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    The Shadow of the Wind
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    The Shadow of the Wind
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    The Shadow of the Wind
    Audiobook18 hours

    The Shadow of the Wind

    Written by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

    Narrated by Jonathan Davis

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Barcelona, 1945-just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And before long he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.

    As with all astounding novels, The Shadow of the Wind sends the mind groping for comparisons-The Crimson Petal and the White? The novels of Arturo Pérez-Reverte? Of Victor Hugo? Love in the Time of Cholera?-but in the end, as with all astounding novels, no comparison can suffice. As one leading Spanish reviewer wrote, "The originality of Ruiz Zafón's voice is bombproof and displays a diabolical talent. The Shadow of the Wind announces a phenomenon in Spanish literature." An uncannily absorbing historical mystery, a heart-piercing romance, and a moving homage to the mystical power of books, The Shadow of the Wind is a triumph of the storyteller's art.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 1, 2005
    ISBN9780786558186
    Unavailable
    The Shadow of the Wind
    Author

    Carlos Ruiz Zafon

    Carlos Ruiz Zafón is the author of eight novels, including the internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed Cemetery of Forgotten Books series: The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, The Prisoner of Heaven, and The Labyrinth of the Spirits. His work, which also includes prizewinning young adult novels, has been translated into more than fifty languages and published around the world, garnering numerous awards and reaching millions of readers. He lives in Los Angeles.

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    Reviews for The Shadow of the Wind

    4/5

    8,651 ratings475 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I began reading this at our old house. It was Halloween. I sat outside and as few children lived in that neighborhood, I found mysel abreast on the waves of the opening chapters. There is something narcotic in those pages. All-too-quickly the buzz is gone and what remains are farces and clumsy plot devices.

      Umberto Eco is nothing like this. The Shadow of the Wind is shit. This and that million selling Ninth Gate and Danny Brown: people looking for mystery to explain their undead experience. You're not talented: don't blame the Freemasons!

      I finished it and left on the plane to Munich.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like "The Shadow of the Wind," I really did, and so despite my urge to abandon it at page 175 (and every couple of dozen pages thereafter), I kept going all the way to the end at page 487. We all love stories, and this is a hell of a story, whatever else I might say about it.Of course, it's a story whose main mystery--the identity of the mysterious Laín Coubert, whose life mission it is to burn every copy of the works of Julián Carax--is easy to guess. It's a story whose first-person hero is mopey, weak, and passive. I'm not one of those who thinks a good book has to have characters that you like, much less "identify with," but it was wearying, when joining the protagnoist in the midst of so many potentially life-changing events, to be stuck with a boy who prefers to let life pull him along, who never does anything too crazy. You're in a gothic novel, young friend. Go over the top, just once.There was a problem of translation. The book reads like it was written by someone for whom English, specifically British English, is a second language. A character is described as having "a lot of cheek." Another character has a conversational tic of always saying "if you see what I mean," when a native English speaker would say "if you know what I mean." (The two have subtly different implications about the speaker's expectations of the listener.) The conversational tone is usually florid, the syntax complex. No doubt this matches the Spanish. But there are odd choices. At one point a waiter is encountered who speaks with an accent of rural Spain, and the translator handles this by having him speak is a sort of made-up Cockney which is more British than Spanish, and not very British at that.The characters are well drawn, but the realistic relationships are all between men. The women are intense, mysterious types, usually victimized. The women in the book who are not servants are all slapped around, beaten, or worse. The brutality in the book is vivid, and sometimes juxtaposed with humor in ways that seem inappropriate. More than once, the mysteries and subplots are piled high until they're just about to topple, and then the questions are resolved in a long passage in italic type that is supposed to represent the substance of an interview, or a letter as long as a novelette supposedly written in haste just before a character's death. This is a lazy way to resolve a problem that the writer himself created.I have mild regret at having picked up this book. It is a good story, set in an interesting time, but for me its frustrations and flaws overcame its strengths, which are vividness and sense of place.
    • 5/5
      What a beautiful written story. I couldnt stop reading it, I just had to know what happened next. So many twists I did not see coming and of course it did make me cry. It is truly hard to explain what the book is about but just jump right in and read it. You won't be disappointed.
    • 5/5
      I read this on recommendation of a college friend. It intrigued me from the beginning, and I was soon absorbed in this dark tale. If you love books and mysteries, you'll really enjoy this story. Additionally - I was impressed at the translator's skill, since the original is in Spanish.
    • 4/5
      Too many windings around in circles, too many words, but a nice concise ending where all the threads are (finally) tied together. Daniel marries Bea, has his own son, Julian, runs the bookshop, and Julian has survived, and continues to write novels, having never discovered that he and Penelope were actually brother and sister (half).
    • 5/5
      LOVED this book!!
    • 5/5
      I love this book. Period.
    • 4/5
      Borrowing generously from the Gothic tradition, Carlos Ruiz Zafón has crafted an enchanting and mysterious romance about books, love, betrayal, family, friendship, and loyalty—all set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona.While The Shadow of the Wind is not necessarily a Gothic romance of the supernatural variety, Zafón effectively weaves into his story many of the tropes of Gothic fiction—family secrets, forbidden love, devilish villains, stories-within-stories, and of course a dark and mysterious old mansion. Much to his credit, he reformulates these story elements into an original and compelling tale populated by a broad range of complex characters, including young Daniel the narrator, his iconoclastic and amusing friend Fermín, the evil Fumero, and the doomed author Julián Carax.A bonus for booklovers in the metafictional subtext that runs throughout the novel—Daniel’s search for Julián Carax, the author of a novel also entitled The Shadow of the Wind, sets the story in motion, and Daniel’s story begins to parallel Julián’s past, which he slowly uncovers through a series of interwoven narratives. As one character asserts near the novel’s end, “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” (p. 484).
    • 3/5
      I really liked this book, and if I were a mystery lover I'd have given it 5 stars. I loved the characters, the wonderful dialogue and descriptions, the sense of getting to know Barcelona a certain point in time, and the originality of the plot. The thing is, I find reading mysteries frustrating. I'm constantly having to go back to re-read section when I realize their importance to the story. I don't know. They just feel like too much work. I know Zafon has another book out. I'll definitely check it out as he is definitely a master writer.
    • 2/5
      2.5 stars? I'm still digesting. As much as I enjoyed the writing, the story was insanely predictable, and I never felt attached to any of the characters. I was so underwhelmed by this book.
    • 5/5
      Today I finished The Shadow of the Wind - apparently for the second time. I was prompted to reread it when I started reading the 4th volume in The Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. It touts itself as being enjoyable as a freestanding story read out of sequence. It does start of developing increasing interest and intrigue, but I found myself not recalling the events of the first volume, and I haven’t read the two intervening volumes either. I decided to go back and reread the first volume, thinking it would be a quick recalling my former read. I do know I enjoyed the book enough that it left me wanting to visit Barcelona, and I do recall the idea of the cemetery of forgotten books.However I had forgotten its richness and complexity. It is in reality several layers of stories running in parallel and to some extent allegories of one another. A young boy whose mother has died gets the chance to select a book from the cemetery of forgotten books. He is so fascinated that as he grows up he wants to read all he can written by the author. It turns out that the books are being burned by a mysterious individual - in the end the author. His antipathy towards his own books stems from his blaming his writing for the death of the love of his life and the son she had from him. The book is paralleled by the fact that the protagonist falls in love with the sister of his best friend and impregnates her. After many detours in the end they are married happily. A major plot is the protagonists attempt to investigate Julian Corax the author who is now burning his own books. His research is aided by a falstaffian mentor who helps him unravel the mystery. The ultimate unravelling comes from revelations by Nuria Montfort the daughter of the keeper of the cemetery of lost books. She has written down her knowledge which is presented as a second story for the last quarter of the book. It is revealed that Corax’s love is actually his half sister and that unbeknownst to him played a role in her death. The book ends with the suggestion that Corax has begun writing again hence the sequels to the book. The villain in the piece is a psychopathic police lieutenant who commits many murders and thirsts to end the life of Corax. The novel has been described as Dickensian - perhaps because of its length and complexity. At this point I can say I am glad I reread it and had visited Barcelona in the interval between the two readings. I am planning to read the rest of the series at this point. The spanish civil war also plays a central role in the story.
    • 3/5
      I’ve heard almost exclusively good things about The Shadow of the Wind. I’ve loved all of the other translated fiction I’ve read, and I love books about books. Objectively, this book was perfect for me. For some reason, though, I just didn’t connect with it. I did sometimes find the prose really beautiful and the loving descriptions of books and secret libraries made my book-loving self very happy. I also liked that the conversations followed a distinctly different pattern than what I’m used to. I felt like I was getting a glimpse of Spanish culture. However, the main character is essentially swept up in someone else’s story. I felt he had very little agency. There were clearly intended to be parallels between his life and that of the man whose life he enters, but I thought the connections were superficial. I ended the book wishing there had been something more.

      This review first published at Doing Dewey.
    • 2/5
      I read this book for my book club. When it was suggested, I was very interested by the premise of a young boy fascinated by books who stumbles upon a mystery. The book, however, did not live up to my expectations. It was very slow going. I found the main character tedious and boring. It was clear rather early on that nearly every male in the book wanted to boink every single female he came across (and/or beat the crap out of them). The setting did nothing for me and I cared little to nothing about the constant references to "the war". When things started to fall apart, I took a sneak peak at a few reviews. They assured me that there would be shocking revelations that would make my patience worthwhile. When these started to come to light, my reaction was much less "OH MY GOD!" and much more "WTF, I figured that out 200 pages ago". Note to authors if you introduce a character who doesn't know who is father is who then a) is taken in by a relative stranger with a penchant for sleeping around and b) falls in love with the daughter of this man - I am going to assume immediately that the dude is his father and he is boinking his sister - this no longer constitutes a mystery. The only redeeming factor in this book: The hope that the Cemetery of Forgotten Books actually exists - I want to live there.

    • 5/5
      The premise: ganked from BN.com: In the postwar calm of 1945 Barcelona, ten-year-old Daniel Sempere awakes from a nightmare and, to his horror, realizes that he can no longer remember the face of his deceased mother. In an effort to divert his son's attention from this sharply felt fear and loss, his father, a rare-book dealer, first swears Daniel to secrecy, then takes him to a clandestine library where Daniel is allowed to select a single book.Entranced, Daniel picks a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, written by the enigmatic Julián Carax, who is rumored to have fled Spain under murky circumstances, and later died. As Daniel begins to search for other works by his favorite new author, he discovers that they have all been destroyed--torched by a mysterious stranger obsessed with obliterating Carax's literary legacy from the face of the earth.Though Daniel's copy of Carax's novel is the last in existence, he's unwilling to part with it at any price and dedicates himself to revealing the truth about Carax. Aided in his quest by the good-humored Fermín Romero de Torres, a former beggar whose "difficult life-lessons" enable him to keep a step ahead of trouble, Daniel begins to uncover a tale of murder, madness, and secrets that might best be forgotten. And as he wends his way through Barcelona society, both high and low, he comes to realize that his own part in The Shadow of the Wind is more than that of a mere reader.My RatingWorth the Cash: I've heard very, very high praise about this book, so I'm afraid my expectations were a little TOO high. No doubt, there are some delightful and truly memorable characters in this book, and the mystery and the plots (and layers upon layers of subplots), were certainly delightful to read and discover. I also was completely blindsighted and charmed by the ending of the book, so much so that I've already put the Zafón's second novel, The Angel's Game, on my "must buy" list. Certainly, the writing is lovely, and it'll wrap you up into the world with ease, though I did find myself jarred from the text, as the prose made me think of a much older period, and my brain kept resisting the time in which the book was set. Also, while I enjoyed the book, I never had felt the chomping-at-the-bit feeling of wanting to get back to it. Certainly, it's a good, solid read, and worth it to anyone who enjoys fiction, but I think my expectations worked against me, as well as the book, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I might have if I hadn't had said expectations. Still, there's true beauty in these pages, and the book is worth checking out.Review style: spoilers to be found, because part of what charms me about this book lies in those very spoilers, and I want to talk about those spoilers in comparison to my expectations. So, if you've read the book and/or you don't mind spoilers, feel free to read the full review at my LJ, which is linked below. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome!REVIEW: Carlos Ruiz Zafón's THE SHADOW OF THE WINDHappy Reading!
    • 1/5
      could not be bothered to finish -sounded so intriguing, but it was so boring!!!
    • 5/5
      Thoughts in 15 words or less - The parallel lives of Julien Carax and Daniel Sempere are told with gothic suspense.What I really think - Loved this novel. Zafron combines all the elements of, what I consider, a great book; gothic-like romance, suspense, deceit, revenge, mystery, ghost story and even humor. It takes a master to combine all this and still weave a cohesive story that is essentially a page turner. I loved or despised the characters and some remained in the shadows till the end. At the books conclusion, after running the gamete of emotions, I closed the cover and smiled. Could my first book of the new year possibly be the best of the year? Time will tell, but the bar is set high.Also listened to the audio version read by Jonathan Davis which was very well done except the piano interludes were annoying.
    • 5/5
      This is such a gorgeous, heady book, it's hard to know how to react to the reading experience--but reading it is just that, an experience. Zafon's words beg a reader to sink into them and wander the halls of the story just like his characters wander their home city of Barcelona, and the characters feel like people you'd run into on the street or through your neighbors--as wonderful as they are flawed, at turns naïve or dangerous or tragic. The way he brought this world together and left it for readers on the page is nothing short of masterful, and I'm only sorry it took me so long to read it. I can't wait to read the other books in the series.Absolutely, 100% recommended for all lovers of reading.
    • 3/5
      This was an amazing, but dense and complicated piece of literature. It was well worth the read.
    • 5/5
      My grandma volunteers at the local library where I live and there is an entire shelf of donated library books that she catalogs and stocks. The library books on this shelf do not have a return date so essentially they are free books. I browsed the shelf one day when I came across the Shadow of the Wind and it sounded intriguing. Fast forward two years when I finally pick it up because of an English class for school and start reading it. All I can say is I wish I had started it earlier.

      I was mesmerized from the time Daniel was introduced to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books (and I cannot be the only one who wishes this place was real) and from that first page to the last I felt like I was in the novel, experiencing the sights, sounds, and smell of the magical city of Barcelona. A brilliant novel that takes you back through the past and shows that while you can run, and run far, the past will come back to haunt you. I expected some of what would happen but some things completely shocked me. The ending though I loved, the perfect reflection of the beginning. The only thing I could think that would bother people would be the language and the gratuitous sex. I did have problems with how people and women were treated but it is a different time period then the 21st century. I have highlights and post-its all over my copy of the book and it's probably one I will reread in the future, it is amazing, brilliant, and fantastic. Thank you Carlos Zafon for giving us this book!!!

      5/5
    • 3/5
      So many characters! I have made myself a spreadsheet, because I can see that someone who's mentioned in passing on page 108 is very likely to turn up again later in a more significant way! And because I am reading very slowly, I will probably have forgotten who they were.
    • 3/5
      3.5/5 starsThis was an interesting story. It definitely went in a direction I wasn't expecting, but it was enjoyable. Daniel is the son of a bookshop owner, and one day, his father brings him to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Here Daniel must choose a book that he will protect with his life, and ensure that no one forgets about it. Daniel stumbles upon, The Shadow of the Wind, and his quest to find out the mysterious happenings to the author entangle him in something much more than he expected.The plot of this novel, overall was good, but the beginning took a long time to get to the meat of the story. The mystery was very intriguing, and I really wanted to know the conspiracies going on! I was guessing at who people were - and I was erroneously wrong - and I really enjoyed how all the pieces came together.The characters felt distant. I cared what happened to Daniel, but half the time I forgot his name. His obsession with Carax was really interesting, and I liked the different kinds of people we were introduced to as he unravelled the mystery of The Shadow of the Wind.The writing was well done, but felt overly descriptive at times, and like there were just too many words. I felt like the book didn't need to be as long as it was, yet the story it told was compelling after the halfway mark. I think the translator did a great job creating the atmosphere of the novel as well. The atmosphere and setting is what sucked me in as well. Barcelona just sounded so beautiful, and creepy, and I really liked how we explored different parts of it, solving the mystery. Overall, this was quite enjoyable, but I'm not sure if I'll pick up other books in this series or not.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book. I like how the story took a winding path to the truth. The story moves at a good pace but you might want to take your time to really enjoy how it unfolds.
    • 5/5
      This is an absolutely wonderful book. It is a history and a mystery: gentle, descriptive and evocative with engaging characters and many entertaining excursions and diversions.
    • 3/5
      Great mystery. Too bad there was so much degradation of women, I would have enjoyed this much more if not for that.
    • 4/5
      What a fascinating book! I am having a hard time trying to decide how to review this book. I would say the language and writing style of Zafon are incredible. I truly lost myself in the descriptions and metaphors of the narrative. The story itself was compelling, but I felt that there were a couple of places where it dragged a bit. By the end of the book when all of the questions are answered, I couldn't help but think that he could have got to the end a bit quicker. With that said, I still very much enjoyed the read and would recommend it to any lover of books. I would rate this 4.5 stars if possible.
    • 2/5
      Welllll, I know this book is beloved, and I liked the story. This is where the "but" comes in. The writing was so flowery so over the top, so filled with baffling and absurdly mixed metaphors it was laughable. And the adjectives! So many adjectives. A landslide of arcane multi-syllabic adjectives in nearly every sentence. To say nothing of the the fact that half the adjectives were misused! "This egregious ass of yours" should indicate some sort of fart factory, or at least something lumpy, but it is followed by "is the revelation according to Botticelli." That word "egregious?" I do not think it means what he thinks it means. A few sentences later we get a baffling simile. Zafon states that an alley "looked and smelled like Hell's esophagus." What? Also, when the story did not go where the author intended, instead of rewriting to actually solve the mystery, he just throws in a letter that basically tells the whole story and makes most of the first few hundred pages of the book sort of meaningless. I may come back here and write a more specific review, but I don't want to pile on to a book so many people I like, adore. For now I will just say that despite all its flaws I enjoyed this book for its passion for literature (particularly Cervantes, Borges - but Borges is SO SO SO much better and Eco but Eco is SO SO SO much smarter), its essential sweetness, and its loving portrait of Barcelona, a city of which I am very fond, at a particular rather fraught moment.
    • 3/5
      Yeah. I did not like this at all. Listened to the first hour of it. I don't know, maybe it was the translator, who knows. The whole thing just felt very amateurish, movie of the week like. Not impressed. Very bummed about it too: Europe, books, secret libraries, WWII, lots of elements that are right up my alley. Nope.
    • 5/5
      A lovely story of how life can surprise us if we dear to be curious. There are characters to love, hate and confuse with each other. Happenings cleverly written to extract you from the main story, and surprise you to be followed up later in the book. This is way it's not a easy read, or thin as a birds feather. But with the language used by the write require some time and space, which do match the very idea of the book. The idea of reading being more like a sacred act, than mere entertainment. And do remind me of my favorite writer, Victor Hugo.
    • 4/5
      very interesting, very different.
    • 3/5
      Predictable.