My long book is Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
Firstly, I would like to shoutout Amanda, who has done such a good summary of this first section of the book that I’m going to refer you all to that blog post instead of repeating the same thing here.
Otherwise, the TLDR of it all is: Daniel (age 10, in 1940s Barcelona) is sad because his mom died so his father wakes him up before dawn to meet some guy at a bookstore that he’ll one day inherit. He chooses a book (/the book chooses him) and becomes obsessed with it and its author.
I enjoyed the first section of this novel. It’s rather fast-paced and the tone is to-the-point, but the prose is nice to read and there’s a good mix of dialogue and introspection so far.
One of the first questions that came up for me while reading is the connection between the concept of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (the name of the bookstore) and the relationship between Daniel, his deceased mother, and his father. It was mentioned early on that Daniel woke up one night crying, saying he couldn’t remember his mother’s face. When his father comforts him by saying he’ll remember twice as hard for the both of them, Daniel thinks to himself that his father won’t be around forever. I think we’re meant to connect here cemeteries (final resting places) of forgotten books, forgotten stories, forgotten people.
People make stories, and so I think Daniel forgetting these parts of his mother will come back around to mean something. If each shopkeeper of the Cemetery is called to a specific book to safekeep and remember for the duration of their life, there’s bound to be some metaphor growing here about people and life and death, especially with the book’s war themes. I’ll wait until I’m further into the book, until I have a more comprehensive perspective, before trying to outline this better.
Another idea I thought was worth noting from this first part (I misplaced the page number, but will comment below when I find it) was how it is characteristic of childhood to not understand something but still feel it deeply. As the novel introduces war in a coming-of-age sort of trajectory, I wanted to highlight this sentiment, of feeling the repercussions of things you don’t yet understand and slowly losing your childhood innocence through the acquisition of knowledge.
I don’t know if anyone remembers the Inkheart series, a set of three children’s/middle-grade books fro the early 2000s, but this novel is giving off a similar vibe (energy) so far (albeit with more advanced/mature themes).
2 replies on “Self-Selected 1: Choosing and Searching”
Hey! Thank you for the kind shoutout 🙂
It was very nice to read your post, I was waiting for everyone else who’s reading this book to share their opinions!
I loved the reflection you wrote about making connections between cemeteries and final resting places for books, stories, people, etc… especially during the time of a civil war and through so many murders that happened during the dictatorship.
I also loved the reflection around children not understanding things but still feeling them very deeply, I think this is very true! And we can see this happening for Daniel, and even Clara’s stories from her past.
I look forward to reading more of your reflections about this book!
Hi Paige! It was nice reading your initial thoughts on Shadow of the Wind. I found it quite sad when you mentioned the part where Daniel couldn’t remember his mother’s face, a feeling I truly would not want to experience later in life. Although, it was quite sweet when his father said he would remember twice as hard for both of them. This portion you described reminded me of that quote where it’s like “You die twice, once when you stop breathing, and a second time when somebody says your name for the last time”, not quite the same but a little similar at least. I look forward to reading more about Shadow of the Wind through your future blog posts!