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The Shadow Of The Wind [Paperback]

Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Author), Lucia Graves (Translator)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (724 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Publication Date: 5 Oct 2005

Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out 'La Sombra del Viento' by Julian Carax.

But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra del Viento, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind. A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.

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Product details

Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Phoenix; New Ed edition (5 Oct 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0753820250
ISBN-13: 978-0753820254
Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 3.2 x 19.6 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (724 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,963 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Carlos Ruiz Zafon Page

Carlos Ruiz Zafón is the author of six novels, including the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game, the first two books in a series of novels set in literary universe of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. His work has been published in more than forty different languages, and honored with numerous international awards. He divides his time between Barcelona, Spain, and Los Angeles, California.

Product Description

Review

A sensation across Europe... a page-turning mystery.... a coming of age tale.... And it's a hymn of praise to all the joys of reading, stylishly caught in Lucia Graves's entrancing translation. (Boyd Tonkin INDEPENDENT)

crowd-pleaser in the mode of The Da Vinci Code... Intertwining playful detective caper, compelling political thriller and sweeping historical romance, the narrative coils back beyond the savagery of the civil war to the world of the tainted Spanish aristocracy, before slowly unravelling the dark secrets born of Franco's tyranny. Zafon's novel... leave the reader with a palpable sense of enchantment. (SUNDAY TIMES)

This week's book barely needs an introduction. Almost every book group I know about had read The Shadow of the Wind... the book is about a boy who becomes obsessed with an author. It is set in Barcelona during a bloody time in Spain's history and there is, as you would expect from a bestseller, plenty of death, murder, love and heroism. (THE TIMES BOOK CLUB)

It was only The Da Vinci Code that stopped The Shadow of the Wind from hogging the top of the bestseller charts last year... an astounding critical success. There's an intricate plot, a gothic atmosphere and an elusive quest, as well as murders, intrigue and star-crossed lovers. (THE GUARDIAN)

a wonderful portrait of Barcelona - not the sunny, culture rich and fun loving city break destination that most visitors know - but a shadowy, at times dark and atmospheric picture of the city centre streets in the years following the Spanish Civil War. (LIVING SPAIN)

This bewitching novel has all the hallmarks of a classic Holy Grail story complete with mystery, mayhem, romance and labyrinthine plotting. What elevates it above all others in the genre is its emotional energy, making it a richly rewarding read. (DAILY MAIL)

one of the most engaging, funny, moving, lyrical books (IRISH EXAMINER)

The best book I've ever read (AMANDA LAMB WOMAN AND HOME)

a magical tale of romance (CECELIA AHERN SUNDAY EXPRESS)

I couldn't put it down but didn't want to rush is as every sentence is beautifully crafted and every character unique. (SANTA MONTEFIORE EVENING STANDARD)

A page turning exploration of obsession in literature and love (SUNDAY EXPRESS)

a great thriller (CECELIA AHERN MARIE CLAIRE)

the main character's deep love for books and their respective, secret libraries (CECELIA AHERN IRISH TIMES)

A real page-turner of a mystery that will have you hooked from beginning to end (SPAINSH MAGAZINE)

Book Description

A stunning literary thriller in the tradition of Umberto Eco. The discovery of a forgotten book leads to a hunt for an elusive author who may or may not still be alive...

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Inside This Book (Learn More)
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First Sentence
I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars

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77 of 80 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Enduring Classic 30 Sep 2011

By A. G. Lockhart

Format:Paperback

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon is literary fiction in the truest sense. It is a novel about books - about one book in particular - and about the power of words to inspire, inflame and ultimately destroy.
10-year-old Daniel Sempere discovers `The Shadow of the Wind' in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and from that moment his life becomes entwined with and begins to follow a similar path to that of the book's author Julian Carax.
The drama is played out amid the horrors and uncertainties of Revolutionary and Post-revolutionary Barcelona, where class is everything and yet where power rests not only with rich families but with anyone sufficiently ambitious and unscrupulous to take full advantage of the vacuums that war has left. Daniel, the novel's narrator, is none of these things. He is just a normal boy caught up in events beyond his understanding and control, and which threaten to overwhelm him.
Amid the realities of time and place, however, Zafon's sense of humour shines through. He is able to see comedy in the grimmest settings and situations. Indeed, there are passages where the line between grim drama, comedy and even farce is finely drawn, as in many scenes featuring the novel's most endearing character, Fermin Romero de Torres, spy turned tramp turned bookshop guru. It is Fermin who shines a light on life's tragedy and shows us the real meaning of loyalty and friendship.
The Shadow of the Wind has its malevolent villain too, one who evokes shades of Hugo's Javert, though without Javert's morality or redeemability. Fumero is corruption and decadence personified, almost to the point of melodrama.
The novel is literary, for sure, but it is also an historical romance with gothic overtones. Read more ›

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123 of 140 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best novel I have read in years 17 Jan 2005

By Mr. Nc Shackley

Format:Paperback

I have never before said this about a new novel, but I have little doubt that Zafon's 'The Shadow of the Wind' will in time attain classic status. The novel tells about the experiences of a young boy named Daniel living in Barcelona, who one day innocently comes across a book called 'The Shadow of the Wind'. After enjoying the book, he is puzzled as to why nobody, even those knowlegable in literature, seem to know anything about the novel's mysterious author - Julian Carax. It is his curiosity to discover more about the life of Julian that sets him on the path to a thrilling but equally dangerous adventure.
The novel contains twist after twist as the story progresses, and the characters, especially Daniel's hilarious friend Fermin, are all likeable. Highly recommended.

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123 of 142 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic fantasy of censorship 5 Jan 2005

By Budge Burgess

Format:Paperback

This is an engrossing work; within the first chapter or two you understand why it has become such a popular novel. It's 1945, it's Barcelona, the Civil War has been lost and Franco's Fascists are firmly in control ... though feeling insecure, because Hitler's Fascism is crumbling and Mussolini's has already been dismantled. A bookseller takes his young son, Daniel, on an adventure ... a visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, there to choose one forgotten work and treasure it.
Thus begins the child's fascination with the author of "The Shadow of the Wind", one Julian Carax. The child grows, determined to discover who was this mysterious Carax, why did he flee Barcelona, and why is some mysterious stranger determined to destroy all copies of his books and all trace of his life.
The destruction of an artist's life and works is a potent exploration of censorship and the ability of Franco's followers to fictionalise history. Carlos Ruiz Zafon has life imitating art: Daniel's life seems to parallel Carax's! Is this a case of not learning from history? One of the characters remarks that true evil requires thought and reason, but that most people who do evil are too stupid to intellectualise their behaviour: they act simplistically out of corrupted emotions ... fear, anger, jealousy, guilt, greed.
Fascism, we see, took a hold because not enough people were prepared to act to stop it. Fascism will return if people are too lazy to think, to value, to question. History can repeat itself unless people learn.
But Fascism - which tries to impose a rigid structure on the State and its people - creates intense loneliness. People live in fear of exposure, of seizure by the secret police because they dare to think differently. Daniel's is the loneliness of fear, but it's also the loneliness of teenage love - lusty, erotic, but ultimately fragile and insecure. As a teenager, how do you know you are in love? You weave your dreams and hopes, but lack the experience to compare, to know for sure. You barely understand desire, let alone love. As a teenager, history never repeats itself, because you simply don't yet have enough emotional history!
Haunted, pursued by the mysterious leather-faced man who is out to destroy Carax's work, Daniel is haunted by the women he desires, is haunted by the need to construct a sexual and emotional self beyond the boundaries of childhood. Freedom, here, is hardly political freedom, but rather escape from emotional and sexual censorship. As Daniel strides out into the world, we watch his friendships and family dissolve around him. He has to build adult relationships now, not childish ones.
This is a book which works on so many levels. The focus is primarily on the fantasy world Daniel creates, the fantasy, shadowy world of resistance to Fascism, to censorship and mind control. It is fantasy until it runs smack into reality, the reality of a mature world. Suddenly, we have a murder mystery on our hands. We have political intrigue. We have eroticism.
"The Shadow of the Wind" is an extraordinarily well-written novel. It moves at a gentle, cerebral pace - you barely notice you are on a rollercoaster ride through fantasy. Yet it is a wonderful evocation of Barcelona - not the city of tourist brochure and sunshine, but a dark, mysterious city, lived in by real people enduring real fear and oppression. The fantasy is merely a dark cloak - once you begin to peer under it you feel this is a vivid insight into the subconscious of Spain.
It is a wholly absorbing, and highly unusual, mystery which will engross you. If I have one criticism, I felt the last quarter of the novel is comparatively weak. The ending can appear a little hasty and contrived. Having created a fantasy, turned it into a dark mystery and eroticised the romance, the ending could have been better played and plotted. But overall, a lovely, thoroughly enjoyable novel which will engage you on a number of levels and leave your mind stimulated. Read more ›

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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great read, but fades 1 May 2006

By PJ Nasser

Format:Paperback

I enjoyed this, and read it in great gulps several nights stopping only because my eyes wouldn't stay open. It's a labyrinth story, the main character having to dive into the stories of many people to come to the bottom and so escape. It uses the old conceit of a book that becomes so important to the character that it is the springboard of the action. Here there is a further twist. The book is itself called The Shadow of the Wind, and the only hint of its contents we get makes it sound suspiciously like the one we are reading. For the narrator, Daniel Sampere, the search for the book's author, Julián Carax, is both a mystery that must be resolved and a replay of the book's love plot, which is in itself inspired by Carax's affair with Penelope.

So we have a mystery, a love story (actually, several), and quite a few other genre elements as well. It is an historical novel whose chronological setting runs from early in the 20th Century to 1955. It is also a gothic novel: the dark, disfigured Laín Coubert obsessively seeking out all of Carax's books to burn them; rich families with dreaded secrets destroyed by them; love that rules lives and mutilates its victims; resentment grown to driving hatred running through the whole.

There is also one very memorable character, Fermín Romero de Torres, who is the one that gives the key to the tone of the novel. He is a filthy, almost skeletal beggar, with horrendous scars all over his back, taken up by the narrator and his father to work in their bookshop. He is a great success, hunting down books in hours. He's also read everything, has the experience of 10 men, and is witty, to boot. Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars a book everyone should read

A must read. Whether you have been to barcelona or not its one to read before you die its that good.

Published 4 days ago by Amazon Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars Slow start , stunning middle and end

The beginning was tedious and hard work to keep going. But it is certainly worth persisting, as the storyline develops into a real masterpiece. An absolute gem of a storyline. Read more

Published 5 days ago by Sheila O

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunningly beautiful book. Fast paced intriguing plot, masterful...

We first meet 10 year old Daniel Sempere in 1940s Barcelona as his father is letting him in on a secret: a cemetery of forgotten books. Read more

Published 15 days ago by Hodgeheg

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting

What an interesting plot, a bit spooky at times (I don't usually read anything dark) but so addictive. Nice insight into Spain around the time of war too.

Published 17 days ago by Razzaghipour

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant !

What a book. Spanish civil war background for a fantastic complex mystery. A pleasure and an education all in one.

Published 21 days ago by Darryl Walters

3.0 out of 5 stars A good plot with good characters

This was a well written, enjoyable book. Overall, it wasn't my cup of tea but I actually really quite liked the characters and think if I wasn't so busy when I had read it I would... Read more

Published 26 days ago by Victoria Jeffrey

4.0 out of 5 stars Well worth a tead

Another intriguing book by this writer. The plot carries you along and you can't guess the end. Very thoroughly recommended .

Published 29 days ago by Ms Janet L Griffiths

4.0 out of 5 stars Page Turner

In the opening pages, Daniel is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Barcelona, and told that he can choose just one book to take away. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Sam

5.0 out of 5 stars loved it

Have read all his books this was a captivating story has everything going for it can't wait for him to produce something else

Published 1 month ago by alice frizzell

3.0 out of 5 stars love story

Read this as book clubs choice, would not have chosen this myself. However really enjoyed, very well written and a lovely intriguing story. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Amazon Customer

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