"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Monday, December 11, 2017

The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon, 2001)

(487 pages)

Book club selection (via NOC; session held 9 December 2017).

Protagonist Daniel - son of a bookseller - is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books - where he takes responsibility for a novel by a certain Julian Carax.  From there the author takes us on a journey around Barcelona (with a stop in Paris) over the course of quite a few years, with the main action taking place in and around the time of the Spanish Civil War.  Involving Julian's school pals, Fermin, three women, etc., etc.

Beautifully written.  Perhaps too many plot twists - made it challenging for the author to tie it all together - but this also kept things moving along.
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