#carlos ruiz zafon
“Alguien dijo una vez que en el momento en que te paras a pensar si quieres a alguien, ya has dejado de quererle para siempre.”
La sombra del viento, Carlos Ruiz Zafón
La sombra del viento, Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Me crié entre libros, haciendo amigos invisibles en páginas que se deshacían en polvo y cuyo olor aún conservo en las manos.
La sombra del viento, Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Cada libro, cada tomo que ves, tiene alma. El alma de quien lo escribió, y el alma de quienes lo leyeron y vivieron y soñaron con él. Cada vez que un libro cambia de manos, cada vez que alguien desliza la mirada por sus páginas, su espíritu crece y se hace fuerte.
La sombra del viento, Carlos Ruiz Zafón
En memoria de un buen escritor Carlos Ruiz Zafón, descanse en paz.
Ave atque vale
“Time has taught me not to lose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Artwork by Ali Beletic
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“Recuérdame, aunque sea en un rincón y a escondidas. No me dejes ir.”
- Libro: La sombra del viento, Carlos Ruiz Zafón
“Few are the occasions when life allows us stroll through our dreams, caressing a lost memory with our hands.”
I first picked up Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s “The Shadow of the Wind” when it was first published over 18 years ago. It was, I think, a Richard and Judy bookclub recommendation. I poured over the pages, completely hooked on Zafon’s writing and characters. Daniel Sempere, Fermin, Bea and the Sempere and Sons bookshop: I’ve grown up with these characters and I keep coming back, squeezing myself into their lives. After I read Shadow I also read The Prisoner of Heaven and The Angel’s Game. The ‘Shadow’ series opens up Barcelona in your mind. Zafon’s is a magical, gothic place.
Labyrinth of the Spirits is the last book in the Shadow quartet. Daniel is back along with Fermin and Bea and the wonderful Sempere and Sons bookshop. This time the story centres on a new character: Alicia Gris, a gritty spy/investigator for the Franco administration who is investigating a missing government Minister. Alicia is an orphan, a woman from Fermin’s past, recruited to fight and work at the whims of the handler who groomed her from childhood.
The Labyrinth of the Spirits is the name of a book at the heart of this story. It’s a series by an author named Victor Matatix. In it, a young girl falls into a twisted version of Wonderland, a “Barcelona of horrors” and becomes slowly darker and nastier as the series drags on. Zafron didn’t name his main protagonist by accident. Alicia is our Alice and her life is the Labyrinth, the slow, twisted descent into hell.
Labyrinth is about goodness and what it takes to set oneself free. It isn’t just Alicia that has to find her way through darkness but Daniel as well. The Shadow of the Wind opens with Daniel, as a boy, waking and screaming because he can’t remember his mother’s face. Isabella Sempere is the heart and soul of this story. After learning that his mother was murdered in a previous book, Daniel plots his revenge. Zafon has him fall down the rabbit hole. As the chapters go on, we watch something dark and frightening consume his soul.
Apart from ‘Shadow’ this is my favourite book in the series. A great lump of a book, I swallowed it whole over a few days.There are a lot of characters in this and multiple points of view. Somehow, the story doesn’t feel crowded. Alicia is an absolute triumph. I’m so sad that I only get to have one book with her.
Take the leap, fall down the hole. You’ll enjoy finding your way out.
