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| The Shadow of the Wind | 
 enlarge | Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Creator: Lucia Graves
Publisher: Phoenix
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (54) from £1.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  381 reviews
Sales Rank: 1078
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0753820250
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780753820254
ASIN: 0753820250
Publication Date: October 5, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: DESPATCHED FROM UK, BOOKS SHIPPED DAILY.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 376 more reviews...
 It has a bit of everything and utterly swept me away September 26, 2008
This is certainly one of the best, most compelling and most memorable books I have ever read.
It begins with a ten year old boy, Daniel Sempere, being taken to an old building in Barcelona by his father. There the secret existence of a huge, inspiring labyrinth library calld the Cemetery of Forgotten Books is revealed to him. He must choose a book, one of these ancient volumes, to treasure and protect for the rest of his life. Strangely drawn to its title, he eventually picks out 'The Shadow of the Wind' by Julian Carax. Reading it in one night, he knows he made the right choice and that in a way, the book chose him.
However, all is not well in Daniel's world. There is suddenly a lot of unwanted interest in Daniel's book, with both friends and strangers showing a sinister kind of fascination with the novel and its author. He begins to realise that there must be a deeper story, buried in history and the city itself, behind this particular novel and the life of Julian Carax.
As he discovers more about Carax and his work, the mystery deepens. Terrifying people - a disfigured menace and a psychopathic police officer - seem determined to get hold of the book, no matter what the cost in terms of money or even lives. Local myth tells of a man posing as Carax's fictional Devil, stealing any Carax novels he can get his hands on and burning them as he goes.
As Daniel's life continues, more and more characters are introduced, their stories interweaving to gradually build up his - and the reader's - knowledge of Carax and the tragedies of his life and the lives of those close to him. The parallels between Daniel and Julian, and between their lives, become more and more significant, building to a wrenching and incredibly gripping climax when the truth comes out and everything converges in one crashing, terrifying wave of realisation before receding into a conclusive and poignant end.
Set in Barcelona under Franco's violent reign, the city is as much of a character as Daniel himself, coming to life in Zafon's novel as an entity in its own right. The streets are full of vibrance, and the characters reflect every human trait from love, to terror, to humour. The passages describing the place of books in a person's life, and the importance of keeping works of literature alive, were particularly inspiring.
This is one of those books that you will be devastated to finish, and will require some time to digest before you can even contemplate moving onto your next read - one to savour and mull over deliciously!
 So near and yet..... September 25, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
For me the sum of its parts do not add up to the intrigue of the novel's basic premise.
It's a good read, occasionally a riveting read, with some really interesting characters, plots and sub-plots and yet there is something intangible that prevents me from saying this was a truly great read. I felt somewhat let down at the end and I really can't explain why? Perhaps the blistering start to the novel raised my expectations above and beyond the realms of reason, but towards the end the twists and turns seemed formulaic even signposted.
Really captivating read- a great book to take on holiday September 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I took this book on holiday with me this year and couldn't put it down. It starts slowly, but picks up speed at the mid way point. Although translated from Spanish, it reads well, and all the characters are unforgettable. Plot is good, although at times a bit far fetched, but I thought it was excellent overall!
Pleasantly Suprised September 5, 2008
This is not my typical book - far too cultured. It is based around a simple story stretched almost to breaking point. It ultimately rewarded my persistance but I would struglle to recommend it except to a few of my more interlectual friends.
 rave reviews may deceive you August 28, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
'Ah'thought I when I opened the novel and started reading, secure in the belief that here was a masterpiece since more than 200 people had loved it'this is a book I'm going to enjoy'. Well... 300 pages into it and I went back to Amazon to re check the reviews and discovered what I had missed so far, mainly that more than 40 people had hated it, some going as far as calling it drivel. Well, those reviewers may have been a bit harsh but on the whole I had to agree with them.
It starts very well with the wonderful idea of a cemetery for forgotten books where the visitor on his first visit can choose a book , any book ,that he 'adopts' and becomes responsible for. Young Daniel chooses such a book and discovers a wonderful author into whose world he can lose himself. Determined to find more of the same he is intrigued when he learns that Julian Carax's books have mostly disappeared because a strange figure is roaming the streets of the world offering to buy them and then destroying them. He decides to go on a mission to discover who this Julian is, the life he led , what became of him...
A superb premise, isn't it? Unfortunately, after a few 100 pages we are deep into cheap, hard to credit melodrama, and the book loses nearly all of its appeal. What really did it for me was the manicheism of the characters. They are either angels or demons, hardly any in between and so extreme in their behaviour that they seem to leap out of some rubbish comic strip. What of the horrible inspector Javier Fumero! Why didn't anybody get rid of him? This maniacal police inspector who loves nothing more than to torture, maim and humiliate could easily have been dealt with. So many characters know they are going to die at his hands, so why not kill him first and be executed later if death is what you are going to get anyway? It would have saved many people.And there is too much sex in that novel, I mean too much of the kind that gives you nausea, the husband enjoying his wife while covering her eyes and telling her she is a slut kind of sex. Too much wifebeating as well. I know it's Barcelona in 1945 but why dwell so long on each scene and why assume that Spaniards during Franco's rule beat their wives so much.
As for Fermin, daniel 's great friend, I soon grew tired of his insuferable boasting and bottom pinching. This scrawny carcass of a man pretending to be an expert on things of the heart and pinching the bottoms of all the women he meets.How ridiculous!But the worst for me is still to come. It concerns the scene when poor Don Federico, a harmless cross dresser, is taken by inspector Fumero and jailed with criminals who are going to rape him. The following day, a neighbour, someone who likes Federico and takes pity on him, will inform the neighbourhood of what befell Federico in such vivid details and florid language that you just know that no one who cared for him could tell it this way, as if it were a laughing matter, something that rhetoric could embellish. I was disgusted; And when Fermin is asked to go and enquire after Don Federico's health and offer his support he comes back with news that finish with, quote "...the doctor had diagnosed as having 3 broken ribs....and an uncommonly severe rectal tear" Was this sentence necessary?It made me livid to read such heartless account of the rape of a supposed homosexual.Unless I missed the whole point and should have found it funny? Well I certainly didn't!
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