"THE SHADOW OF THE WIND" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (A+)

There are those rare occasions while reading when you come to the astonishing realization that books just don't get any better than the one that you have in your hands. You find the book to be such a masterful expression of language and storytelling that you are in absolute awe of the talent of the author. This book by Zafón is a perfect example of just such a book, as reading it provides such an indelible impression that it it morphs into a living tapestry of original characters.

"The Shadow of the Wind," by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, is a sweeping Gothic tale of mystery and romance that spreads across three decades of life in Barcelona both before, during, and after the tumultuous Spanish Civil War. This book is a literary masterpiece made all the more extraordinary by the fact that it is the very first novel written by this young Spanish man who is not yet forty years of age. Zafón's writing style is almost poetic in nature with the entire book filled with colorful passages, wonderful literary flourishes, and fascinating characters.

However, this literary treasure would be unavailable to us in the English-speaking world were it not for Lucia Graves, who has translated the work from its native Spanish into English. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Ms. Graves for her deft touch in a translation that soars just as much as the original version. Doubtless she has remained true to the poetic language that Zafón used when writing this work in his own native tongue.

This is a book for book lovers that has at its core a story about a young book lover. It is a saga with a broad sweep across the Spanish landscape of Barcelona beginning in 1945. It is at once a mystery, then a love story, then another mystery, then a thriller, and finally a love story. The writing is so superb that you will find that this is a book that can only be put down with the very greatest of difficulty.

It is the tale of Daniel Sempere, whose father owns a small bookstore in Barcelona that deals in both rare and secondhand books. He has been widowed for many years and Daniel helps out around the bookstore whenever needed. One night he wakes up in terror because he can no longer remember his mother's face. Partly to mollify him, but also to offer him an experience that he will long remember, his father brings him to a hidden building housing what both his dad and Isaac, the proprietor, refer to as "The Cemetery of Forgotten Books."

Daniel's eleventh birthday is coming up, and one of his presents will be for him to select a "forgotten" book from this library. He will then be able to adopt it and bring it home as his very own. Obviously, both older men hold the written word in the highest esteem. Browsing though the long, dark, and dusty stacks in the cavernous building, Daniel stumbles across a volume written by one Julián Carax called "The Shadow of the Wind."

He is entranced by the book and he later reads it so many times that he knows it by heart. Proud that his son shows such a literary bent, his father brings Daniel over to the house of his friend, Gustavo Barceló to evidence that the apple hasn't fallen far from the parental tree. However, Barceló reacts rather strangely upon seeing the volume. He later offers Daniel a nice sum for the book, and then he even doubles that sum. But Daniel is resolute to all of his entreaties and refuses to sell it.

Late Daniel asks Barceló who else has heard of the author Carax, and Barceló replies that Clara, his blind niece, is familiar with Carax as she had read another one of his books while a student. Barceló has taken care of Clara ever since her parents were imprisoned and presumed dead during the Spanish Civil War.

Daniel meets the much older Clara and he falls instantly in love with her when she first explores his face with her soft hands. It is to be a case of first love, sometimes the most profound experience in a young man's life. He thrills to her story about "The Red House," another book by Carax that she had read to her while a student under the tutelage of a man both she and her cousin referred to as "Monsieur Roquefort." Daniel offers to read his Carax book to her, and she accepts with enthusiasm.

Daniel is a student at an exclusive grade school who has only gained admittance due to being provided with a scholarship. His dad could never have afforded the tuition and neither is their family socially prominent enough to have warranted his admission. While there, however, he forms deep friendships with other students who are of the cream of Barcelona society, including his best friend, Tomás Aquilar.

One night he notices a very strange man lurking in the dark down on the street beneath his window. The man sees that he has been noticed and he then smiles up at young Daniel, sending shivers up his spine as he does. Like a ghost, the man seems to be able to disappear and appear at will, and one night he suddenly appears right behind Daniel and puts his bony hand on his shoulder, nearly scaring him to death.

He is even more fearsome than Daniel had imagined with a deeply scarred face that shows the ravages of having been caught in a fire. He also seems to know everything about young Daniel, and it quickly develops that what he is most interested in is that book by Carax. First he offers large sums of money to Daniel, and then, after Daniel refuses to part with his literary treasure, the horribly scarred man suggests in a thinly veiled threat that he will get the book one way or the other.

Other characters come into play as Daniel ages from grade school to high school and beyond. One turns out to be Fermin Romero de Torres, an older man man living on the streets. Daniel shows him a kindness and wins his loyalty. On the spur of the moment, he offers him a job at his father's book store, and Fermin moves in and immediately justifies Daniel's faith in him by working like a demon to help out around the place.

Fermin never talks about his past, but it is obvious that he is a well educated man who has run afoul of the authorities. That suspicion is proven when the notorious Chief Inspector Francisco Javier Fumero shows up at the store one morning while Daniel is there all alone. He warns him in a very oily and threatening tone that Fermin is an enemy of the state and he is not to be given shelter. Daniel, filled with righteous indignation, sticks up for his friend and begins to earn the enmity of this very powerful person.

One of the joys of this book is that Fermin turns out to be one of the most delightful characters that I have ever enjoyed in literature while Fumero turns out to be his polar opposite as one of the most cruel, sadistic, and despicable villains ever created.

Both of these men will loom large in Daniel's future. As he grows older he decides to continue his research into the past of Julián Carax, a man who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth after spending a considerable period of his life in Paris. However, his trail there is as cold as it is in Barcelona. All the while the scarred man is dogging Daniel's footsteps waiting for him to find more of Carax's books. 2001, 486 pages, published by Penguin Books.