Helpful Score: 1
The first time I heard about The Shadow of the Wind was on BBC World Book Club and it intrigued me immediately. The idea of a book stirring up such trouble and a terrible mystery in the middle of it proved irresistible so imagine my surprise when I discovered the book already waiting its turn on my bookshelf. Not sure when I got it, or where, but I was glad to see it there nonetheless.
The story gripped me from the very first pages, which was easy to do with evocative writing and characters depicted so well that they seemed to be real people trapped in the pages of the novel. They were far from perfect, riddled with weaknesses in fact, but that only made their strengths stand out that much more. The same goes for the setting - the world Zafon created, or portrayed, isn't pretty. There is pain and horror at every turn, some of the things that happened made me wonder why hasn't anyone stopped the perpetrators, why the terrible things were allowed to continue. But that's life, I suppose, and I applaud the author for giving them a place in this story and in this way providing a contrast for the decency and kindness.
There are parts of the book that might create an impression that supernatural forces are at play but I was pleased to discover that all events had a very reasonable explanation and were firmly grounded in facts and people's actions. If they weren't it really would've been too much - in Zafon's post-war Barcelona even things that had a perfectly reasonable explanation seemed fantastical at times.
My favorite thing about this novel was how everything and everyone seemed to be connected, down to the most seemingly insignificant detail. All the threads of the tangled knot that is the mystery of Julián Carax and his life eventually were revealed to be part of one whole and discovering the connections was simply exhilarating. The runner-up favorite thing was seeing the parallels and similarities between Daniel and Julián and their lives. It really seemed as though Daniel was always meant to be the one to find out the truth and everything and everyone simply waited for him to be ready to do it.
I enjoyed this novel from the first till the last page and even the few inconsistencies that seemed to jump out at me didn't spoil it. It was easy to see that some things were done for dramatic effect, and one element of the mystery was obvious to me since I've seen quite a bit of it in Latin American telenovelas, but all that was generously compensated for when the identity of the person who was destroying Carax's books was revealed. If it was anyone else I probably would've felt cheated so I'll forgive the author the little shortcomings and will recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a good mystery, great writing, unique characters and above all a book that's difficult to put down.
The story gripped me from the very first pages, which was easy to do with evocative writing and characters depicted so well that they seemed to be real people trapped in the pages of the novel. They were far from perfect, riddled with weaknesses in fact, but that only made their strengths stand out that much more. The same goes for the setting - the world Zafon created, or portrayed, isn't pretty. There is pain and horror at every turn, some of the things that happened made me wonder why hasn't anyone stopped the perpetrators, why the terrible things were allowed to continue. But that's life, I suppose, and I applaud the author for giving them a place in this story and in this way providing a contrast for the decency and kindness.
There are parts of the book that might create an impression that supernatural forces are at play but I was pleased to discover that all events had a very reasonable explanation and were firmly grounded in facts and people's actions. If they weren't it really would've been too much - in Zafon's post-war Barcelona even things that had a perfectly reasonable explanation seemed fantastical at times.
My favorite thing about this novel was how everything and everyone seemed to be connected, down to the most seemingly insignificant detail. All the threads of the tangled knot that is the mystery of Julián Carax and his life eventually were revealed to be part of one whole and discovering the connections was simply exhilarating. The runner-up favorite thing was seeing the parallels and similarities between Daniel and Julián and their lives. It really seemed as though Daniel was always meant to be the one to find out the truth and everything and everyone simply waited for him to be ready to do it.
I enjoyed this novel from the first till the last page and even the few inconsistencies that seemed to jump out at me didn't spoil it. It was easy to see that some things were done for dramatic effect, and one element of the mystery was obvious to me since I've seen quite a bit of it in Latin American telenovelas, but all that was generously compensated for when the identity of the person who was destroying Carax's books was revealed. If it was anyone else I probably would've felt cheated so I'll forgive the author the little shortcomings and will recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a good mystery, great writing, unique characters and above all a book that's difficult to put down.
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