2023 EDIT: Well, it's been a good run - over ten years(!) - but 'The Shadow of the Wind' can no longer be classified as one of my absolute favourite books of all time. I've been very picky, and removing and culling my old books from shelves lately, but the way I see it, if I don't completely love something anymore, if I have no inclination to reread it, or if I think it is too problematic, or I just hate its sequels, then I must part from it. I'm giving away books I won't miss.
Read below for my past thoughts; now some of the love is gone, but oh well.
RIP Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
Final Score: 4/5
2020 EDIT: Upon rereading, 'The Shadow of the Wind' is still a rich and powerful book. Clever, intricate, and mesmerizing, but maybe not as magical as I remember...? It is certainly more horrifying than I remember.
Yes, it is sexist, and sometimes it is hard to tell whether this is just the author reflecting the times of this historical novel - times when women suffered egregiously at the hands of the patriarchy and systematic misogyny, and those are presented clearly as bad things - or if it is his genuine views he's expressing, unconsciously or not. At least a lot of the men aren't portrayed any more positively than a lot of the women. The rich men, at any rate - the men of high society and who are heads of a family business empire - are monsters, who rape and murder simply because they can get away with it. They are the villains, who receive their comeuppance eventually. We wish we could live in that kind of reality.
I had also forgotten that there is a little LBGTQ representation in the book, in the form of Federico Flavia Pujades, the watchmaker who is secretly a drag queen. But the portrayal isn't all that sympathetic, unsurprisingly. Federico is a good and helpful man, though a minor character.
I'm happy to say that I can still enjoy 'The Shadow of the Wind' without being reminded of its horrible sequels. I can pretend that they never happened. 'The Shadow of the Wind' is still a favourite, although I don't think I have a favourite favourite book, not at the moment.
I hope this isn't a result of my getting older, and wearier, and thereby losing my reading spirit. Stay tuned!
Final Score: 4.5/5
Original Review:
Before knowing of this novel's existence in 2012, I was staying with my aunt and uncle. My aunt loves books: she owns shelves and shelves of them. She recommended to me 'The Shadow of the Wind'. It was shortlisted by Richard and Judy's book club for the British Book awards in 2005. After I'd looked up the glowing reviews it had on Goodreads, I decided to give it a go. I started to read it once I got back home to my dad.
It is my most recent philosophy that all aunts are fairy godmothers. And by this event alone I can prove that theory. I thank my aunt with all my heart and soul for lending me this book, as I most likely would never have even glanced at it in a bookshop if it was not for her. I can clearly see why she wanted me to try it.
Currently, 'The Shadow of the Wind' is my favourite book of all time.
From the very first page, the very first passage, I was spellbound. I had to keep reading. I mean, it begins with the protagonist Daniel, as a child, being taken by his father to a secret and forbidden library called the "Cemetery of Forgotten Books", where he is allowed to take just one book from the mountainous, labyrinthine shelves. He picks one titled 'The Shadow of the Wind' by Julian Carax, and it changes his life as he reads through it all in one night. That same night he had feared he was forgetting his deceased mother's face. Who can resist an opening like that?
Set in the city of Barcelona in the 1940s-50s, 'The Shadow of the Wind' is a lyrical prosaic dream of a novel written by newly-treasured master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I also have Lucia Graves to thank for the translation.
Even though I am a fantasy reader by nature, I see true fantastical elements in this book by the way it is written, and by how it just seems to really get a human being's love and need for books. Here is an author who understands the mysterious power that good leafy pages possess and how they draw in avid readers. This is a book for book lovers, much like 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak. It even gets an added bonus for showing the passion in writing with a special pen.
'The Shadow of the Wind' has loads and loads of characters in it, and each one of them is memorable, interesting and complex. Throughout the book, Daniel grows up and discovers more about the mysterious life of Julian Carax, and he meets each of these various people (the ones that are alive anyway), who're involved one way or another in the mystery.
This book's structure and writing is like a crystal maze: so many twists and reflections to its story aspects as you keep on reading. Of course it's not just the mystery that's its only merit. It also has enough depth to be called a coming-of-age tale - about Daniel and his love for one great book that hardly anyone knows exists (a book within a book?!), and yet shadowy figures want it. They will gain possession of it by any means, and Daniel soon finds himself in real danger over a piece of fiction.
'The Shadow of the Wind' is so good that I don't even mind the sexism in it. Women are referred to as the weaker sex in dialogue. A lot of female characters end up falling victim to men's desires and violent frustrations; understatement: these are not pleasant at all. And there's a line of dialogue on page 94 of my copy (or my aunt's, truth be told) where Carax's former caretaker, Dona Aurora, says that sometimes a man should beat his wife "to get her to respect him". But I just put that down as the language of the time-set this book is written in, and hope that it's not something the author actually believes. And there are three-dimensional women here, whose true identities are gradually revealed, and who help Julian and then Daniel one way or another (Julian and Daniel's stories are told in parallel to each other). The female characters have (or had) lives that are as fascinating as the male characters'.
So many lives and subplots, so much mystery - all contained in one book set in the maze-like city of Gothic Barcelona after the second world war, polished to perfection. Another thing it shares in common with 'The Book Thief' is its re-readability.
Learning from past generations, the love of reading, friendship, family, the upside and downside to romantic love, and human desperation and madness - these are only a handful of the key themes present in 'The Shadow of the Wind'. I honestly can't remember reading another book that had me going "That's just right" on practically every page. Even the climax is brilliant and thematic and got me in that mindset; along with a heart overflowing with emotion.
I have never known writing to be this rich and powerful. Words are powerful, words are beautiful, and this 400 page piece of literature fully convinced me of that. Not joking, this book is so good it's scary.
It's a scary kind of magical. I'm sad that it's not quite as popular or well-known as other bestsellers. This needs more attention, that's for sure.
Pure, edge-of-your-seat awesomeness, 'The Shadow of the Wind' is a larger-than-life rarity of a novel. Again, Auntie Janet, you have my full gratitude for lending me this, and for letting me share in such an experience.
Final Score: 5/5, though scores are meaningless in this case. Just give 'The Shadow of the Wind' a go.
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