Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12036 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

RAYMOND CARR, SPECTATOR
"a complex and absorbing detective novel... It is a tribute to Ruiz Zafon's skills as a Hollywood scriptwriter that he can create stunning set-pieces and bring to live a host of eccentric figures."

Review
"If you thought the gothic novel died with the 19th century, this will change your mind... in Zafon's hands, every scene seems to come from an early Orson Wells movie... one gorgeous read." (STEPHEN KING )

For the first time in 20 years or so as a book reviewer, I am tempted to dust off the old superlatives and even to employ some particularly vulgar cliches from the repetoire of publishers' blurbs. My colleagues may be shocked, but I don't care, I can't help myself, here goes. The Shadow of the Wind is a triumph of the storyteller's art. I couldn't put it down. Enchanting, hilarious and heartbreaking, this book will change your life." (DAILY TELEGRAPH )

"Zafon's book is tremendously enjoyable... his story is impressively well-rounded. Humour, horror, politics and romance are skilfully deployed and.. the overall effect is hugely satisfying. Zafon, a former screenwriter, is particularly good at contrast and pacing: the book's 400 pages whip past with incredible speed." (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

' what makes this novel so irresistibly readable is the emotional energy generated by the ups and downs of a big and varied cast of memorable characters.... His conviction of the importance of literature in real life comes shining through... Walk down any street in Zafon's Barcelona and you'll glimpse the shades of the past and the secrets of the present, inscribed alike in the city's material fabric and the lives of its citizens." (Michael Kerrigan GUARDIAN )

Gripping and instantly atmospheric, this literary mystery opens in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a maze-like library of obscure tomes hidden away in Barcelona's Old City, where the hero, Daniel, is taken as a boy...But he little realises the evil which it will unleash and the devastating impact it will have on his life." (MAIL ON SUNDAY YOU MAGAZINE )

'For the bibliophiles there can be few more enticing-sounding places than the 'Cemetery of Forgotten Books'...'The Shadow of the Wind' has been a publishing phenomenon in Spain and throughout Europe... Combining all the best elements of crime fiction with an investigation of the power of literature to shape our lives and imaginations, it is one of the most original and compelling stories of the past decade." (NICK RENNISON WATERSTONES QUARTERLY )

"a potent mix: a coming-of-age story set in Barcelona's post-war years, an edge of fantasy, a tragic love story, and a labyrinth of mystery." (Ben Page THE BOOKSELLER. )

"Zafon makes sure there's a robust serving of amor, and enough magic, murder and madness to keep even the most reluctant reader engrossed. Diabolically good." (ELLE MAGAZINE )

"everything about The Shadow of the Wind is smooth. The language purrs along, while the plot twists and unravels with a languid grace... Zafon's novel is atmospheric, beguiling and thoroughly readable." (OBSERVER )

"Set in the author's native Barcelona in the years after the Spanish Civil War, this gripping novel has the feel of a gothic ghost story, complete with crumbling, ivy-covered mansions, gargoyles and dank prison cells.... this is just the sort of literary mystery that would have found favour with Wilkie Collins." (DAILY MAIL )

Good old-fashioned narrative is back in fashion... his tale [has] a dramatic tension that so many contemporary novels today seem to lack. This is highly-sophisticated, fun reading that keeps you gripped and tests the brain cells all at the same time. What more could you ask for?" (THE SCOTSMAN )

"This epic novel spent two years on the Spanish bestseller list. It's easy to see why.... Zafon is planning to write another three books around the same theme , and if they keep the pulse pumping and the pages turning as reliably as this fantastic piece of fiction, he will have a publishing phenomenon on his hands." (SUNDAY HERALD )

"The translation by Lucia Graves is excellent, mixing formality with poetry, so the rambling prose occasionally sparkles with lovely phrases... The twists of the story which fold in on itself again and again like complicated origami, eventually reveal a simple shape. Love and deception are at the heart of the literary mystery - aren't they always?" (SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY )

"This is such a racy, enthralling tale that it is easy to see why it spent two years on the bestseller list when it was first published in Spanish and Catalan... clever and expertly told... an extremely good read." (THE HERALD )

"The book is written by someone witty and knowing enough to spoof himself while still being able to raise the hairs on the back of your neck... Carlos Ruiz Zafon's zest is infectious... He swathes his story with atmospherics... Barcelona becomes a place of doors opening into dark interiors of the mind... Behind all this is a fierce satirical energy against the tyrants and philistines of history... A game it may be, but somewhere in the shadows are the Caprichos of Goya." (THE ECONOMIST (US AND UK EDITION) )

"Imagine a 19th-century novel deconstructed to its tiniest atom and rebuilt again using what we could call "narrative technologies" evolved during the 20th century." (southbank magazine )

"Zafon takes readers on an obsessive journey into a dark world, revealing the stories behind one boy's curiosity and the strange, brutal truth that comes with it." (Good Book Guide, named as Editor's Choice )

'Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Umberto Eco meets Jorge Luis Borges...Ruiz Zafon gives us a panoply of alluring and savage personages and stories. His novel eddies in currents of passion, revenge and mysteries whose layers peel away onion-like yet persist in growing back... we are taken on a wild ride that executes its hairpin bends with breathtaking lurches." (NEW YORK TIMES )

"wondrous...ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero." (ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY )

"A rousing adventure that reads as if Jorge Borges were writing in the mode of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose." (US ELLE MAGAZINE )

"If you love AS Byatt's Possession, Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude... Eco's The Name of the Rose... or Paul Auster's New York trilogy... then you will love The Shadow of the Wind... Anyone who enjoys novels that are scary, erotic, touching, tragic and thrilling should rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up The Shadow of the Wind." (THE WASHINGTON POST )

"Set in post-war Barcelona, Zafon's tightly plotted thriller is sharp, sexy, gothic (perhaps even a little ghoulish), powerfully atmospheric, often funny and utterly unputdownable... The Shadow of the Wind is more than a book about a book - it's an inspired homage to the book, a celebration of writing, and an exhortation to read." (THE AUSTRALIAN )

"The Shadow of the Wind will keep you up nights-and it'll be time well spent. Absolutely marvellous." *starred review* (KIRKUS REVIEWS. )

"this book had me in its grip. It ought to be in yours." (THE WORD )

Chosen as best recent book to take on holiday: "Carlos Ruiz Zafon's wonderfully chock-a-block novel The Shadow of the Wind starts with the search for a mysterious author in Barcelona in the aftermath of the Civil War and then packs in as many plots and characters as it does genres - Gothic melodrama, coming-of-age story, historical thriller and more. It is a deeply satisfying, rich, full read." (Michael Prodger Deputy Literary Editor, Sunday Telegraph )

Chosen as best recent book to take on holiday: "If you want to be totally gripped, I would recommend The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, a superior thriller set in Franco's Spain. It revolves around the sinister disappearance of a novelist just as he embarks on a passionate love affair. Written with exuberance and humour, it's strong on atmosphere and consistently suspenseful." (Miriam Gross Literary Editor, Sunday Telegraph )

"One of those rare novels that combine brilliant plotting with sublime writing. It's about Barcelona again, and word of mouth alone is sure to make it a bestseller." Chosen as a "big read to make your holiday a success". (JAMES DAUNT SUNDAY TIMES )

"The Shadow of the Wind is at heart an old-fashioned adventure yearn, thoroughly marinated in gothic romanticism." (ADAM LIVELY SUNDAY TIMES )

"a complex and absorbing detective novel... It is a tribute to Ruiz Zafon's skills as a Hollywood scriptwriter that he can create stunning set-pieces and bring to live a host of eccentric figures." (RAYMOND CARR SPECTATOR )

Sunday Telegraph
‘Tremendously enjoyable... his story is impressively well-rounded'

Customer Reviews

Classic fantasy of censorship
This is an engrossing work; within the first chapter or two you understand why it has become such a popular novel. It's 1945, it's Barcelona, the Civil War has been lost and Franco's Fascists are firmly in control ... though feeling insecure, because Hitler's Fascism is crumbling and Mussolini's has already been dismantled. A bookseller takes his young son, Daniel, on an adventure ... a visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, there to choose one forgotten work and treasure it.

Thus begins the child's fascination with the author of "The Shadow of the Wind", one Julian Carax. The child grows, determined to discover who was this mysterious Carax, why did he flee Barcelona, and why is some mysterious stranger determined to destroy all copies of his books and all trace of his life.

The destruction of an artist's life and works is a potent exploration of censorship and the ability of Franco's followers to fictionalise history. Carlos Ruiz Zafon has life imitating art: Daniel's life seems to parallel Carax's! Is this a case of not learning from history? One of the characters remarks that true evil requires thought and reason, but that most people who do evil are too stupid to intellectualise their behaviour: they act simplistically out of corrupted emotions ... fear, anger, jealousy, guilt, greed.

Fascism, we see, took a hold because not enough people were prepared to act to stop it. Fascism will return if people are too lazy to think, to value, to question. History can repeat itself unless people learn.

But Fascism - which tries to impose a rigid structure on the State and its people - creates intense loneliness. People live in fear of exposure, of seizure by the secret police because they dare to think differently. Daniel's is the loneliness of fear, but it's also the loneliness of teenage love - lusty, erotic, but ultimately fragile and insecure. As a teenager, how do you know you are in love? You weave your dreams and hopes, but lack the experience to compare, to know for sure. You barely understand desire, let alone love. As a teenager, history never repeats itself, because you simply don't yet have enough emotional history!

Haunted, pursued by the mysterious leather-faced man who is out to destroy Carax's work, Daniel is haunted by the women he desires, is haunted by the need to construct a sexual and emotional self beyond the boundaries of childhood. Freedom, here, is hardly political freedom, but rather escape from emotional and sexual censorship. As Daniel strides out into the world, we watch his friendships and family dissolve around him. He has to build adult relationships now, not childish ones.

This is a book which works on so many levels. The focus is primarily on the fantasy world Daniel creates, the fantasy, shadowy world of resistance to Fascism, to censorship and mind control. It is fantasy until it runs smack into reality, the reality of a mature world. Suddenly, we have a murder mystery on our hands. We have political intrigue. We have eroticism.

"The Shadow of the Wind" is an extraordinarily well-written novel. It moves at a gentle, cerebral pace - you barely notice you are on a rollercoaster ride through fantasy. Yet it is a wonderful evocation of Barcelona - not the city of tourist brochure and sunshine, but a dark, mysterious city, lived in by real people enduring real fear and oppression. The fantasy is merely a dark cloak - once you begin to peer under it you feel this is a vivid insight into the subconscious of Spain.

It is a wholly absorbing, and highly unusual, mystery which will engross you. If I have one criticism, I felt the last quarter of the novel is comparatively weak. The ending can appear a little hasty and contrived. Having created a fantasy, turned it into a dark mystery and eroticised the romance, the ending could have been better played and plotted. But overall, a lovely, thoroughly enjoyable novel which will engage you on a number of levels and leave your mind stimulated.

"Welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books"
Ten year Daniel Sempere is brought by his father to a mystery book depository underneath the streets of Barcelona. Here all books are protected from being forgotten or destroyed. His father asks him to choose one book, and swear to protect it for the rest of his life. He picks up a copy of an unknown book by an unknown writer. He loves the book, and his curiosity leads him to investigate the mysterious life of the author. As he does so, he is drawn into a story of murder, betrayal, passion and revenge.

The Shadow of the Wind is an exciting and imaginative gothic thriller, set immediately after the Spanish Civil War, and written in the style of a children's adventure story. The narrative is fast and physical. The characters are colourful or grotesque. The intricate plot spans three generations. Some well defined themes run through the book: the power of literature, secret worlds, repression and injustice, and the conflict between duty to a family versus passionate impulses. However, the characters are a bit too baroque to be emotionally engaging. Some of the writing is very good, but I thought it fell short of its potential. In particular, I felt Zafon pulled away from giving the book the dark ending it deserves, and the final twists rely upon a rather dishonest deception on the part of the author. A fun adventure with some memorable moments, but which may leave you feeling a little flat.

The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
"I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day."

The Shadow of the Wind is a novel about books; about the love of books and of stories, (and is far more accessible than Eco's The Name of the Rose). It is absolutely full of stories itself, with not a single character without one. Not all, of course, are told. For this is the story of Daniel Sempere, a young Spanish boy, growing up in Barcelona just after the end of the Civil War.

One day, ten-year-old is taken by his father, a bookseller, to the "Cemetery Of Forgotten Books", a hidden library where forgotten titles are lovingly preserved on a labyrinth of shelves. Daniel is told that he must keep this place a secret, but that he's allowed to take one book - any book - from the shelves, and protect it for life. He selects "The Shadow of the Wind" by Julian Carax. That night he reads the book and is spellbound from the first page.

Daniel then vows to seek out the rest of Carax's titles, but none can be found. Carax himself also remains a mystery. No one knows anything much about him, save for rumours that he disappeared following a duel in Paris's Pere Lachaise cemetery. Carax's only legacy is a mysterious figure who haunts the streets of Barcelona, who has been tracking down every last one of Carax's novels in order to burn them. Why would anyone want to remove all trace of the author's work? The mysterious man approaches Daniel, who refuses to give him the copy of The Shadow of the Wind - which he then hides back in the Cemetery of Forgotten books. As Daniel grows up he begins to investigate the history of Julian Carax, to discover the truth of his life and death. It's a quest that will bring him, and his friends, into grave danger.

It's a marvellous book, a wonderful, wonderful experience. It resonates with the love of books and of literature. It's also a very hard novel to pin down - it has elements of absolutely everything, a historical adventure story, a crime novel, hints of the supernatural, as well as a very tense thriller and an enchanting love story. It's superb, and every page a joy. There's magic, here, on every page. It's indefinable, but in lies in such lines as this: "He hardly slept, he explained, and would set himself up in the sitting room on a folding bed lent to him by his neighbour, Monsieur Darcieu - an old conjuror who read young ladies' palms in exchange for a kiss."

You can tell from even a brief synopsis that this is just a special, unique novel. It's full of mystery, and enchanting characters. The descriptions are wonderful, lush and delicious - although the author does tend to toss similes around like loose change, and they don't always correspond to one another. The language may also be too flamboyant for some, but in actual fact it just highlights where this novel springs from: a love of words and language. It's incredibly vivid (possibly due to the author's obsessions with colours), and pulses with life. Lucia Graves, the translator (very aptly, the daughter of Robert Graves), has done a very good job indeed. As something is always "lost in translation", this novel must be even better in the original Spanish, which I think probably has a lot more synonyms for "poison" and "poisonous" than does English, so many times do those two words crop up.

It's all excellent. As you can see, it's not flawless, but it is just a pure pleasure to read, to be immersed in a story which itself sings the joys of stories. It also says something rather interesting about stories themselves: we the lives of Daniel and Julian mirror each other eerily across decades we get a sense that every story repeats itself in history at some time or another. Threads dance and connect them both across the years. Joy and misery (there's quite a great deal of lost love and loneliness, this novel being also a plea against both those things) spiral through the whole thing, and the end is wonderfully satisfying. I absolutely loved this book, as you can tell. Right now, I think the best novels around are coming out of Europe: the works of Henning Mankell, Donna Leon, Jose Carlos Somoza, Arnaldur Indridason, and Karin Fossum, for example. And Ruiz Zafon is now another name to add to that list.

It's not a book without humour and wit, either, and there are some brilliant one-liners. A visit to a brothel is described thus: "A lineup of ladies with their virtue for rent - and a lot of mileage on the clock - greeted us with smiles that would only have excited a student of dentistry."