The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I was completely hooked by the first chapter of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.  The chapter was enticingly entitled “The Cemetery of Forgotten Books.”  It is to this Cemetery of Forgotten Books that protagonist Daniel Sempere’s father has brought him so that he may choose a book of his own to protect for the rest of his life and make sure that it is never forgotten. 

“This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. This place was already ancient when my father brought me here for the first time, many years ago. Perhaps as old as the city itself. Nobody knows for certain how long it has existed, or who created it. I will tell you what my father told me, though. When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands. In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you here has been somebody's best friend. Now they only have us, Daniel. Do you think you'll be able to keep such a secret?” (page 6, Penguin Books, softcover edition)

In that sacred place, Daniel chooses a title by an author unknown to him, The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. And in that same sacred place begins Daniel’s quest to find more works by Carax, works that are impossible to find because a mysterious stranger has been destroying them as if in an attempt to wipe clean the world of any evidence of the author’s existence...

Eric recommended Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind to me with the promise of passages reminiscent of Garcia Márquez and Faulkner.  Yes.   Shadow is a lush and juicy story within a story; a literary mystery full of suspense, romance, and murder.  It is the type of book to read and re-read, to protect and make sure that it is never forgotten.  When I came to the end of this book, I thought back to a passage from the beginning, “Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return.” (page 8, Penguin Books, softcover edition)