(no subject)

[skygiants]

jothra recommended me Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, and I always take Jo's advice!

(. . . well, okay, not always. Especially not when it involves healthy food or cracked-out plots (all right, that's a lie, I pretty much do always take her suggestions when it comes to cracked-out plots). ANYWAYS.)

The Shadow of the Wind is a gothic story centered around two things - obsessive love, and obsessive book-love. It is unsurprising that I liked parts about obsessive book-love best! The protagonist is a teenaged boy who reads a book when he is young called The Shadow of the Wind, falls in love with it and the author, Julian Carax, and then finds out that it is basically the only copy in existence because a Mysterious and Possibly Fictional Person is going around and burning all of the author's books. (Note: I totally called who this Mysterious Person was, which is probably not all that impressive but makes me feel smug anyways!) So then of course he becomes entwined in hunting out the secrets of Carax's Tragic Past. Much Gothic awesomeness ensues, including haunted houses and mad hatters and girls locked away in towers and SURPRISE INCEST ZOMG, which I totally should have called and didn't, seeing as incest is apparently in EVERYTHING now.

I love me some Gothic twists, and I love characters who love their books, so I enjoyed this book a lot! The writing is also pretty awesome in a lot of places. There were, however, a couple things that would have improved it for me that I will put here:

1. I am sorry but I kind of hated Fermin. Less Fermin would make this a better book. Daniel can be his own comic relief! OR he can have BETTER FRIENDS.
2. I really, really wish that Nuria had not been in love with Carax, but had just been another obsessive reader like Daniel. The female characters had so much potential to be awesome here, and then Bea de-snarkifies and becomes The Girl, Clara (the other female book-lover) is The Temptress Who Dumped Him And Will Die Bitter and Alone, and Nuria's story becomes all about her tragic and impossible love. That whole section would have been ten times as interesting for me if she had not been in love with Carax, I would have forgiven all in terms of feminist quibbles. Hey Mr. Zafon, it is possible for ladies to have motivations that are not about Being Desperately In Love! Even some nineteenth-century Gothics do better than that, and you do not have that excuse.
3. More Tomas. I loved Tomas, for the three pages we got of him!
4. PLZ NO EVIL VOODOO MULATTO STEREOTYPES oh gosh I was cringing through that part
5. I would say fewer miracle super-speedy pregnancies, but . . . what the heck, this is a Gothic. The miracle pregnancies can stay!

Absolutely the best part was the center set-piece of the Cemetary of Forgotten Books, and it sounds like that is going to be the starting point for his next book also, which pretty much ensures that I will be reading it!

Comments

[lunamystic]

It's been a few years since I read it and my memory is crap, but I remember loving the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. And Tomas. *agrees!*

[agentclaudia.livejournal.com]

I just read this book a few weeks ago! It is gothically fabulous awesome on a stick. >.>

I wasn't quite as annoyed at all the female characters having Demented All-Consuming Love Issues as I'd normally be, since all the male characters have them too, so I figured it evened out into This Is A Gothic Story So Everyone Must Have A Twagic Twu Wuv. Eyeroll-worthy, like the miracle pregnancies... but it's genre. Bea could have "de-snarkified" a bit less, though.

Fermin actually *did* piss me off quite a bit. I understand some people have hormones, but it doesn't make me like it better when they make no attempt to think through them and keep making depersonalizing comments about "women" as a collective.

[skygiants]

Man, the Cemetary of Forgotten Books is one of my top fictional Awesome Tourist Locations right now!

I so, so wanted Tomas and Daniel reconciling to be a big deal in the second half of the book, and was really sad when it wasn't much addressed. Poor Tomas! He is too big and smart to make friends, I wanted to give him a hug. :(

[skygiants]

Yeah, I actually think that if it wasn't for Fermin hanging around going "HEY LADIES HEY LADIES" I would have minded what was going on with the female characters less. Or vice versa! But combined, it was enough to irritate me a fair bit.

I totally get the Everyone Needing a Twagic Twu Wuv bit though! Because yeah, this is a gothic. If we did not have dramatic tragic love and miracle babies and incest, how would we know what genre we were in? :O But Nuria's Twagic Twu Wuv could have been her actual tragically dead husband . . . and then the whole Carax thing could have stayed in the realm of literary obsession, which, really I think I just wanted a female character who was motivated by book-obsession as much as Daniel was, since that was the most interesting part of the book for me.

I loved Bea a lot though, and I wish we'd gotten to see more of her swanning around being haughty and intelligent and awesome.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

I pretty much fell in love with the setpiece at the beginning, and then felt that the rest of the book didn't quite live up to it. It was beautifully written, but I thought the ending was anticlimactic. I loved reading it, but have no interest in doing so again; my feelings about the ending actually kinda marred the rest of it for me, because I was completely rapt up until that point. :I

[skygiants]

Yeah, I think that's fair, and it's one of the reasons I'm going to be reading the next one - I very much enjoyed it for the Gothic that it was, but it became so caught up in the Gothicness that it never quite became the book completely about books and book-love that I wanted it to be and that I hope the next one will be.

Though now I am curious about what you wish had happened in the end. (I already rambled above about my alternate biggest wish for the book, which is basically NURIA BE MORE AWESOME AND LITERARY.)

[villainny.livejournal.com]

I honestly can't remember. The overwhelming impression was of beautiful imagery and wonderful writing, and I wasn't left with a very strong story. I read it a while ago, when I was in Bath, and I remember that I worked out who the Bad Guy was and then thought the ending was too easy, but I cannae remember specifics.

[jothra]

I am glad you enjoyed it! I knew you would like it because of the Gothicness. I am also amused that I called the incest and you called the identity of the man burning all the books.

Daniel was his own comic relief some of the time, which amused me. I...actually liked Fermin most of the time, though.

He has apparently written YA books as well! Also, on his website there is some pretty nifty music that he composed for the book and played himself. The title piece is the best one.

[skygiants]

I know! I am super shocked that I did not call the incest, really, seeing as I seriously seem to be seeing it everywhere, to a distressing degree.

Oh, me too. I liked Daniel best when he was snarking on himself! I wanted to pat his head and give him a library card. I think I might have liked Fermin under some circumstances, I just . . . I think what mostly bothered me is that all his comments about women and sex and so on were presented as cute? Like, the text loves him so much that I could not help but hate him sort of.

Iiiiinteresting. - I think I remember you linking me to the music back when you recced the book to me, actually, and I remember liking it very much, so thank you for reminding me; now I need to go hunt it down again!

[jothra]

Ah yes, I get you. Somehow it does not surprise me that you disliked a person the text tells you to like. :D

Or that you liked someone who got kind of a bad rap at the end. *pats Tomas* If you get in the way of the hero and his TRU LUV in a gothic, you're screwed.

[skygiants]

That is fair! Yeah, I am not sure the happy ending was quite earned; on the other hand I do not think I will be forgetting some of the plot twists for a while (but maybe I just have a strong brain for incest!)

[skygiants]

Sometimes I am contrary. *dignified*

BUT DUDE JO HE WAS SO AWESOME. He was a SUPER SMART INVENTOR who could ALSO beat you up and ALSO loved his family and his only friend dumped him to hang out with a blind girl for four years! I so wanted to give him a hug.