The Shadow Of The Wind

We had dinner last night with Dave and Cheryl Lelands at Don Felix's last night. When we made plans to get together, we didn't realize the day was Dave's birthday. During the evening they mentioned a trip to Barcelona. I remembered a writer who described living in the city he loved. He described the tree-lined walkway that assended a hill. Cheryl said, "Oh, you mean the Ramblas." Yes that was it and I asked if she'd been there. She said no, but she had read about the area in preparation of their visit.

The Ramblas was described in the book " of "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The book was written in Spanish and years later translated into English.

I had an opportunity to attend a reading and interview of Carlos Ruiz Zafon at the Baghdad theater in south east Portland. Here's an edited version of what I wrote back then:

"Carlos Ruiz Zafon author of "The Shadow of the Wind" and now "The Angels Game" is about 45 and a little roly-polly. He was interviewed by a man from Tin House. The event was sponsored by Powell's books for the price of $19 each. The large audience sat enthralled while Zafon talked about writing and his books. We each received a free autographed copy of "The Angels Game."

"Like Phillip Margolin, Zafon does not just sit down and begin to write, watching the letters spew from his pen. He believes in outlining his novel in advance. His outline is built with images. He alluded to beginning a war. You place your units with their various specialties, then when the war begins you make changes and adjust. The perfect plan is only perfect until you throw everything out.

"When he begins to write from his outline, his job then is to add texture. He writes in his native language, Spanish, which is translated to English later when the book is complete. That process can take up to three years, so if we only know English, we are three years behind the Spanish speaking.

"The Angels Game" is the second in his four book series he plans to write from a writers perspective. This novel takes place in the 20s and 30s. It is filled with the sick undercurrent of chaos that led to the Spanish civil war and eventually broke out in Europe as WWII. I wanted to ask if he sees any parallels between the pre-civil war period in Spain to the world at large today. Maybe, I will email him.

"He's lived in so many places that he considers himself a man of the world, rather than a Spaniard or Los Angelino. He talked about getting away from a subject to write about it. He put his hand up close to his nose and tried to describe it. He couldn't. He couldn't even see if it was attached to something, but pull it away and he gains perspective; the ability to describe its lines, whirls, color and function. In a sentence he urged me to leave Portland (for Mexico) by saying if "one never leaves we can never understand it."

"I am convinced many writers write not only to put their thoughts into words, but to talk about themselves. It is an ego trip to have 500 people hang on your words and buy your books and dissect your thinking. Zafon, while modest, seemed to enjoy the evening."

Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written.