I will begin with a short summary of what has happened so far in The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. The story begins in an interesting way, saying that the narrator’s father brought him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (in Barcelona, where they live) and already I am wondering what this is. Is it a literal cemetery? The first line spoken by one of the characters is the father, telling the narrator, Daniel, that he “musn’t tell anyone what [he’s] about to see today” (Ruiz Zafón 3). We find out that Daniel is only 10-years-old and this “cemetery” is actually a bookstore. Daniel is allowed to choose, or “adopt”, one book, but Daniel says that he feels the book has actually adopted him. That book is called The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. As the story begins in the summer of 1945, we know that the Spanish civil war is over (1936-1939) and they have entered the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Daniel wants to read more of Carax’s books but finds out through his father’s friend, Barceló, and Barceló’s daughter, Clara, that Daniel holds the last of any of Carax’s books because all the rest have been burned. Daniel ends up falling in love with Clara, who is almost 10 years older than him, so he puts aside many of his interests for a few years and spends most of his time with her. Around the same time that he realizes Clara will never love him, he is visited by the man who has been burning Carax’s books because he wants the final copy to burn. This brings Daniel back into the mystery of Carax. All he (and we) know so far is that Carax was also from Barcelona, fled to Spain during the war, but apparently died in Barcelona. I stopped at page 77, right as Daniel finds out that Isaac’s (book keeper of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books) daughter had a love affair with Carax. 

It was extremely difficult for me to put the book down after that. I felt hooked from the very beginning and just as I was getting into more of this mystery I had to put it down. I am already looking forward to picking it back up, though I have to admit that even though Savage Detectives didn’t pull me in in the same way, I am curious to know what’s going to happen next (and if it will pull me in more!)

As they mentioned in the book, it was quite common for Spaniards to flee the country during that time and try to create a new life for themselves in France. I believe more people left during the dictatorship (though I would have to research whether that was true or not) and I found it curious that it was mentioned that Carax knew what was coming: he knew Spain would be worse after the war than it already was and so he got a headstart, trying to create a better life for himself. So why did he go back to Spain? It seems his stay in France was quite short-lived. However, since this story is set during the dictatorship, my hypothesis is that there is some kind of connection to this and why Carax’s books were being burned… and perhaps why he decided to go back to Spain.

I was reminded of my own family, reading about the war and the escape into France, however they did not take this headstart, like Carax had. They fled Spain (by walking hundreds of kilometers) to find a better life in France (and eventually Canada), after they witnessed how Franco was ruling the country. 

It isn’t just the historical part that feels most interesting to me, it’s also Ruiz Zafón’s style of writing that I enjoy. It seems that he is also using a lot of foreshadowing, such as, “I felt sure that The Shadow of the Wind had been waiting for me there for years, probably since before I was born, (Ruiz Zafón 7). That tells us that there is going to be some reason why this book chose to “adopt” Daniel. There must be something that the book wants Daniel to learn, or perhaps grow into, in his life. 

I feel I can go on and on, sharing all my thoughts and things I loved about these first several chapters, but I will end with a paragraph that I really loved: “I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later – no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget – we will return, (Ruiz Zafón 8). I absolutely loved this and believe that it’s true. Even if we do not re-read books that we once loved, there is something about those books that have left imprints on our lives, and I think we return back to the themes of those books, because they speak to our souls.

PS I also found the Spanish edition of The Shadow of the Wind as I was wandering through Indigo the other day so I also took this as a sign of being adopted by it and will continue the rest of the semester reading the Spanish edition, as a nice challenge for me.

I have to admit that I’m not quite sure what to think of this book so far. I got pulled into it right away – I quite enjoy the journal-entry-style-writing and I was interested following the story of García Madero’s shift from being a law student to joining a group of poets. The part in which I started to feel disinterested was when he started sharing either his or his friend’s sexual experiences. Some of it made me feel sick to my stomach, especially when they spoke about everyone’s interest in taking Angélica’s virginity.

While I understand that the book is set in 1975 Mexico, and is written by a 17-year-old boy, it was evidently very sexist and I was not only feeling disturbed by it, but I also just started to find it all to be boring. It felt like I had read 40 pages of the same thing over and over again and I was considering whether I should start skipping some pages (or at least paragraphs) because I didn’t feel like I needed to read about another man degrading another woman in bed. While this interest for sex never completely went away, it did feel like it at least started to include some other parts of his day, like searching for Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano in book stores, conversations with his aunt and uncle, etc.

I was starting to feel a bit confused around when García Madero got sick. I wondered if he was on drugs or if there were also some hallucinations happening for him too, especially when he was trying to call María. What Lima and Belano shared with him when they went to visit him about Quim pretending to be Angélica left me pondering what was actually true. Quim was referred to many times as not being “in his right mind,” (but then he refers to more people as not being in their “right mind” either) but I began to wonder whether there was something happening to García Madero himself? I’m not sure, I just noticed a bit of a shift in his emotions or thoughts as the story went on and I’m curious if anyone else experienced this.

I felt sad to hear about the situation that Lupe was in throughout the whole book and I’m curious to hear about what happens for her. While this book brought up many different emotions for me, I did still feel interested to know about where this story was going.

There were many parts that I felt like were unnecessary details to include and I didn’t understand their relevance, however whenever I felt this way, I reflected back on our first class and remembered that we would be diving into what long stories are and why they write them, so I am interested to learn more about this (I even find himself getting annoyed in movies sometimes, wondering why they made certain scenes as long as they did).