![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
September Book Review
Nov. 5th, 2010 06:08 pmThat night I went up to the study in the tower and sat at my typewriter, even though I knew my brain was a blank. The windows were wide open, but Barcelona no longer wanted to tell me anything; I was unable to finish a single page. Anything I did manage to conjure up seemed banal and empty. It was enough to reread my words to understand that they were barely worth the ink with which they'd been typed. I was no longer able to hear the music that issue from a decent piece of prose. Bit by bit, like slow, pleasant poison, the words of Andreas Corelli began to drip into my thoughts. The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Where do I start? When I opened the book and discovered that it was a translation, I instantly started to get a little bit nervous. I've not read many books that have been rendered in English from another language, but those I have read... well lets just say they lost a little something in translation. I was extremely happy to discover this was not the case with Zafon's novel. From start to finish, this book had me hooked, intrigued as to just what is going to happen next; and the direct the author is going to take the novel.
I don't want to give too much away about the plot by giving a detailed summary, so let's just say that the novel follows the events in the life of a struggling author who, when he's perhaps at his lowest ebb, receives an interesting and life changing offer. However... you remember that story about the little sparrow that ends up burried in a pile of sh*t? This takes that cautionary tale perhaps one step further.
The journey of the book takes you down avenues of cringing obviousness, where you find yourself shouting at the 'hero' of the story for his stupidity and/or carelessness. There are less obvious moments in the story which leave you wondering how the hell you had missed the signs that led to the particular event that surprised you, and there are a whole range of other moments and emotions in between. It was simply one of those books I didn't want to end even as I was reluctant to put it down.
It's a very dark novel, full of seedy hopelessness in places, but there are lighter, more uplifting moments, but even these manage to maintain a gritty realism that does not shy away from the overall tone of the novel. One thing I will perhaps say is that at times I found myself wishing that Zafron would pick a genre and stick with it. This particular novel seems to mix and switch genres so often it leaves you a little off balance... but then again, maybe that was his intention all along.
Where do I start? When I opened the book and discovered that it was a translation, I instantly started to get a little bit nervous. I've not read many books that have been rendered in English from another language, but those I have read... well lets just say they lost a little something in translation. I was extremely happy to discover this was not the case with Zafon's novel. From start to finish, this book had me hooked, intrigued as to just what is going to happen next; and the direct the author is going to take the novel.
I don't want to give too much away about the plot by giving a detailed summary, so let's just say that the novel follows the events in the life of a struggling author who, when he's perhaps at his lowest ebb, receives an interesting and life changing offer. However... you remember that story about the little sparrow that ends up burried in a pile of sh*t? This takes that cautionary tale perhaps one step further.
The journey of the book takes you down avenues of cringing obviousness, where you find yourself shouting at the 'hero' of the story for his stupidity and/or carelessness. There are less obvious moments in the story which leave you wondering how the hell you had missed the signs that led to the particular event that surprised you, and there are a whole range of other moments and emotions in between. It was simply one of those books I didn't want to end even as I was reluctant to put it down.
It's a very dark novel, full of seedy hopelessness in places, but there are lighter, more uplifting moments, but even these manage to maintain a gritty realism that does not shy away from the overall tone of the novel. One thing I will perhaps say is that at times I found myself wishing that Zafron would pick a genre and stick with it. This particular novel seems to mix and switch genres so often it leaves you a little off balance... but then again, maybe that was his intention all along.
