This Week's Book

(Side note- I will be alternating between "This Week In History" posts and "This Week's Book" posts to try and show that I am interested in things other than history. Not many things, but still.)

This week, I will be reviewing one of my favorite books of all time (although, unusually, not by my favorite author of all time, Terry Pratchett)- The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

The Shadow of the Wind can probably best be described as a noir mystery with elements of a classic gothic novel. It takes place in Barcelona in 1945, after the end of the incredibly violent Spanish Civil War. The wounds left by the civil war, and the country's struggle to face the atrocities committed,  provide a noir backdrop for an incredibly convoluted and dramatic plot. The main character, Daniel Sempere, is the son of a book dealer and grows up surrounded by books. After his mother dies, his father takes him to a mysterious and fantastical place called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where hundreds of thousands of rare books are stored and kept safe. Daniel finds a mysterious book called The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax and is tasked with protecting it and making sure it never disappears, as patrons of the Cemetery are required to do.   He gradually discovers that the copy of the book he owns is the only one left in existence- the rest have been destroyed by a mysterious figure that calls himself after the villain in The Shadow of the Wind. Daniel becomes trapped in a dangerous web spun by someone bent on erasing every shred of evidence that proves Carax ever existed, and discovers that Barcelona is hiding secrets even darker than those he already knows.

The Shadow of the Wind's finest feature for me is its dialogue. The exchanges between Daniel and various other characters, most notably his jaded, broken and consistently humorous side-kick Fermin Romero de Torres, add a dash of cynical humor to what would otherwise be an incredibly dark book. The descriptions in the book are also stunning, and the beautiful vocabulary and elegant descriptions make me think that if books loose something in translation, then the original Spanish version must be a masterpiece. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a deep, beautifully written mystery to completely absorb them.