Beautifully written, but not without its flaws

books:

	• The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafón Penguin (Non-Classics), 2005 - 487 pages average customer review:based on 517 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

La Sombra del Viento

I finished The Shadow of the Wind the very same day that Spain's government got around to officially condemning General Francisco Franco's fascist dictatorship (1936-1975). If you're wondering why it took over three decades after Franco's death for the Spanish Parliament to blacklist this blackheart, this wonderfully melancholic and overwrought novel will help you understand.

The wounds from Spain's Civil War run deep in Carlos Ruiz Zafón's novel. There are ample plot synopses on the hundreds of other reader reviews here, so I'll just add that in addition to its colorful cast of characters (notably the utterly villainous Fumero) and its tales of murder and madness, this is a very funny book. Time after time I found myself chuckling at an amusing (translated!) turn of phrase, or at something the irrepressible Fermín had done.

So while the real-life Spanish continue their searches for mass graves from Franco's regime, give yourself over to Zafon's novel. It requires periodic suspension of disbelief, but it's for a good cause: Poignant sighs and good reading. Highly recommended.

See also: Any Arturo Perez-Reverte novel (e.g., Captain Alatriste ), or the exceptional film Pan's Labyrinth.

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The Shadow of the Wind

Excellent book, great writing and wonderful story. Hopefully, more of Zafon's books will be translated to English.

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Masterful Storytelling

The Shadow of the Wind is a spellbinding tale set in Post Civil War Spain. The characters are mysterious and the language is beautiful. I could not put this book down. It is unfortunate that more of this author's works are not translated into English.

Beautifully written, but not without its flaws

After reading The Shadow of the Wind, I was left with somewhat mixed feelings. On the one hand, this is such a beautifully written book, and is in essence an ode to literature. On the other hand, there are some serious flaws which distracts from the whole experience.

The best thing about the book, in my opinion, is Zafon's skill in artistic writing. It reminds me of why I love to read in the first place, and makes me wish I could write as beautiful as this. The book contains lots of memorable quotes as well, definitely a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

So after about 50 pages in, I was ready to love this book as I seldom loved another book before. But as the story progressed, that resolution started to diminish slowly but surely. Ironically, one the more obvious flaws is Zafon's overuse of stylistic writing. It seems like everyone acts or talks in a very elaborate manner, even in the simplest of situations, and this can really become tiresome after a while.

The plot also isn't as ingenious as the hype would make you believe. Zafon does a good job creating a sense of mystery early on, and there are obvious parallels between the main character Daniel Sempere, and Julian Carax, the writer whose past he is trying to uncover. But ultimately, the stories of Daniel and Julian are seperate ones, and they just happen to interconnect with one another more by chance than by design.

By far the most troublesome flaw is the way the mysteries are "resolved". All too often, answers are given by having some side character or another tell his or her story for pages. Nowhere is this more evident than at the end of the book, where literally every single detail is revealed in the form of a (very) long letter, even details which the writer of the letter never could have known, since she wasn't even involved in those events. It's as if Zafon did not have a clue or the motivation to write a logical conclusion, and decided to just dump all the information in one place.

With a bit more attention to actual plot and character development, this could have been one of my favourite books. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed reading the Shadow of the Wind. It's just a shame that it falls some way short of its potential.

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Fantastic - Must Read

My Mother in Law gave me this book to read and I was hesitant to start it as there was no back cover description. I took it away on vacation with me and I was totally spellbound from the begining. This book is beautiful and when I finished it left me with the loveliest high. Great story... you must read it.

reviews: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, page 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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