According to the back cover, the Daily Telegraph hailed this novel as "Carlos Ruiz Zafon has done that exceedingly rare thing–he has produced, in his first novel, a popular masterpiece, an instant classic."
Bull.
I’t s good, the story is interesting, the characters, well, some are well drawn although the main character of Daniel, the narrator, hasn’t gotten to me and I’m at the halfway point in the book.
Daniel is what, like eighteen years old and spent five years or more with the pre-adolescent feelings towards an older woman? No girlfriends? No sex? This is 1953 after all, and European in free thinking–or might I say, more down-to-earth thinking about sex than the American of this era.
The writing is so-so. There’s an awful lot of telling instead of showing, and as I’ve posted, the backstory is not professionally presented to my way of thinking about "a classic."
It’s a 400-pager that to me, minus the street and character names, and the repetition of the plot by just about anyone that Daniel comes into contact with, could have been concisely and even more imagery-ladened been put into about 200 pages.
Every now and then I start to wonder if it’s just a case of sour grapes that affects my thinking. This is how I deal in daily life as well, though; trying to play the devil’s advocate, see the other side, doubt myself and my own abilities to avoid falsely influenced judgements.
But then again, if no one’s right or wrong according to the liberal "I’m okay, you’re okay" manner of thinking, I guess I have the right to my own opinion.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology