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andyirwin89 's review for:
The Angel's Game
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
I’m incredibly frustrated to give a three star review here. The atmospheric portrait of Barcelona is delicious, the characters are rich and the plot is tantalising...until it all falls apart. Zafón is an extraordinarily talented novelist, he makes the writing of beautiful prose and captivating fiction seem easy. Which is why it was such a shame to drop with a disappointing thud into a no-man’s land of I’m not quite sure what - let’s call it an under-baked thriller and and over-baked drama with a supernatural undercurrent that isn’t quite nailed.
There’s an interesting reading to be had of the protagonist, David Martin, and the battle to make the right choices (which he essentially never does); his treatment of women; and also the pervading presentation of excellent women in this novel as collateral casualties resulting from his poor - or compromised - decision-making. My reading is that David is ill and struggles to overcome the effects of childhood neglect and trauma (hence the bad decisions, or inability to articulate what is happening inside his head and thus putting more people in harm’s way). But I am also interested in the idea that the presentation of a ‘new’ Cristina at the end is a purgatorial punishment for what David put the love of his life Cristina through when she was alive by not listening to her. If this is what the supernatural thread is trying to pull off, it doesn’t, quite - which is a damn shame.
Ultimately the body count is too high, there are too many “hang on, wtf” villains, and the ending is morally ambiguous in a way I suspect it was trying not to be. All of this detracts from some truly beautiful, electrifying writing that I thought was weaving itself into something quite special.
There’s an interesting reading to be had of the protagonist, David Martin, and the battle to make the right choices (which he essentially never does); his treatment of women; and also the pervading presentation of excellent women in this novel as collateral casualties resulting from his poor - or compromised - decision-making. My reading is that David is ill and struggles to overcome the effects of childhood neglect and trauma (hence the bad decisions, or inability to articulate what is happening inside his head and thus putting more people in harm’s way). But I am also interested in the idea that the presentation of a ‘new’ Cristina at the end is a purgatorial punishment for what David put the love of his life Cristina through when she was alive by not listening to her. If this is what the supernatural thread is trying to pull off, it doesn’t, quite - which is a damn shame.
Ultimately the body count is too high, there are too many “hang on, wtf” villains, and the ending is morally ambiguous in a way I suspect it was trying not to be. All of this detracts from some truly beautiful, electrifying writing that I thought was weaving itself into something quite special.