The Shadow of the Wind

That book was a ride...

I did not anticipate how dark it would go, and believe me, I am not easily made to clutch my pearls.
It was mysterious, and gripping, and quite morbid.
Great writing style and atmosphere.

3.5

5 stars! This book is wonderful. I loved every single character (especially Fermin) and I thought the villain was great at making me hate him. The romance was less interesting to me because it's written from the perspective of a teenage boy and seeing as I have never been a teenage boy I found it hard to relate to Daniel's feelings sometimes

Got kinda sad in the middle there but I liked the ending. Had a little suspicion about the MC and I was right ☺️ but everything else was a punch to my feels.

3.25
I really had to think about this book because I enjoyed the act of reading it but the story was not that impressive and mind-blowing. It was rather predictable for me and while I don't usually mind that, it does get a bit tiring if it's quite clear how this story ends when you aren't even halfway through the book. Some characters are great and I enjoyed reading about those but the main characters... some things they said... hm.

And the writing was okay-ish great? It was easy to read and I enjoyed it most of the time but it felt so forced in the beginning. Maybe I just needed to get used to it but it felt like the narrator and the characters just inserted some ‘quotes' about life into some casual conversation about random things. To me it felt so out of place..

I am glad I've finally read this but I'm slightly disappointed.

I really enjoyed reading this intricately woven tale set in mid-20th century Spain. I loved the first half... I found the narrator quite relatable and the writing - impeccable. But somewhere down the middle of the book, I felt a little drained out by the tales woven within and it's the only reason why I couldn't rate this book a 5.

The ending was nice and satisfactory.

This was overwritten for my taste. I put it down a few times. The prose is pretty, but I tired of it by the end of the book. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood. But it typically doesn't take me a week to finish a book of this type.

4 stars. This book was intricately written and beautiful to read, although I also have a feeling that perhaps the translations don't do the original text justice. The pacing was just about right for most of the book, except when it slowed down somewhat around the halfway mark. The ending was satisfying and felt proportionate to the thrill of the rest of the book.

Ultimately, this book was juicy and soap-opera-ish following in the traditions of Spanish predecessors like The Count of Monte Cristo. It uses its pretext of being a book about books pretty well and it's not just some gimmick that only serves as a hook, but I also kinda wish that that theme was more intricately bound to the central plot and mystery. Nevertheless though, it was overall thoroughly entertaining and I spent at least one night unable to stop reading because I just had to find out what was going to happen next.

Daniel made a pretty good protagonist. We first begin following him when he's an innocent 10 year old boy, and follow him through some embarrassing and cringey pre-pubescent years. He develops his first crush and though the way he sets about it is undoubtedly cringey as you might expect of a character that age, there's also something sympathetic about the way Zafron writes him - I certainly commiserated with Daniel as much as I rolled my eyes at his adolescent antics.

Perhaps my favourite character in the book is Fermin, a boisterous former beggar who has more personality than his skeletal frame might hint at. One of the most memorable parts of the book for me is when he compared men to lightbulbs and women to heating irons in terms of how quickly these two genders are sexually aroused. Or perhaps this gem:

“That woman is a volcano on the point of eruption, with a libido of igneous magma yet the heart of an angel.”

I don't know how accurately this has been translated but I'm just here for it.

If you like book about books, or just want a thoroughly engaging and exciting historical mystery with juicy drama, this book is absolutely for you.

Le pondría un 4.5 de 5
A pesar que se me hizo un poco obvio desde el inicio el que iba a suceder, el viaje valió la pena. Una maravilla de libro, los personajes, la ambientación y sobre todo la narrativa están muy bien logradas. Me intriga saber de qué son las otras entregas

Absolutely loved it. It has a bit of everything: humor, love, mystery, history, and a thriller. And while I didn't want it to end, the ending was extremely satisfying and jumps ahead years to show you where the characters end up. I loved that.

This book was long-winded and not worth the time invested reading it. I'm not sure if that can be attributed to the fact that it was translated or to the gothic romance style the author was trying to emulate. And while I understand that the language and themes were meant to match the place and time period, it was just so glaringly obvious on every page that this was written by a man. There were several instances of rape/molestation, countless slurs, domestic abuse, and romanticized incest. Lining it up, it reads like the search engine of a porn site.
There were multiple plot points that were brought in that went nowhere. The whole concept of the cemetery of books was the most interesting part and it had only a minor role in the story. I would have thought it would be more important seeing as how the whole series is named after it. The first portion of the book was dedicated to this Clara character who's sole purpose was to make the main character have a first crush? For what?
I guessed at most of the ending. The only part that threw me was the incest. I was worried that Daniel's life was mirroring Julián's too much to where Bea would be his sister too. Also, why didn't they explain The significance of Tess of the d'Ubervilles to Bea. That's one of the worst stories on the planet... if that was the book I found in the labyrinth, I would be pissed. Overall, meh.

As a book reader, I was suprised that I never heard of this author. By chance one of my bookclub had this book for the book of the month and decided to read it. I wasn't sure when I started reading this book if I was going to like it, it started really slow but all of a sudden I couldn't stop reading it! Beautifully written, just the right amount of mystery, suspense and love. I truly enjoyed reading this book. It will be in my to read more than once list.

3.5 stars

Cross posted at : http://valiewrites.com/2021/02/28/opinion-the-shadow-of-the-wind-carlos-ruiz-zafon/

Ok. I think enough time has passed for me to talk about The Shadow Of The Wind without going on a rant since, oh boy, can I rant about this one. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.

I first heard about this book in 2020 from Bookstagram and piping hyped. When I finally got my hands on it early January this year. It was magic! If you haven't read it yet, go check it out here on Goodreads. It has a whopping 4.27 stars out of 448k ratings. That should be good, right? Even Petrik gave it 5 stars how bad could it be, right?!

So, I was extremely excited to read this book. And I will not lie the first 5% of the book was magical. I don't know if it was the excitement or the concept, but I loved it. Then it stopped. Saying it has a slow beginning is an understatement. It doesn't pick up the pace like 60% of the book and by then I lost my interest in the story, its characters and my will to read; or, you know, live. It's that dry. I had to hoodwink myself into reading this, so I don't fall into a slump right at the beginning of the year. In the Shadow of the Wind, Zafon writes about love, loss, grief, and regret, but his efforts to reflect all these deep human emotions to the reader (I mean me) fall flat. Or this particular reader has a cold dead heart I don't know.

The plot isn't as ingenious and masterful as the hype around the book made me believe. I was expecting this great mystery in a gorgeous setting with many interesting characters, but even Barcelona is dull. That is an achievement, I believe. The starting point is not bad, not really, it had me hooked at first for sure. It is just wasted. Zafon tries to create this dual storylines that interconnect, but things usually happen by chance rather than intention. It has so many antique tropes it hurts the eyes while rolling them. Love of your life at first sight, check. A villain just to be a villain, check. Supersperm, check. Sexism, check. I felt like dnf'ing the Shadow of the Wind so many times but I didn't hope things will turn around and after all that, to explain everything, came the long letter. A letter that occupied the last 20% if I'm not mistaken. It is as if Zafon was tired of trying to establish a convincing explanation and decided to tie the loose ends by telling everything straightforward.

Of all these tropes, I have to pay special attention on sexism. Oh, the sexism in the Shadow Of The Wind. I'm not someone who complains about slight things and steps away from the book and the author. My discrimination condemn bar is not so sensitive, but this book is something else. Zafon does not write women particularly successfully, does he? There isn't one three dimensional female character in this book and they are not even shadows they are just there for sexuality and sexuality alone. I don't think he's been around women all that plenty or otherwise how is this possible. I'm speechless.

I really feel terrible about this, because I feel like I've missed out on something and I'm not fully appreciating this book. Although it is a beautifully written book, the content feels bloated. I'm actually sad to think like this, but it is how I feel in the end. And the sad part is with a bit more care to actual plot and character development, this could have been one of my favorites of the year. Yet, here we are. Maybe in time I can try Carlos Ruiz Zafon's other works, but for now I'll put away my giant disappointment and move on.

2.5 Stars

2020
Eleven-year-old Daniel Sempere one day wakes up in the middle of the night and finds out he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his grief and desperation, his father, an antiquarian book dealer, takes him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, ‘a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again'. The chosen book will have a special meaning for the chooser. The boy selects a book named The Shadow of the Wind, by one Júlian Carax.
Sempere's son, so in love with the novel that he read in one sit, starts a quest for the rest of Carax's works. That is when he discovers that his volume is the last one, as someone is destroying this author's books.
Needing to find the truth about what is really happening, we as readers are drowned into Barcelona's darkest stories, magic and doomed loves (and lovers) as we follow Daniel's trajectory to protect the ones he truly cares.
That not-so-good (= crap) synopsis above summaries the back cover of one of my favourite books of all time. One that I have read every year since 2014.
And every time I try to explain my unconditional love for the The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, I fail so miserably that I turn my long (and bitchy) face and just answer “Deal with it”, instead.
Written in first-person, Daniel is our main character and a coward hero. A young boy in the need of discovering himself (in the needing of discover himself) - as a grown man and a not just a boy who found a book by a cursed author - while trying to figure out why something so unimaginable happened in his life.
The Carax Quest is followed closed-eye by Fermín, an undernourished sharp-tongued man that will work at Sempere and son's bookshop (after an uncharacteristic beginning). He is our main author surrogate, setting the reader in Barcelona's after 1945 war scenario.
Every clue that leads to Julian history is persecuted (like in those old cop movies that you need false identities to get some information from) and most of the background is presented by reports of those who lived with the writer during the past, and sometimes, letters.
Those flashbacks are probably my favourite chapters, once, in an almost movie-like sensation, the reader is guided through the fogged film that divvies the present with the fragile past.
The idea of Barcelona being filled with cursed writers, the amount of mystic and dark scenarios, pasts and shadowed and broken lives that the city did not forgive, gives the prose a suspended fear sensation, involving the reader in every word.
The writing is absolutely beautiful and poetic - a prose so well written that sometimes, you lost yourself for words - and draw you into this complex plot that slowly unfolds before you.
I amazedly enjoyed this book, but I wouldn't say it was the best book ever - as in I have not read all books in my TBR pile that are claimed to be epic yet.
It is not a perfect book.
The problem lies with the middle. Where it is obvious that Chekhov's gun technique has been forgotten for the well-being of the poetic prose, the long prose can sometimes be a bit too long, losing its objective to the main cause of the plot.
Moreover, some decisions took by Zafon during the storyline - such as the loss of some friendship, some Daniel's behaviour, especially regarding his father, who loves him the most and are just the two of them, some unpredictable lovers - are totally against my believes and judgments, wrapping me to think that an alternative cause of action was possible.
Nevertheless (she persisted LOL), I still in love with that book. I truly enjoy the parallels between Julian and Daniel, that the intertwined relationship and all correlations between past and present, brings a lot of richness and unexpected similarities with the crossed timeline; however, resulting in s different course of action that any foreshadowing suggestion could possibly bring it on. Even knowing by heart the big ending (and the breath and speechless life plot twist), the story still holding my attention tight, as the first time I read it. And everything started with s book.
As I said before, it is not a perfect book. Nor is the utmost favourite one. However, it is the first book that pops up in my mind at any moment I think of a story that lifts me from the ground. Ever reread, unnoticed things display in the universe, becoming even more entertained. It is not a light and easy-going read. Instead, I highly recommend that lecture.
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2016 - O goodreads acaba de colocar que demorei 2 anos para ler esse livro rindo litros
Mas deixemos assim.
Acho que gosto do Daniel por ele ser um herói covarde, por assim dizer. Gosto da história, não apenas pelo lirismo da escrita, mas por tudo ser intrincado e ter conexão quando você menos espera.
Tenho que parar de rasgar seda por esse livro. Fim

2014/2015 - É simplesmente fantástico. Umas das melhores leituras deste século (e do próximo e do outro e do seguinte...).
Já li a Sombra do vento três vezes e a cada leitura, é como se o livro se abrisse em uma nova história, com novos detalhes, sem perder o brilho da escrita romantizada e bem pensada de Zafón. É fabulosa a forma como ele descreve uma Barcelona tão sombria, triste e enfadada a uma sepultura cinza, em algo mágico e quase perfeito pra qualquer um viver...
A riqueza das personagens, que, embora não tenhamos muita idéia de como seja Daniel (a imagem do menino bem apessoado, no meu caso, formo-se melhor depois de ler o Jogo do Anjo e o Prisioneiro do Céu - embora ambos tenham deixado-me perturbada por algum tempo - pois traz uma melhor descrição de personagens como o Sr. Sempere e até mesmo o David Martim).
O mistério sempre se renova mesmo sabendo do grande desfecho, que, na minha opinião, fora um dos melhores que já vi em minha curta trajetória literária.

Bom, recomendo imensamente este livro a qualquer um. Não é uma leitura fácil a princípio, mas... o livro como um todo vale a pena cada palavra lida.

Engaging story and characters you care about. Great read!

Hermosa novela.

I almost quit this book several times. It is very dark, and depressing. In places it has some beautiful writing in others it rambles on. I really did not find myself connecting to any of the characters. There are so many characters who behave horribly I just didn't like them.

Daniel is a young man, brought to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books by his father. While there he finds a book called The Shadow of the Wind written by Julian Carax. He devours the book and is intent on finding more books by this author.

During his search he finds there are mysterious circumstances surrounding this author and his books. So begins Daniel's journey into the life and mystery of Julian Carax. One wonders did he find the book? Or was the book waiting there for him?

I absolutely loved this book. The writing is amazing and the imagery it created had me drawn in and lost. The gothic & historical aspect was something I was pleasantly surprised with. Even though the book started off slow, the second half of the book more than makes up for it. The life, story, and mystery of Julian Carax is one that will stick with me for a while.

So Good!

There were so many twists and turns in this book that kept me interested the entire time. Written so beautifully, too.

Lots of characters and lots of story. Maybe too much. The book is well written and takes you to cool places all around Barcelona, with interesting collisions with real Spanish history, but overall, the book is too long and the story loses steam along the way because of it.

More like a 3.5

Story : Umm... Idk, I really wasn't into it. The story is about Daniel, a boy who wants to know hiw favorite author... and it's just so loooong! It seems like a detective story: he goes to a person that tells him something and the has to go to another person so that person can tell him something abot the other person... my head hurts. If it was shorter, I think I would have loved it, but man, I think from the middle of the book the story really begins. There are some nice plot-twists along the way.

Characters : Daniel is a really likable character. You understand what he's doing and you support him. Fermin is another great character and the chemistry between him and Daniel is perfect. The dialogue, again, is really on point. The villain is just whatever, same with a lot of characters that just appear and the come back after 100 pages.

Overall : A semi-boring book, which if it was shorter, would have been really great!

This book was recommended to me years ago and it has been sitting on a shelf since then, but I didn't feel compelled to read it until I took a trip to Barcelona, where the book is set during the 40s and 50s. The impression of the book is enhanced by a familiarity with the city, I think, as the narrators refer to real places (and the author even includes a map of the primary locales). It was interesting, for example, to read of a body being found in the plaza next to the Santa Maria del Mar church, a site that I visited this morning before I read that passage. As entertaining as the book is, it has two flaws, both significant. First, it's overly melodramatic (although that might be owed to the young narrator, Daniel, who sees everything in exaggerated terms). Second, much of the detail is rendered in passages where one “witness” or another tells Daniel information he needs to know. These passages are tedious and would have benefited from dramatization (although that probably would have added a couple hundred pages to a book that was already too long). Anyway, read it if you're in Barcelona have been to Barcelona.

““Is it true you haven't read any of these books?” “Books are boring.” “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you,” answered Julián.“ “The Shadow of the Wind” is one of those books that leave me deeply satisfied and in tears. It's a sweeping epic about Daniel Sempere, a bookseller's son, who – by accident or preordained by fate – learns about an obscure and mostly forgotten author, Julian Carax, whose book “The Shadow of the Wind” will change Daniel's life and those of pretty much everyone he loves. Even though there are some rather exciting and suspenseful scenes throughout the book, Zafón takes his time to paint a broad picture of Barcelona, the narrated time (1945 to 1966) and people. And, yes, at times this does make the book somewhat slow but only by giving room to everyone in this book to gain a character of his or her own can we really appreciate the masterpiece this book actually is. Because there's not a single character to whom we cannot relate: Daniel, driven first by his desire to know and understand the secret he is chasing after. His father who understands him and – in spite of warning Daniel – lets the latter make his own mistakes. Fermin, the reliable albeit somewhat shady friend of the family whom Daniel picks up from the street. Not only the major characters are fully fleshed out, though, but even a tram conductor on the sidelines of the story gets his chance to shine. Zafón can do this because not only does he have a wonderful story to tell but he has the language to tell it as well: “My voice, rather stiff at first, slowly became more relaxed, and soon I forgot myself and was submerged once more in the narrative, discovering cadences and turns of phrase that flowed like musical motifs, riddles made of timbre and pauses I had not noticed during my first reading.” Nevertheless, beyond phases of untarnished happiness (“She looked intoxicated with happiness.”) there's always a sublime threat lurking just beyond the page we're currently reading. We always feel Franco's oppressive dictatorship and the climate of denunciation, endangering whatever little peace the characters get. Yet, there's always hope and, often, a bit of comic relief: “Isaac let out a snort of defeat and examined Bea carefully, like a suspicious policeman. “Do you realize you're in the company of an idiot?” he asked. Bea smiled politely. “I'm beginning to come to terms with it.”” At the end of the day, this is certainly not a simple book; not one that lends itself to be read at the beach but more of one that should be enjoyed with a glass of wine, read amongst books because this is a story about books: “About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.” Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram