The Shadow of the Wind is sort of an adventure book. It
begins with ten year old Daniel being taken to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books
by his dad. Daniel’s dad runs a bookshop in Barcelona and sometimes has cause
to visit the Forgotten Books. This being Daniel’s first visit, he is allowed to
borrow a book. The Cemetery is a labyrinth and he lets himself get lost until
he finds a book that is calling out to him to be picked. That book is ‘The
Shadow of the Wind’ by Julian Carax. It is the last book he wrote. Daniel stays
up the whole night reading it and wants to read more of Carax’s books as well
as find out more about Carax himself. This is not as easy as you would think.
Someone has been buying all of Carax’s books and burning them. Daniel wants to
know why.
The story takes place between the years 1945 and 1966. The
reader follows Daniel as he grows up, makes friends and falls in love. However,
his life is never separate from that of Julian Carax. While growing up Daniel
is always looking out for Carax’s books and meeting people who knew or remember
him. When you are reading the book, there is always a presence lurking in the
background, out of the main action. Occasionally Daniel senses or even sees
this presence which scares him but doesn’t stop him from wanting to find out
what it means. Through his quest, Daniel finds himself becoming part of
family’s lives. At the same time he is also reuniting people from Julian
Carax’s life who are all now leading separate lives after his disappearance to
Paris.
Books play a big part in this book. Without books there
wouldn’t be a puzzle to solve and without books there wouldn’t be people who
would be able to help. Daniel makes friends with Fermin Romero de Torres, an
eccentric war veteran who can talk information out of anyone. As well as being
comic relief, he also plays a major role in keeping things moving. It’s not the
easiest book to read as there are lots of threads that all join up towards the
end. As there are so many strands, it can be tricky to keep track of who
everyone is. Sometimes there weren’t enough prompts to remember who people were
but there are several families involved, it wasn’t too bad.
The book is really about Julian Carax being told by the
people who knew him. Some well, some not so well. Some friends, some enemies.
Almost every character gets a full story because they grew up with Julian or
explain their background in order to show how they met Julian. Barcelona is the
only setting and it could be described a bit more than it is. There are some slum
areas where several people are living on top of each other, with just one or
two rooms each. There are more affluent areas with mansions that have their own
chapels and crypts. The edition that I read had a walk on the back where you
could visit some of the locations mentioned in the book. I thought this was a
nice idea as it does make you want to visit.
I didn’t really know what to expect with this book but I
enjoyed it and will read the rest in the series. I don’t know what it is but
the Spanish seem to be able to do threatening and sinister well. One of the
characters is very much a baddie who you would definitely not want to get on
the wrong side of. This is demonstrated in the climax of the book when
everything comes to a head. Once you get three quarters of the way through the
book you know what is going to happen and can see what the author is doing with
the characters of Daniel and Julian. Other than that the story held my
attention throughout and all the information is divided between conversation
and letters so that you don’t get overwhelmed with all you are being told. Most
of the characters are likeable and you want them to be happy. What is
interesting is how different people growing up together can turn out so
differently from one event taking place. In this case, the attempted murder of
Julian after he decides to pursue a girl who one of the others in his group thinks
himself in love with.
As well as being a good story I found it to be a good study
of the human being. I suppose that books are very important for that. Different
personality types deal with things in their own way and you are bound to
sympathise with some more than others. And also how people deal with making
their own mistakes and seeing other people make mistakes. Some take note and
learn from it while others are not like that. I thought that was interesting.
Overall rating 4 out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment