The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I almost gave up on this book. I desperately wanted to enjoy it, as it had been given to me by a dear friend who cited it as one of her favourites. But lord it was hard. At first.

Perhaps it was the translation, perhaps it was the comparison made on the jacket cover to Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose – a book which I found highly disappointing and ultimately pointless, perhaps it was the cover itself – with the little cutout window and the baroque font, which made me feel that something was off in this book. The language, although nicely descriptive of 1940’s Barcelona, felt suspiciously of the purple persuasion. The dialogue felt stilted.

Had The Shadow of the Wind not been recommended by someone whose taste and whose intelligence I respect, I would have given up 100 pages into the novel. And at nearly 500 pages, I knew it was going to be a considerable time commitment.

But I must love my friend dearly, because I persevered, and finished the book last night. And I am glad that I did, not only because I can now look my friend in the face if she asks how I enjoyed one of her favourite books, but also because somewhere around page 150-175, I began to enjoy it.

I began to develop a fondness for the characters of Daniel, his father, and their friend Fermin, as they found themselves drawn deeper into the mysteries surrounding an old book. Set against the political and historical backdrop of war-torn Spain, The Shadow of the Wind ultimately won me over, allowed me to suspend my disbelief and get swept up in the intrigue and the dangers surrounding their quest.

I did have some additional quibbles with the novel, even after my initial resistance had been overcome, primarily with the lengthy side stories voiced by other characters. Some of these were so long that I had forgotten what was going on in the main story by the time we had returned to it. Many of these side stories were printed in italics as well, and 20 pages of that shit is hard to read in bed at night.

Ultimately though, The Shadow of the Wind, is an ambitious novel, not without faults, but certainly not without its charms either. If you enjoy somewhat gothic historical fiction, you will most likely enjoy this book. And if you don’t, you may just end up surprising yourself.