<p>Its March 1st! Hurray! Lets hope the dark days of winter are coming to an end. </p>
<p>A light exists in Spring
Not present on the year
At any other period
When March is scarcely here.</p>
<ul>
<li>Emily Dickinson</li>
</ul>
<p> And March is as good a time as any to begin reading our next CC book club selection (for April): The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. This book was published in 2004 and should be easy to find either at the library, the bookstore or online in both paperback and kindle format. Heres the Amazon link (but be careful about reading the reviewsI think they give away too much):</p>
<p>I am almost finished reading this book and just loving it… had been in Barcelona in late summer so really enjoying the maps and the specific Barcelona details. It is beautifully written, great story and you really easily get right into it.</p>
<p>Hello readers! Believe it or not, it’s already April. This is just a reminder that we will begin discussing The Shadow of the Wind on Saturday, April 10th. Until then, Happy Easter everyone!</p>
<p>Hello! I hope everyone enjoyed The Shadow of the Wind. I certainly did. Here are links to two reading guides, with a variety of questions to ponder:</p>
<p>Mary, I felt the same way as you but hadn’t been able to put my finger on what it was!!! YES, shifting the first person over to Nuria at this point seemed distracting and a bit off to me, although I appreciated the detail and insight. I also would have like to have known more about Bea and what made her tick. Why was Julian so taken with Bea so quickely? I understood his watching Daniel all those year endeared him to the Daniel but Bea? She did represent Penelope to him though and I just took it to be almost a second chance for him…not letting Daniel make the mistakes that he and Penelope did.
I saw the whole brother/sister thing right away, as soon as I read about Penelopes dad talking to Julian’s mom at school…I just knew. </p>
<p>I would love to see this book made into a film. Fermin could be played by Adrian Brody…</p>
<p>^ Yes, I could see Adrien Brody in the part, although I pictured a more frenetic actor like Roberto Benigni.</p>
<p>I didn’t guess that Penelope and Julian were siblings, but the moment it was revealed I thought, “well, of course they are.” I did guess immediately that the faceless man in the shadows was Julian Carax, despite the reports that he was dead. Only the author would hate his book (i.e., himself) so much that he spent the better part of his life on a search and destroy mission.</p>
<p>There was a certain Phantom of the Opera quality to Julian—a masked and tortured figure, who loved deeply but was also capable of cold-blooded murder.</p>
<p>I didn’t guess that Julian and Penelope share a father. However, everything fell into place once Sophie reveals the secret to Julian’s friend Miguel. (It reminds me of the movie Lone Star with Chris Cooper and Kris Kristofferson.) I did suspect Julian lived - under the identity of the missing Miguel.</p>
<p>I liked “Nuria Monfort: Remembrance of the Lost” - not only liked, but by that time needed her viewpoint. To me, she alone remains of those able to fill in the missing pieces. Daniel certainly can’t nor even Julian. In contrast, I find the segments of the novel told from Father Fernando’s viewpoint or Jacinta’s, among others, awkward. The author moves abruptly from first person to a third person narrative. The detached third person narrative seems to wander into the book. Even the print - italics - further delineates the segment. At least, Zafon allows Nuria to speak in her own voice with her perspective.</p>
<p>^ I thought of Lone Star, too—another great sibling love affair. (Ew?)</p>
<p>Interesting point about the alternating voices. There are so many characters telling different parts of Julian’s story that it’s hard to know who is a reliable narrator and who is not, but I guess that’s part of the book’s mystique.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I thought Miquel was more of a hero than Julian. He loved Julian (and Nuria) completely and selflessly, right up until the end… “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”</p>
<p>I felt that the male/female relationships seemed unrealistic. Julian and Fumero fall in love with Penelope at first sight and never waver. Penelope returns Julian’s love at first sight. Daniel falls in love with Clara and later Bea for seemingly no reason. Maybe I can understand Daniel’s 14-year-old boy infatuation with Clara to an extent - though 14-year-old boys tend to move on with more agility. However, for Daniel and Bea to abruptly leap from their non-relationship to Romeo-and-Juliet moments for no apparent reason seems strange. I can go on: Miguel loves Nuria; Nuria loves Julian, the hatter loves Sophie (moving quickly into a love/hate realm). Even mother/son relationships aren’t the norm: Daniel’s mother deceased; Julian’s mother abused, Jorge and Penelope’s mother useless, and I don’t remember a thing about Tomas and Bea’s mother. Fumero and his mother - I don’t need to even go there, do I?</p>
<p>On the other hand, I felt the friendships: Julian and Miguel form a bond as boys; the father/son relationship between Daniel and his dad rings true (oh - Daniel’s dad never wavers from loving his deceased wife Isabelle); the bond developing between Daniel and Fermin develops slowly and as realistically as can be expected with a character like Fermin. I even understand the link developing between Daniel and Fumero’s henchman.</p>
<p>In other words I think Zafon writes male/male relationships (father/son, friend/friend, …) better than he manages male/female. Just my opinion :)</p>