Book Review
Title: The Shadow of the Wind
Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Publisher: Phoenix, 2004
Pages: 510
Some plots
are too perfect to be credible. But they keep the reader hooked to the last. Add
some mysteries and complexities, the novel becomes a terrible whirlpool that
draws your very soul in. Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind is
one such novel.
The
novel is about memories and vendettas, love struggling against hate, virtue struggling
to survive in a world of evil. Originally written in Spanish, the novel is set
in the post-civil war Barcelona. But the pre-war Barcelona keeps coming up
throughout the plot. In fact, the plot moves like two intertwined serpents that
are inseparable. The past is resurrected at every turn on the present road, that
too with a new vengeance. There is poison all along. There is blood spilt at
some places. There is more darkness than light.
Is
it evil that makes this world so dark? ‘Not evil,’ says Fermin, one of the
chief characters. The world is a ‘moronic’ place, according to him. ‘Evil
presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. A moron or a
lout, however, doesn’t stop to think or reason. He acts on instinct,
like an animal, convinced that he’s doing good, that he’s always right, and
sanctimoniously proud to go around fucking up … anyone he perceives to be
different from himself, be it because of skin colour, creed, language,
nationality…’ The world would have been a better place with ‘more
thoroughly evil people and fewer borderline pigheads.’ [Underscore added]
The
plot unfolds in a thoroughly “moronic” world, be it the pre-war or post-war
Barcelona. In the pre-war Barcelona of aristocracy and family honour and in the
post-war Barcelona of dictator Franco, it is the scum that rises above the
others. The good are suppressed, tortured or eliminated. The ordinary people
are helpless. The sanctimonious nationalist morons thrive and rule.
Ten-year-old
Daniel Sempere comes across a novel titled The Shadow of the Wind by a
mysterious author named Julian Carax. Daniel is curious to find out more about
the author none of whose books are apparently available anywhere. A mysterious
person named Lain Coubert, which is actually the name of the devil in the only
surviving novel of Carax, has been setting fire to every book of Carax. Lain
Coubert is after Daniel too.
Daniel
grows to the age of 18 by the time his quest after the mystery hurls him into
the middle of a diabolic concoction of events in which Julian Carax and a few
other school classmates of his were viciously engaged. Julian fell in love with
Penelope, sister of Jorge who was not merely a classmate but also son of a
conceited aristocrat. The aristocrat has another reason too, which his vanity
won’t ever let him mention to anyone, for smothering this love between his
daughter and the son of a plain hatter. This crushed romance is one of the many
tragedies in the novel as well as one of the many complex mysteries in the
plot.
Julian
is made to leave for France by Miquel, another classmate. Jorge turns
vindictive. There is another classmate, son of a menial, Francisco Javier
Fumero, who has a bigger reason to hate Julian: he was obsessively in love with
Penelope. The moment he saw Julian and Penelope together, their lips swallowing
each other, he became the demon that was just waiting within him to get a body.
Eventually he joined the army, fought in the Civil War first on the Republican
side and then served Franco’s police, and betrayed many on his way to higher
posts. Fumero becomes the ultra-villain of the novel: ‘the sanctimonious
nationalist who fucks up the lives’ of too many others.
Zafon
weaves an extremely intricate plot adding a few more characters who twist one
another’s fates inadvertently or malevolently. The good does not necessarily win
in the end, nor does evil get its retribution. But there is light in this dark
world too where the lives of most genuine people are condemned to fall apart slowly,
so slowly that the people don’t even realise that their life is falling apart
until they hit the bottom. But many rise and move on. There is enough light for
one to move on.
Zafon’s
success lies in making us see both the dense darkness and the feeble light, and
the mysterious interlace of the two. “Mother Nature is the meanest of bitches,
that’s the sad truth,” as one of the good characters, Fermin, says. Ours is a
sad, bad world. “Telling the truth should be our last resort,” the heroic character
goes on, “even more so when you’re dealing with a nun.” Even religion is no
light in Zafon’s world.
The
world is formidably darker than we would like to imagine. But Zafon’s plot has
the neatness of perfection. Everything moves in the end towards a resounding
climax. Isn’t it a bit too resounding?
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