The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, a LOT of people would wonder why I gave 'The Shadow of the Wind' four on five so, let me rewind a little bit about how I came across this book.
I first came across an e-book pdf file that my friend, Navdeep had slipped into my pen drive around January 2010. I started reading it and was enchanted by the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere Book Shop, even Carax but soon I found I couldn't exert myself with the e-book version and so, quite desperately I began looking for it. Unfortunately, it had been 'out-of- print' and 'out-of-stock' even on Amazon and Flipkart back then. At that time, my condition was quite similar to Daniel Sempere.
Then, this year, while thinking of how to best spend my Birthday dough, I decided to try my luck and found that the book was finally in stock. So, feeling more excited than generous, I bought two copies of it, one for my obvious self and the other for the person who had introduced me to Ruiz Zafón, and started reading my copy almost immediately, despite my final exams.
However, I found I wasn't exactly as enchanted as I expected myself to be. The narrative loses it's poetic richness and becomes more of a best-seller material as one proceeds. Though the way in which Zafón has presented a parellelism between lives of Daniel and Carax, is beautiful, overall, the story lacks that richness that the initial pages present. The description which begins with the details of the enigmatic Cemetery of Forgotten Books and phrases like 'the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath the ashen skies as dawn poured over..." become mundane as one begins to reach the middle of the book. Even Nuria Montfort's letter, which is the sole interesting object in the latter half of the book, becomes annoyingly repetitive after the description of the Civil War.
No doubt, the language is fluid and 'spine-chilling' as some people would like to call it but as you read on, you find that the story becomes more and more best-seller like and less and less gothic. In fact, it has absolutely no gothic traits except for the little story associated with 'The Angel of Mist', which, too, is a name formed by combining the titles of two other Ruiz Zafón novels!
Moreover, the ending failed to impress me entirely! Honestly, having read 'The Prince of Mist' before this one, made me believe that Zafón was one of the authors who is least bothered about happy endings. The story could have ended differently, probably with some tragedy if not all tragedy! That the skies become all bright and clear after the hint of the supposedly 'calamitous' storm is a little unpalatable. No, I don't mean to say that I despise happy endings or am a sadist but honestly! How does everyone, who you grow to love in the novel, survive the wrath and viciousness of the villainous Fumero? All the characters, who suffer death as his hands or misery due to fate, are the ones you have the least amount of sympathy for or the ones the author can choose to eliminate conveniently. With the exception of Penélope, I'm not sure I was really moved by anyone's tragedies, least of all Carax's.To be quite honest, even the story of Penélope and Carax wasn't exactly heart-rendering.
I think the only thing I'm giving this novel four on five are for the absolutely beautiful concept of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the author's great negative capability because all through the read, you know what Daniel is all about, why Fermín is what he is or what made Laín Coubert so haunting but not even once do you find out who Ruiz Zafón is! I also loved the novel for the love it portrays for reading and books, something I'm sure, every reader shares with Don Aldaya, Julían and Daniel. The intoxicating hours of reading that are dear to every reader's heart are very beautifully described in this novel and therefore, 'The Shadow of the Wind' shall always be a cherished read for me though and I shall always remember this book for keeping awake at nights and engulfing me into the world of Carax and Daniel till the last leaf was turned!

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