The Shadow of the Wind (2001)

I read The Shadow of the Wind for book club last month, and I was on a tight deadline to get it read before the meeting (I finished it with just minutes to spare). It was my own fault. I spent a few days reading slowly through the first hundred pages wondering what made this book so special that everyone I knew who had read it was recommending it to me. When I finally got past those first hundred pages (the morning of book club) I was hooked on the story and hardly put the book down until I had finished it.

This book required a little more time and attention than popular fiction, mainly because it is the sort of mystery in which tiny details are given throughout, and most of them play an important part in piecing everything together by the end of the book.

When I say that it's a mystery, I don't mean it in the traditional "whodunit" sense of the word. The mystery is not just about solving a murder, but about reconstructing the story of a life. This book is a complex tale composed of stories within stories. Throughout the book the reader finds out bits and pieces of the mystery of Julian Carax; who he was and how his life affected those around him. Those facts are not always given in sequence, however, and so there is a lot for the reader to speculate on and guess at while reading.

The Shadow of the Wind is full of surprises, and the characters (most of them completely fascinating) are not always who they seem to be. Although one character, Fumero, is consistent throughout. He is truly one of the most vile and despicable villains I have encountered in literature.

When this book was recommended to me I had been told I would love it because I love books. While this is true, I would also recommend this story to anyone who likes a good complex mystery, is interested in what life was like after the Spanish civil war, enjoys good historical fiction, or is interested in reading a finely crafted story.

If you liked this book then you may also enjoy Stone's Fall by Iain Pears. It does not have a storyline about books or book stores, but it does contain an equally intriguing and well-written mystery.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon has also published a prequel to The Shadow of the Wind titled The Angel's Game. ( )

This book has brought a lot of people great joy and pleasure, but these reviews are a personal opinion and to me this is just a series of endless cliches, mostly ripped from World Cinema of the eighties and nineties.

For example: Young man spying on older girl he's in love with only to find she's doing it with a bully who at some point in the future will beat him up/attempt to kill him and so on. And there are many, many more, all painfully predictable.

I could go on but I feel bad enough ripping on something that so many people have enjoyed. Me, I threw the thing away about half way through when I found myself rolling my eyes too often. ( )

This book has brought a lot of people great joy and pleasure, but these reviews are a personal opinion and to me this is just a series of endless cliches, mostly ripped from World Cinema of the eighties and nineties.

For example: Young man spying on older girl he's in love with only to find she's doing it with a bully who at some point in the future will beat him up/attempt to kill him and so on. And there are many, many more, all painfully predictable.

I could go on but I feel bad enough ripping on something that so many people have enjoyed. Me, I threw the thing away about half way through when I found myself rolling my eyes too often. ( )

This book... this book! I don't even know where to start. It came out of nowhere and swept me away right from page one.

I have typed out several variations of a paragraph trying to describe how amazing and heartbreaking this book was, but none of them did it justice. It's one part love story, one part mystery, with dashes of horror and modern fantasy. And it's amazing. Read it. ( )

In The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafón interweaves the threads of different stories into an intricate pattern forming the whole of the novel. Several plots are running side by side or one within the other, but they are all well balanced and the story gowes smoothly despite all.

The story revolving around Daniel Sempere and his search for traces of the writer Julián Carax is set in Barcelona. It starts in summer 1945. His father, the owner of a little bookshop, takes the ten-year-old to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a secret place in the old town to which only the initiated have access. There the boy is allowed to take one book from the shelves under the condition that he promises to be its guardian for the rest of his life. He picks a volume with a handsome binding that shows the name Julián Carax and the title The Shadow of the Wind inscribed on its cover. Of course, Daniel begins to read the book as soon as he is back at home in his room above the bookshop. The novel engrosses the boy and he spends the whole night reading it until the end. Then he searches for other books of the writer, but only encounters mystery because Julián Carax and his books seem to have disappeared without trace. After his initial enthusiasm Daniel slowly forgets about the book.

Years later a mysterious man smelling of burnt paper is after Daniel and claims the book from him. This is the starting point of a new quest that reveals the tragic history of Julián Carax, his love and his writings. Daniel is drawn dangerously deep into the life of the author, but along the way he grows up, makes friends with a former political prisoner of the Franco regime and meets his love Bea.

For the full review please visit my blog at http://edith-lagraziana.blogspot.co.at/2013/04/the-shadow-of-wind-by-carlos-ruiz... ( )