Our book group choice, as recommended by Richard & Judy, who are like the British Oprah, but different...?!

(19/04) Review to follow

A monster of a book; for once the blurb is not overstated. It’s a unique and engrossing cocktail of gothic melodrama, detective thriller, love story, and homage to Barcelona; the city, its indomitable people and C20th history (the Second Republic, General Franco and the civil war).

The story of Daniel Sempere, the writer Julian Carax, their lovers, friends, enemies and parents is told through 2 parallel stories, and several asides, separated by 30 years or so. Its quite complicated following all the people and events as the literary detective Daniel and his sidekick, the outrageous Fermin, close in on the truth behind the ‘The Shadow of the Wind’. We know that the 2 stories will come together, and its fun guessing how; who is the disfigured man burning all of Carax’s books; why did Carax leave Barcelona for Paris, and what happened when he came back; what part does the psychopathic policeman Fumero have in the events; will Daniel and Bea live happily ever after!

Our book group spent a big chunk of our meeting trying to understand everything. Fortunately there are no obvious gaps (it just takes a bit of thinking through), and most of the loose ends are tied up nicely. A word of warning though, there are a few graphic scenes of violence & death, maybe a PG or 12A rating?

A couple of other interesting observations from our group:

The whole novel seems to be set in black, white and grey tones, not what you would associate with Catalonia (sun & sea, reds and yellows?) and the vibrant modern cities of Barcelona & Paris. The lack of references to colour adds a great deal to the mood and menace; like a Frank Miller or Neil Gaiman comic book, or 1950’s ‘film noir’, think spies with hats lurking in shadows, smoking guns, London fog!!

A notion - I think it started from the internet - that the ‘Cemetery of Lost Books’ actually holds the lives and souls of the authors, waiting to be resurrected or released? Hence the oft-repeated phrase, ‘There are worse prisons than words’. I don’t know, a bit deep for me ;)

Last, and definitely not least, the reason, I believe, that this has become an ‘instant classic’ to quote the blurb, is that it is gloriously and unashamedly about books! The love of reading, the compulsion to write, and the power of books (and the written word – a letter and notebook are also key to the plot) to affect lives, and help us understand ourselves and others, "(reading is) an intimate ritual, a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us", "when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind".

And a couple of other quotes which I liked, apropos to nothing;

"There are no second chances in life, except to feel remorse"

"Coincidences are the scars of fate. There are no coincidences…we are just puppets of our unconscious desires"

RELEASE NOTES:

Pre-release for tomorrow's Ipswich meet-up

Picked up at the Ipswich MeetUp today, many thanks.

I haven't been able to get in to this book, although I've picked it up to read many times over the last few weeks. I'm disappointed as I've heard good reviews of this book. Maybe it's just my mood at the moment.

I picked this up at the BookCrossing Unconvention meet-up, on 1st July, since it looked intriguing - I confess I picked it up purely because of the pretty front cover! My mum (SuttonCheney) then told me that she'd wanted to read it for a while, so I left it in the Midlands with her. She still hasn't journalled it, apparently, but she really really enjoyed it! She told me so, in a couple of phone calls.

So now the book is finally in Swansea, on the end of my TBR shelf, and it's not going to be read for absolutely decades 'cos there are loads of books in front of it. :( But I'm working on it! :D

pinched from lottiotta's TBR pile muahahaha