Content warning: sexual assault.
No.
What in the seven circles of Barcelona was that?
Throughout reading 'The Labyrinth of the Spirits', the most-anticipated, final book of the brilliant, breathtaking 'The Cemetery of Forgotten Books' series, I was intrigued by the characters, but mostly I was bored by the slow pacing and quite frankly mundane events stringing along a rather dull mystery plot.
I tried to care, I really did, but maybe it had been too long since I'd read the previous book in the series, 'The Prisoner of Heaven'. Or, tragically, had the magic lost its spark? Had the enchanting writing gone and run its course? Yeah, even the writing wasn't that engaging and masterful (helped by the usually fantastic translation job). It was just "okay".
However, I trudged on, on the quest to care, and near the end of 'The Labyrinth of the Spirits', it did start to pick up for me. More time is spent with the old, familiar characters, and the spirit of 'The Shadow of the Wind' was rising once again. Things were looking up, and paying off.
But then, at about eighty pages left of the book, something truly horrendous and unforgivable happens. Committed by the main character of these books no less. It comes right out of nowhere and is forgotten just as quickly. The shock of it was like a whiplash to the brain and soul; a smack in the face to all who had read and loved the previous books. In the narration it is a small but evil act that I will not let pass, nor allow to be excused, no matter how little the author thinks of it.
What is the event that killed the book for me?
Spoiler ahead:
Final content warning: sexual assault.
Daniel tries to rape Bea. Right out of the blue, he pushes her on the bed, forcibly undresses her, and assaults her, all through her protests. She actually has to dig her nails into his back in order to push him off her with all of her strength. Let me reiterate: The main character, whom you are supposed to care for, sympathize with and follow, to see him achieve his goal of a happy life, attempts to rape his wife. Oh sure, he's been left traumatized by a revelation about his deceased mother, Isabella - a revelation that anyone who has read 'The Angel's Game' would have figured out, and yet this book, after 700 pages of "buildup", treats it like it's the plot twist of the century. Uh, no. It's painfully obvious to anyone who knows anything about stories and tropes. Why did you have to go down that predicable, fanfiction-y path, Zafón? It doesn't even mean anything in the end.
But anyway, Daniel is sad and the ever-patient and understanding Bea is right there and he gets... frustrated, I guess, to put it extremely lightly. Frustrated at life? At women? Is it meant to show him giving in to his base, animal instincts, after a human truth dealt him a blow? His way of taking his shock - that turns his world upside down and changes his perspective - out on someone whom he "loves" most? Who knows and who gives a shit: nothing excuses rape. Nothing. Even factoring in the book's time period being set before marital rape was considered a thing, and therefore not illegal. It is still a fucking awful, evil and out-of-character moment for Daniel.
Oh, but don't expect there to be any consequences for his actions, oh no. Bea is angry at him... for two pages, and then they have consensual sex, after which she talks about having a second child with him. The attempted rape is never mentioned again.
WHAT. THE. HEAVENLY. FUCK!?
The same day her husband sexually assaulted her she wants to have more of his babies! And Bea is usually an intelligent, down-to-earth character who is very much involved in Daniel's tumultuous life. He doesn't even apologise to her; he thinks about it, but doesn't actually say anything to her, because talking to women, specifically your supposedly-beloved significant other, is so hard, yo. So much easier to just rape them.
Don't worry, they'll forgive you and let it slide. And you don't have to say anything or do anything to earn that forgiveness.
Daniel doesn't need to carry on with his plan of revenge and murder in order to become a monster. He had already shown his true colours beforehand. As a repressed misogynist.
I am so fucking sick of seeing attempted rapists being excused and even lauded as heroes in fiction. And in real life. Fuck that shit. It's 2018 - we desperately need to do better.
Daniel Sempere is dead to me. As is this series and its highly questionable attitude towards women.
Spoiler end.
Even without that Moral Event Horizon moment near the end, which would have caused me to rage-quit if I didn't force myself to persevere the last hundred pages of this 800-page bore, other things annoyed me about 'The Labyrinth of the Spirits'.
Like the leading lady, a new character named Alicia Gris, a gothic callback to the femme fatale in film noir. Alicia is a great detective struggling through a painful hip, inflicted when she was a child in the second world war. I liked her - a not-big but still remarkable improvement on the series' female representation, in that she does save herself from men from time to time, and she has a real, complex personality: a wide array of feelings, flaws, and a determination to see justice done, regardless of anything else. Except that every single male in the book is in love with her, or is infatuated with her, or is at least enticed by her mysterious, gothic, red lipstick air. This leads to every single female in the book to absolutely despise her. Like, serious hatred.
*sigh*. Historical fiction or not, I'm sick of seeing this normalization of Victorian gender dynamics (men are base creatures (heterosexual, of course) who are unable to keep it in their pants, internalized misogyny, etc.) in YA books, so adult books such as this have no excuse.
Not helping matters is Alicia deliberately encouraging these men's arousal upon laying eyes on her; sometimes for favours, sometimes because she's just lonely. She seems to kiss guys at random. I'm not slut shaming her, I'm only disappointed because it hinders her image as a strong independent adult woman, who braved hell and back to get where she is.
Good political commentary aside - as in, rich and powerful men are the worst; the true plague on human society - I was still fairly bored with 'The Labyrinth of the Spirits'. For such a long novel, it's infuriatingly anti-climatic, not that the mystery element was ever that exciting to begin with. Too many characters, too many over-describing of places - sometimes even of places we've already been introduced to - and the new, less interesting characters are spotlighted at the expense of old characters. Fermin is still a laugh, though, when he does show up.
Yet another disappointing read this year. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of being disappointed by hyped books. I'm sick of being disappointed by sequels to my favourite books. 2018 truly is the year of disappointments. The year of "Who gives a fuck anymore?"
Frack 2018.
We have to do better. We have to. We must we must we must.
With that, I'm out. Hope you have a better day than me.
Final Score: 2/5
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