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larkinj 's review for:
The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This novel tried to do a lot of things, and for me none of them ended up working. Maybe it has to do with the translation, but the jumbled combination of themes and directions made the plot overly complicated and bumbling. Zafón wanted to have a romance, a mystery, a thriller, a war commentary, and a soap opera all in one, and instead wrote nothing effectually.
Worst of all, I know exactly what two authors this novel was trying to emulate: Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges. Two authors of immense, generational talent that created or otherwise defined whole subgenres of fiction: that of 'magical realism' for Marquez, and 'speculative fiction' by Borges. Two authors I hold in extremely high esteem, and seeing their work so superficially distilled into a half assed melodrama and off-key supernatural pulp novel makes my blood boil. Speculative fiction in the style of Borges requires a clever, deep cutting wit and mind for puzzles and rhetoric that Zafón cannot or did not access, and magical realism when done well evokes a dream-like fugue state of hidden magic. Shadow of the Wind was entirely surface level with the intrigue of a Netflix dating show. This is not to say that modern authors cannot attempt to write within these two subgenres, but seeing it done so poorly leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Zafón didn't do much by way of adding anything to either method of fiction, just tried to overlay a facade of both to a disjointed plot that couldn't figure out where it wanted to go even at the Act Two mark.
Worst of all, I know exactly what two authors this novel was trying to emulate: Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges. Two authors of immense, generational talent that created or otherwise defined whole subgenres of fiction: that of 'magical realism' for Marquez, and 'speculative fiction' by Borges. Two authors I hold in extremely high esteem, and seeing their work so superficially distilled into a half assed melodrama and off-key supernatural pulp novel makes my blood boil. Speculative fiction in the style of Borges requires a clever, deep cutting wit and mind for puzzles and rhetoric that Zafón cannot or did not access, and magical realism when done well evokes a dream-like fugue state of hidden magic. Shadow of the Wind was entirely surface level with the intrigue of a Netflix dating show. This is not to say that modern authors cannot attempt to write within these two subgenres, but seeing it done so poorly leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Zafón didn't do much by way of adding anything to either method of fiction, just tried to overlay a facade of both to a disjointed plot that couldn't figure out where it wanted to go even at the Act Two mark.