Inbetween Book: The Shadow of the Wind

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind is described in the NYT Book Review as "Gabriel Garcia Matquez meets Umberto Eco's meets Jorge Luis Borges". That is high praise -- those authors set pretty high water marks. But to my mind, The Shadow of the Wind, while enjoyable, does not belong to that class of work. A comparison to Dickens is truer especially considering the eccentric characters, background of civil war and Zafon's vivid descriptions of character and setting. Especially nice is his treatment of the narrow streets and bookstores in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona.

Zafon gives us a look at fascist Spain through the naive eyes of a teenage boy named Daniel and through the stories of other characters who have been on the receiving end of the fascist tyranny in Spain.

It's a book of suspense, dense and mysterious. There are numerous plot twists and two intersecting parallel stories. One story, shrouded in mystery, takes us on a journey through Spain's political landscape of the 40s and 50s as we learn of a brilliant, missing author, Julian Carax, whose books are being systematically destroyed. The other is Daniel's story detailing his coming-of-age, his discovery of the author, Carax, and Daniel's attempts to unravel the details surrounding Carax's disappearance. 

Young Daniel is obsessed and entangled by things that are out of his league. He falls for a woman 10 years his senior and is shattered when he discovers her with a lover. Upon leaving, he shares a bottle of wine with a loquacious, half-crazy homeless man, Fermin, who just happens to be a former secret service man under the old regime. They become fast friends when Fermin decides to help solve the puzzle of Julian Carax. The combination of the naive teen and the bungling, clown-like Fermin is both very funny and troubling as they inadvertently save and destroy lives while trying to satisfy their own curiosity. 

It's an ambitious tale but Zafon makes it work. In the last sections he neatly ties up the loose ends, leaving the reader free to mull over the book's themes.

The first third of The Shadow of the Wind is stunning with vivid descriptions of Gothic Barcelona and a trip to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The middle third of the book is less enjoyable -- a bit of a slog even -- as the story focuses on teenage angst. Once through that, the plot moves faster with plot surprises galore. 

There are a number of interesting themes in the parallel stories and in the characters, and watching the themes gel through the plot twists is fun. The book could have used a bit more editing in that there are a number of repeated ideas and even a few repeated phrases. But it's a good book. I recommend it to those who like who like slow unfolding stories with lots of suspense. 486 pages.