The Shadow of the Wind

The Shadow of the Wind La sombra del viento
1st US edition
Author(s)	Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Country	Spain
Language	Spanish
Genre(s)	Mystery
Publisher	Planeta (Spain) Penguin Books (USA) Weidenfeld & Nicolson & Orion Books (UK)
Publication date	2001
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages	565
ISBN	84-08-05793-6
OCLC Number	68085235

The Shadow of the Wind (Spanish: La sombra del viento) is a 2001 novel by Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and a worldwide bestseller. The book was translated into English in 2004 by Lucia Graves and sold over a million copies in the UK after already achieving success on mainland Europe, topping the Spanish bestseller lists for weeks. It was published in the United States by Penguin Books and in Great Britain by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and by Orion Books.

Ruiz Zafón's follow-up is a prequel to The Shadow of the Wind, published in Spanish in April 2008 by Planeta. It has been acquired by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and a hardback English edition was published in June 2009. The title is The Angel's Game and it is set in Barcelona during the 1920s and 1930s. It follows a young writer who is approached by a mysterious figure to write a book. The Angel's Game was also translated into English by Lucia Graves.

Plot summary

The novel, set in post–Spanish Civil War Barcelona, concerns a young boy, Daniel Sempere. Just after the war, Daniel's father takes him to the secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a huge library of old, forgotten titles lovingly preserved by a select few initiates. According to tradition, everyone initiated to this secret place is allowed to take one book from it, and must protect it for life. Daniel selects a book called The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. That night he takes the book home and reads it, completely engrossed. Daniel then attempts to look for other books by this unknown author, but can find none. All he comes across are stories of a strange man – calling himself Laín Coubert, after a character in the book who happens to be the Devil – who has been seeking out Carax's books for decades, buying them all and burning them.

The novel is actually a story within a story, the boy, Daniel Sempere, in his quest for discovery of Julian's other works thus treads upon the entire history of the man, Julian. His friend Fermin Romero de Torres, who was held up and tortured in Montjuic Castle for having been involved in an espionage against the Anarchists, during the war, himself being a Govt. Intelligence Agent; helps Daniel in a number of ways, but their probing into the murky past of a number of people, who have either been long dead, or long forgotten, unleashes the dark forces of a murderous Inspector Fumero.

Thus, unravelling a long story that has been buried within the depths of oblivion; Daniel and Fermin come across a love story, the beautiful, yet doomed love story of Julian and Penelope, both of whom seem to having been missing since 1919, that is nearly thirty years earlier. Julian, the son of Antoni Fortuny, the hatter and his wife Sophie Carax, who preferred using his mother's last name and Penelope Aldaya, the only daughter of the extremely rich and wealthy Don Ricardo Aldaya and his beautiful and narcissistic American wife.

Penelope and Julian, who develop an instant love for each other, carry out the clandestine relationship only through casual furtive glances and faint smiles for around four years, after which they decide to elope to Paris, little knowing that the shadows of misfortune had been closing upon them ever since they were made destined for each other. The two lovers are doomed into unknown fates, just a week before their supposed elopement, which was meticulously planned by Julian's best Friend, Miquel Moliner, who is also the son of a wealthy father, who earned much during the war including an ill reputation of selling ammunitions. It is eventually revealed that Miquel loves Julian more than any brother and finally sacrificed his own life for him, having already abandoned all his wishes and youth towards lost causes of charity and his friend's well being after his elopement to Paris, nevertheless without Penelope, who never turned up for the rendezvous. Penelope's memories keep burning Julian and this eventually forces him to return to Barcelona, in the mid 1950s, however he encounters the harshest truth about Penelope, who had just been nothing more than a memory for those who knew her, for she had never been seen or heard of again by anyone after 1919.

Characters

• Daniel Sempere - The main character of the story. Son of a bookshop owner. After visiting the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and picking out 'The Shadow of the Wind' by Julián Carax, Daniel learns that he should treasure this book because a mysterious figure has been searching for all of Carax's books, and subsequently burning them. After reading the book Daniel becomes obsessed with its elusive author. What he doesn't realize is that there's more to the story than he could ever dream.

• Tomás Aguilar - Best friend of Daniel Sempere. Tough and strong, very protective of his sister Bea, and also a rather intelligent inventor. Quiet and shy though.

• Fermín Romero de Torres - Sidekick, friend, and mentor of Daniel Sempere. After some hard times and several years on the streets, he is assisted by Daniel and Daniel's father, who give him an apartment and a job at the bookshop.

• Beatriz Aguilar - Love interest of Daniel Sempere and sister of Tomás. A very pretty young woman, Bea is still in school. It is due to her that Daniel and Tomás became friends in the first place because, when the two were schoolboys, Daniel made a joke about Bea that made Tomás start a fight with him. After the blood had dried, they became the best of friends. Bea's father and brother are very protective of her and she has been for several years engaged to marry an army officer, a staunch upholder of the Franco dictatorship.

• Clara Barceló - Niece of the wealthy Don Gustav Barceló, who is very beautiful, yet blind. For several years, the young Daniel comes to her uncle's house to sit and read with her. He develops a schoolboy crush on her even though she is ten years his senior, but tries to forget her once he discovers her in a compromising position with her piano instructor.

• Julián Carax - The author of "The Shadow of the Wind". Daniel desperately seeks to find out the truth about this mysterious man: the reasons for his journeys, the truth about his childhood, and the explanation for why his books are all being destroyed.

• Francisco Javier Fumero - The main antagonist. An odd schoolboy friend of Julián Carax who grows up to be a corrupt and murderous police inspector.

• Miquel Moliner - A schoolboy friend of Julián Carax, fun-loving and loyal. So much so, in fact, that he sacrifices his own life for Julián's.

• Father Fernando Ramos - A schoolboy friend of Julián Carax who later becomes a priest at their old school. He assists Daniel in his quest for the truth about Julián.

• Jorge Aldaya - A schoolboy friend of Julián Carax, sometimes rather moody, very wealthy.

• Penélope Aldaya - An ethereal beauty, devoid of anything worldly, she is described as an angel of light. She and Julian fall in love with each other right from their first sight. It is as if destiny had already planned their doomed love since long. Penelope eventually disappears with no trace after having been caught in a tryst with Julian, in her governess Jacinta's room.

• Jacinta Coronado - The devoted former governess of Penélope Aldaya, now living in a retirement home, who helps Daniel in his quest.

• Nuria Monfort - An intelligent, 'femme fatale' who worked at the publishing house where Julián's books were published. She also conducted an affair with Julián while he lived in Paris, and although she falls deeply in love with him he does not reciprocate. Daniel goes to visit her for more information on Julián but later realizes that she fed him lies to protect Julián. She is also the daughter of Mr. Monfort, who holds the keys to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where Daniel found "The Shadow of the Wind". She marries Miquel Moliner, Julian's childhood friend.

The Civil War and Franco Dictatorship

The Spanish Civil War forms much of the background for the book, as a still fresh traumatic memory, and there are many extensive flashbacks to that period. The book presents positively the Generalitat - the autonomous Catalan authority which (partially) administered Barcelona during the Civil War and was brutally suppressed after Franco's victory, and whose executed leader Companys is revered by Catalans as a hero and martyr. Daniel's friend Fermín Romero de Torres, among the book's most sympathetic characters, is mentioned as having been a senior secret agent for the Generalitat and having been horribly tortured and persecuted for it after the fall of Barcelona in 1939.

In contrast, the Anarchist movement FAI - which, among others, had won George Orwell's approval and warm admiration in his classic "Homage to Catalonia" - is here consistently presented in a very negative light. "The Anarchists, the Communists and the Fascists" are repeatedly mentioned as essentially three gangs of murderous thugs of whom there was no essential difference - symbolized by the fact that the psychopathic Fumero continually flirted with all three, ever ready to throw his lot with whoever came on top.

The present time of the book's plot is entirely under the Franco dictatorship. There is the ever-present shadow of the sinister Inspector Fumero - whose acts of torture and murder are, however, presented as deriving from a personal insanity more than from official ideology or policy. The mass extrajudicial executions in the immediate aftermath of Franco's victory are still remembered with a shudder, and in the Barcelona depicted, a person arbitrarily beaten up by police has no legal recourse. Nevertheless, most people live their ordinary lives, much as people do everywhere, and there is no general atmosphere of terror.

In fact, people often regard the regime with contempt rather than fear, and many of the quotations of official propaganda are clearly intended as satire ("A book attributed to a disciple of Darwin, showing that Spaniards are evolved from a more developed type of simian than the French"). Adherents of the regime, such as Beatriz's intended (a military officer) or the vain Professor Velasquez, are presented as ridiculous buffoons. One passage mentions a scrawled graffiti reading "Fascist Dickheads".

It is mentioned that that publication of leaflets for the clandestine metal-workers' trade union could lead one to years behind bars. Yet in another place a taxi driver is mentioned as outspokenly proclaiming to casual passengers his Communist sympathies - specifically his admiration for Joseph Stalin and for La Pasionaria - with no evident sign of apprehension.

Absent is any reference to the Franco regime's efforts to suppress the Catalan language, as it did towards other non-Castilian languages throughout Spain, or to that language at all.

In the depiction of the police there is quite literally a Good cop/Bad cop opposition, with the satanic, psychopathic Inspector Fumero contrasted to Officer Palacios, who is revealed towards the end to be quite decent and well-meaning. Following Fumero's death at the book's climactic scene, the clouds seem to disperse and the book moves smoothly towards a happy ending - symbolizing Spain's smooth transition to democracy following Franco's death in 1975.

Critical reception

In the USA, Entertainment Weekly assigned the book a Grade of A, describing the book as "wondrous"; noting that "There are places in which the book might seem a little over-the-top (doomed love, gruesome murders) but for Zafon's [sic] masterful, meticulous plotting and extraordinary control over language."

External links

• Places in the book marked out both on the Barcelona city map and as a Google Earth placemarks file (in English)
• Website about The Shadow of the Wind (in Spanish)
• Author's English Website
• Author's Spanish Website

Reviews

• The Economist (Subscription), April 1, 2004.
• The Shadow of the Wind Book Review by Barcelona Life
• New York Times Review: Eder, Richard. In the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. New York Times, Arts Section, April 24, 2004.