The best line in the novel:
Julian had once told me that a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise. (p. 363)
While the novel was fast paced, interesting, complex, and loaded with characters, intrigue and conflicts to propel the mystery along, I would not be prone to call this novel either a masterpiece or a destined-to-be classic, thus disagreeing with The Daily Telegraph’s front and back cover blurbs.
The main character, Daniel, is a bit of a crybaby and a manipulator, a mirror of the subject of his search, the mysterious author, Julian Carax. Other characters do stand out, in particular, his friend Fermin. But without sympathy for the two main characters, it’s hard to accept a lot of their actions.
One of my biggest problems with this novel is the question of whether this novel is carefully plotted or merely overly contrived. There are just too many coincidences between Daniel and Julian, in personality and events. Carlos Ruiz Zafon winds two pretty complicated stories here, but he ties them together by making them almost unbelievably similar separated only by time. Daniel not only looks like Julian, impregnates his first lover, a seventeen year-old girl just as did Julian, and more, but they even are presented with the same "Victor Hugo wrote with it" fountain pen as some point early in their writing careers.
There was another problem of Zafon foreshadowing beautifully, then overdoing the hints and finally presenting the obvious like it was a big surprise or something. With several references to the fact that the hatter who raises Julian may not be his real father, and the many related adventures of Penelope’s father as well as the dissatisfaction of Sophie, Julian’s mother, Zafon actually "drops the bomb" at the end of a chapter: Julian and Penelope may be lovers, but they’re also brother and sister! The impact just wasn’t there for me since I’d guessed it a hundred pages prior. There was also another "bomb" that got diffused. At the end of the first person pov narrative by Daniel, he claims that within a week he’d be dead. After an inset and change of pov to a a first person of another character where a lot of backstory is given, we are returned to Daniel’s story and find that he had officially stopped breathing for sixty seconds. My guess was more dramatic: he officially lost his personality as Daniel and became Julian. This is another area where Zafon should leave some questions up to the readers.
Then there’s the fact that Zafon handles this information rather strangely. While it tells us why Penelope’s father was so infuriated when he finds out who got her pregnant, it would also make sense for Julian’s friends to give him this information at some point in the twenty years after she dies in childbirth rather than have him blame himself for her death when they finally tell him she’s dead.
There are some character descriptions that are not changes as a result of the situations, but rather what I almost see as a slip-up by Zafon. Nuria describes Julian’s later behavior as nasty, yet caring about Daniel. The evil Fumero was madly in love with Penelope and his hate for Julian and his friends drives his actions, yet he refers once to Penelope as a "tart."
Some questions about technical information also arise. Daniel goes to the mansion and sees the coffins, and yet Nuria’s message to Daniel claims that Julian has moved the coffins. There were many of these that had me flipping through pages backward to check out details.
So while I enjoyed the novel enough to overlook the millions of street names and most of the huh? moments, I’m still left with some burning question: How did Daniel find that one hidden book in the library? Why did he love the book when none of Julian’s novels sold well? And the hottest of all: Why did Julian burn his books?
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I just finished the book, and I have to disagree on much of this. I didn’t get crybaby form Daniel at all. Kind of a manipulator, but it’s not like he was using it for evil purposes. Was he my favorite character? No. But I could still sympathize with him and Julian.
I did get carefully plotting for most of the story at least. The similarities between Daniel and Julian were weird, but it speaks to a major theme of destiny throughout the novel. It’s kind of like Julian’s story is allegory for Daniel’s depending on how you want to look at it. I liked the similarities between the (albeit sudden) love stories as well as the thing with the Victor Hugo pen because that whole thing speaks to the resounding idea that everyone is tied together. However, I do agree that the fact that he looked like him was a little bit odd. I would have liked it to be something more like he carried himself in the same manner making them appear similarly.
I didn’t know that the thing with Julian’s father was supposed to be a big surprise to be honest. I never did quite connect that Penelope was his sister because I read it over a long period of time and probably missed some details. There I definitely see your point.
My guess for the ‘within a week he’d be dead thing’ was that it was a metaphorical death (like something major happened and we’d say goodbye to Daniel and hello to someone else) or something along those lines. It wasn’t the he stopped breathing for awhile thought. His heart literally stopped. Scientifically speaking, he didn’t actually die, but the narrator wasn’t exactly a scholar. I think though that I would have liked the book a lot less if he had become someone else because then his story was be pretty much identical to Julian’s and would present the idea that there is no hope in this bleak world of ours and the only thing we can do is wait to die. That would have sucked.
Julian’s friends never told him because if Julian knew that Penelope was his sister it would crush him even worse than just knowing that she was dead. He would blame himself either way. Though, I was a little bit shocked that Fumero or Jorge didn’t tell him, I completely understand why his friends didn’t.
I don’t think Fumero ever actually loved Penelope. I think it was more lust. And even if he did love her, at that point in his life he loves nothing. He hates Penelope just as much as he hates Julian because she didn’t chose him. Thus, she is a tart.
It says that Julian moved the coffins? I’m nearly positive that he only moved the body. Could you imagine trying to haul two stone coffins up those stairs? I don’t think anyone, no matter how emotionally unstable, would ever do that. Besides, he only wanted the bodies. I think you may want to check again on that part.
I think I can sort of answer the questions. How did Daniel find the book in the library? Well, he wasn’t looking for it. He stumbled upon it. It all goes in with the destiny theme. Why did he love the book? He loved the books because it was great and reflected everything that he was feeling at the time. Not all masterpieces sell well, but I’m pretty positive that Aldaya or someone paid to have the poor reviews on the books. No one wanted him to have success. I’ve loved plenty of books and movies that went pretty much ignored for the public and all I could think was ‘how?’. Why did Julian burn his books? This one is only speculation, because a lot of the stuff in this book you have to look between the lines to see, I think. He burned the books because they represented a time that he wanted nothing to do with. Her put his heart and his soul into these stories. Oh! Good example. The quote you use at the top. “Julian had once told me that a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise” (p. 363). He (like many authors) wrote himself in these books. When he discovered that everything he’d been living for for all those years had pretty much been a lie he was crushed. All of those thoughts and feelings that he put in those books, ones of hope and the like, were now evil to him. He wanted to destroy those feelings and the only way to do that was to destroy the books. That’s would I think, anyway.
You’re certainly entitled to your thoughts on this book, though I still feel the plot was too heavily manipulated by the writer to tie too many characters and events into too neat a package.