The Shadow of the Wind

After finishing Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind I began reading Dan Simmons’ almost 800 page behemoth Drood. And I can tell you that I didn’t expect to be on page 675 by the time I got around to reviewing The Shadow of the Wind. But here we are . . .

Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind (translated from the original Spanish novel) opens in 1945 Barcelona, shortly after the end of the Spanish Civil War. Ten-year-old Daniel Sempere is brought by his widower father to the mysterious Cemetary of Forgotten Books. Once there, Daniel is instructed to select one book that will be his forever, and he is charged with keeping the book safe. As luck would have it, Daniel selects a book called The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. He reads the book that night, falls in love with it and immediately seeks out other books by the author (a boy after my own heart). However, in his pursuit to find other works he discovers that someone else has also been searching for Carax books, but this person is burning every copy. In fact, Daniel may have the last surviving copy of any novel by the author.

The story fast-forwards several years when Daniel begins his quest into the mysterious life of Carax. Along with his new friend Fermin (a formerly homeless man now working at Daniel's father’s book shop) Daniel begins searching for clues to understand who destroyed Carax’s books and why Carax himself was murdered during the war. He soon meets with various characters involved in Carax’s life and begins unraveling a web of long lost secrets. What he discovers puts himself and everyone in his life in danger as he is thrust into a tale of love, murder and tragedy.

I loved almost everything about this novel (and it’s a good thing since I already picked up another of Zafon’s novels at a Border’s going out of business shopping spree. Although in truth it was more of a spree for Mrs. as I only ended up with I think three books). It was an incredible read filled with plot twists and surprises. Zafon creates a colorful cast of characters including the generous and good hearted Fermin, the evil inspector Fumero, and of course the tragic author Julian. And how can you not love a book centered on a mystery involving books? I especially liked the way that Daniel’s life paralleled Julian’s own story, with Daniel’s young love affair mirroring Julian’s own ill-fated romance, and the contrasting relationships they have with their respective fathers.

As with even the best books I read, there were a couple of things I would critique in this book. The first was that there were a few characters, especially earlier in the story, that I thought would play a larger role, but instead they just sort of fade away. I’ll include a spoiler alert in my second point. It’s harder to explain and probably only makes sense in my strange mind, but I wanted the book to be less “real”. What I mean is that I was looking forward to a surprise reveal involving (since the book was about a fictional author) either Daniel turning out to be a character himself in a Carax novel, or Carax being all a part of Daniel’s imagination. Instead the plot was a little more straightforward, which worked, but it still left me thinking what could have been done with a little more creativity. I know, I’m weird.

Anyway, as with any good book there are too many side stories, characters, and detail to describe everything in this review, so I’ll just end by saying that I highly recommend checking out The Shadow of the Wind. And if you still have a Borders open near you it will probably be heavily discounted.

Next Up: Drood by Dan Simmons