*Please note: There are spoilers..

This review is from the NutterMother Book Club

The Shadow of the Wind is a strange book to say the least. And I can’t say I found it particularly gripping but there was something oddly intriguing about it that kept me reading.

I assume the real highlight of this novel was supposed to be in its mystery, rather the unravelling of a mystery. A boy picks up a single book from the ‘Cemetery of Forgotten books” and upon reading it, he develops a voracious appetite to not only read anything and everything the mysterious author has written, but also to uncover the story of the authors life and death.

Zafons novel initially begins with the mystery of the Carax novel the boy finds but spends the majority of its time developing the boy named Daniel’s character and his life circumstances as an adolescent growing up in 1945 Barcelona. Many times, I wondered if we would get back to the Carax storyline, and just as I would think this Zafon would weave in another character, or circumstance, that would bring Daniel closer to discovering who Carax is. Hence I would plunge through another 100 pages waiting for more. And as the pace slowed, the thrill of the hunt wasn’t there for me. I wanted to know who Carax was, how he mattered and move on with it.

Unfortunately, I had to wait 506 pages for that one.

I get where the author was going with this novel, exploring the idea of rage, and anger and redemption and he did so through a slow building of life circumstances through MANY different characters. But the drama between the five original “friends”, Carax, Fermin, Moliner, Jorge and of course Penelope was far more intriguing than that of Daniel, Tomas, Fumer and Bea. I kept thinking the author was trying to parallel the mutual storylines of pain and love but it just didn’t feel as vibrant, or as true with the introduction of the ‘modern’ storyline.

Take for example the key relationship between Carax and Penelope *MAJOR spoilers* I felt like Zafon developed their affection to a point where I understood why Carax, a writer in exile, was in love and infatuationed with once again seeing Penelope. At the time not knowing that she had been locked away by her father, who forbad the relationship, and had let her die in childbirth (with Carax’s child). As the facts of this relationship unfolded, and Carax further spiralled into an almost madness once learning of Penelope death, you began to wonder why the most crucial part of the story, the fact that Penelope was in fact Carax’s own half sister, was kept from him the entire novel. The entire plot of the novel revolved around the great undoing of families. And yet, by Carax never completing his storyline, the author loses his credibility. Were we not led to this reveal for a reason? Why was this information for everybody BUT Carax? It felt strange that Zafon spent the entire novel weaving parallels and undoings only to flake out to the reader.

And then we are suppose to compare Caraxs love with that of Bea and Daniel’s relationship, created so Carax could find peace. This was a romance that seemed to almost develop fully in only a few pages, making it impossible to relate the two. It felt forced and created to tie to storylines and parallel two life lines together. I didn’t buy it., it was felt to convienient.

Side note- I also didn’t but that after both men had slept with their women a doctor was called and they were both immediately determined to be pregnant.

Daniels story was supposed to reprsesnt that of the redeemer. He was Carax’s inspiration to become a whole man again, and I spent the entire novel expecting to tie to two with Daniels mysterious and faceless mother, whom the author reminded us of throughout the novel. It never happened. Why not? Why were we told that Daniel resembled Carax, throughout the entire book? It felt like the author perhaps thought of doing that and then 400 pages in flaked out on that one too.

Do not get me wrong. This is not a bad book, it is extremely well written and the story is very competent. But it is odd on several levels, and perhaps a few hundred pages too long in parts. I think I am more baffled by why I don’t completely love it or hate it.

Perhaps had the novel been cut in half, and a lot of the long winded descriptions edited down, with the exclusion of characters who really were not needed for the unravelling of the storyline like Clara and Bernarda, and less time was spent describing the ancient Aladaya mansion, the novel would not have felt as redundant by the end of it. Perhaps that’s how Zafon lost the real heart and crux of this novel he didn’t spend his time enhancing the tale, he was smothering it.

*Note to Self
Don’t sleep with your half brother…ew.