I just finished the Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and I don't understand why everyone raves so much about it. So I would really like to hear from people who enjoyed the book, what you enjoyed about it?
There is a lot that I liked about the book, like the beautiful prose, the notion of a mystery revolving around a book, which was inspired (though reminded me too much of If on a winters night a traveller…). As someone who used to live in Barcelona, I loved that the story was so immersed in the city, and it read almost as a love letter to Barcelona. I also liked the running theme of parental failures and the relationships between the male characters.
But now that I have finished the book, it has left no impression on me. I don't feel moved by the story. I solved the mystery quite early on, so I found a lot of unnecessary hand-holding in the second half. And the end was very cliche, compared to the beginning: the male hero does something heroic and gets the girl who gives him a son.
Plus, I found it incredibly sexist. It is true that the book acknowledged that women pay the price of men's sins, and it highlights the sexism women faced, through Sophie and Jacinta's relationships with their husbands and Nuria's sexual harassment at work. But all the women in this story exist to serve the men, either as their caretakers or as their fantasies. And if, like Clara, they refuse to fulfill the fantasies of the main cast, then the story punished them. Clara's ending read like an incel revenge fantasy. And the men take no responsibility for the damage they do to women. The closest we come is when Daniel feels guilty for Nuria's death, but he is immediately vindicated by Nuria's letter, who says she has always known Fumero will one day kill her.
by Burgundy-Bag
3 Comments
I read this book maybe a decade or so ago and remember very little of the story or plot or characters, but I do remember finding the writing really beautiful, and appreciating that it was a love letter to literature itself. At least, that’s the impression I’m left with all these years later.
I felt the same way about this book. I kept thinking maybe it would get better but it didn’t. It all just fell flat for me.
Yeah I read it when it was recommended to me by a colleague who said it was his favourite book. I enjoyed it though I found it dragged a bit and left no lasting impact on me. I am always surprised to see people praise it so much.