The shadow of the wind 2

I was wrong about The Shadow of the Wind. It has a bit of magic which makes it worthwhile. With its dreamy and everchanging backdrop of streets and buildings and colourful characters it's a bit like Gabriel Garcia Marquez but without the heat and the pride. Instead a velvety sadness swirls through every scene, gives life to every interesting character. For all its energy the book is never happy.

At one point a character, speaking of Julian Carax's writing, echoes what I had been thinking of Shadow of the Wind: Carlos Ruiz Zafon is every character, every character has his voice ... and to add my own: every female character is a permutation of the feminine response to his male persona. It's that kind of book, weaving, winding, lots of voices, but they're all just echoes of the same few personaes and storylines. Things changed for me somewhere shortly after page 130, when I realised the story has a lot of soul, and its story within a story plot is actually sweetly seductive.

Halfway through, halfway to go.