Now I want to make it clear for reasons of shameless snobbery that The Shadow of the Wind isn’t the kind of book I’d normally pick up – I’d be inclined to put it in the ‘boy’s books’ box and pass it on. But my colleague Tom recommended it to me and he’s a reliable chap when it comes to book suggestions (previous triumphs include Laurain’s The President’s Hat and this biography of publisher Max Perkins which put me on a Fitzgerald binge). Plus the label on the back of the charity shop copy I picked up swung it for me:
The book tells the dual story of Daniel Sempere, who we meet as a ten year old boy, and Julian Carax, the author of the novel he chooses from a secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books (or that chooses him: “I felt sure that The Shadow of the Wind had been waiting there for me for years, probably since before I was born.”) The night that Daniel finishes the “enchanted pages” of this book, he sees a shady figure outside his window; a figure soon revealed to be a man calling himself ‘Laín Coubert’. Coubert is the name of the villain in Carax’s novel, who is actually the devil himself(!) From that point on, Daniel makes it his mission to discover the true story of Julian Carax, to find out why all the other copies of his books have been burned by Coubert, and to understand how their fates are apparently linked. He enlists the help of Fermin Romero de Torres, a larger-than-life former spy who he saves from streets and brings to work in his father’s bookstore. Fermin is being pursued by corrupt police officer Inspector Fumero, who also happens to be the childhood enemy of Julian Carax. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget Daniel’s somewhat intense relationships with the blind, ‘angelic’ Clara and, later, the voluptuous Beatriz, sister of Daniel’s best friend. I only realised that this is NOT a children’s book when Daniel walks in on Clara having graphic sex with her music teacher! Anyway, as Daniel becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about Carax, his investigations draw him deeper and deeper into a dangerous world of murder and intrigue.
So – is it VERYGOOD? I’m not so sure. I don’t know if it’s just the translation (by Lucia Graves) but it’s certainly not well written – in fact, some of the sentences are on a Dan Brown level of hilarity (“She gave me a broken smile, full of fear and loneliness. I then saw myself through her eyes: just an innnocent boy who thought he had conquered the world in an hour but didn’t realise he could lose it again in an instant.”) If you can’t look past poor syntax, cheesy cliches and hackneyed themes, this book is not for you. By way of example, I mentioned I was reading it to a friend with certain literary pretensions and his response was: “I HATE THAT BOOK. I read it when it published, on the back of rave reviews: shitey shite. In the tradition of Umberto Eco? Are the ripping the piss? Book club drivel.”
And that’s just it – the reviews are fantastic. The Independent calls it “A sensation across Europe… a hymn of praise to all the joys of reading, stylishly caught in Lucia Graves’s entrancing translation” while others say “The best book I’ve ever read”, “a magical tale of romance”, “every sentence is beautifully crafted and every character unique.” It was a huge bestseller when it came out in 2005, which means it must have something going for it, right?
I personally found the book hard to love; the characters are two-dimensional and at times ridiculous, the sex scenes are excruciatingly bad, and the plot is slow and, until the last 50 pages, not exactly gripping. It’s not remotely funny, however hard it tries to be. But. There’s still something kind of magical in the idea of a story and an author reincarnated through the protagonist. A secret library of forgotten books, and a shady villain who smells of burned paper and has the name of the devil? More of that please. And it really helps that it’s set in Barcelona too. The author does a good job of evoking that colourful, historical city with its serrano ham sandwiches and “ghostly” architecture, and the winding alleyways, balconies and cornices of the Ramblas.
For these reasons I kept reading until the end and won’t slate this one completely. But I can’t help wonder why the author didn’t tone down the bad sex and aim this squarely at a younger readership. Although with the royalties from over a million UK book sales in his pocket, he probably doesn’t share the same regrets!
If you’re going to Spain, it would be a nice holiday read. But beautifully crafted? The best book I’ve ever read? Not so much.
