La Sombra del Viento (Vintage Espanol) (Spanish Edition)
A Barcelona-born novelist based in Los Angeles, Ruiz Zafon was a  finalist for the Spanish Fernando Lara de Novela award with this  fifth novel. This thriller follows the mysterious disappearance  of an author of melodramas, Juli n Carax, and how his book  influences the 10-year-old Daniel Sempere. When Daniel visits a  mysterious and secret Library of Forgotten Books in 1940s  Barcelona and finds Carax's novel The Shadow of the Wind, he  becomes obsessed with Carax. For more than a decade, he follows  the writer's ghost through a labyrinth of love, sex, violence,  friendship, and betrayal. The narration unfolds through an  interesting, yet overextended, interplay of overlapping  characters and stories. Carax's and Ruiz Zafon's novels blend  throughout the story, sometimes misleading the reader but ending  in masterfully executed pages. Ruiz Zafon explores the world of  antique books, the city of Barcelona, and the animosity  inherited from the Spanish Civil War. Some scenes in this  thriller also refer to Borges's exploration of libraries, the  labyrinth structure, and Arturo P rez-Reverte's study of  hypertextuality in works like El club Dumas (The Dumas Club,  Suma de Letras, 2000). Although Riuz Zafon uses some complex  metaphors to imitate Carax's melodramatic style, his language is  mostly clear and accessible to all readers. Recommended for  public libraries and bookstores.Leda Schiavo, Univ. of  Illinois, ChicagoCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.