a particularly resonant way. I don't know that the style and the elements of dream-like fantasy interspersed with reality will work for every reader, but it certainly worked for me.

I found several quotes that really articulated my own feelings on the given issue. The following really touched on the manner in which a significant adult can impact a child's life. Here, the character of Julian Carax is speak ...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Barbara rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

This was basically melodrama though a bit better written than most in that genre. I am giving it 3 stars because I am reviewing the audiobook and it was a great production. The narrator is Jonathan Davis and he does an excellent job with the character's voices and the Spanish pronounciations. I also liked the historical setting during Franco's fascist rule in Spain. The book itself would probably get 2 stars. ...more

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