It is so long since I last wrote a book review that I forgot the url of this blog! It isn’t that I haven’t been reading, it’s just that I haven’t felt like writing about the books I have read.

For my yoga book club we read The Shadow of the Wind, a book I read decades ago when it first came out. This time, I decided to listen to it as an audio book and then as soon as it had started, realised I should have bought a copy to hold and refer back to as I worked my way through it.

I remembered the book as being ‘complicated’, stories within stories, or books within books and I also remembered that it felt like a quest and a coming-of-age story.

Daniel, as a young boy, is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, for me this book would have been in the cemetry as well, and asked to choose a book to protect. Daniel chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, loves every minute of it, and then decides to set off on a quest to find Julian Carax and his other books.

Daniel’s life starts to mirror that of the book: he meets Lain Coubert, the devil in the book by Carax, but also many other characters. My favourite was Fermin, who almost occupies the wise adult, or wizard, standing by his side, guiding him through the quest. Daniel first meets Fermín Romero de Torres when he was homeless and took him in, providing work for him in the bookshop he and his father ran. Fermin was very good at tracking down lost books and finding what customers wanted.

In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.

But Fermín Romero de Torres’ other role in the book is to remind us of the horrors of the times politically. Bruised and beaten, with scars on his back from the times he was imprisoned, standing for ghosts from the past, we see Fermin and Inspector Fumero in a cat and mouse chase, Fermin representing memory and Fumero representing removal or destruction of memories. Both ideas are very significant when we reflect on the era of Franco.

In revealing Fermin’s story, memories are passed on and reremembered ensuring that the past never leaves us.

Set in Barcelona, there is a definite gothic feel: there are elements of horror, mystery, romance (there’s quite a lot of romance), and a dark atmosphere so even picking a genre for the book is complicated.

The story turns full circle, when at the end Daniel takes his son to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books to choose his own book, leaving you set up for the next book in the series.

Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.