The Shadow of the Wind

Empty. A wind blowing at nothing, unseen. That's exactly how Shadow of the Wind is. It takes no stand on anything. it vacillates back and forth between beautifully written and crude. Ever shifting, ever changing. not quite certain of itself. it's a coming of age novel and a mystery and a romance. It's such a waste, and similar to what I wrote about in Girl with a Pearl Earring. How empty Shadow of the Wind felt! Without any purpose to the story, without telling any truth about the human condition.

It begins promisingly enough: set in Spain after World War II, it follows a young boy, Daniel, who finds a book, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax, reads it, and loves it. But when he tries and fails to find more books by the same author, he learns that a mysterious figure hunts them down and methodically destroys any copies of his books. Almost nothing is known about Carax. Intrigued, he begins to piece together the mysterious life of Julian Carax, a story which parallels Daniel's own coming of age.

The book is sprinkled with a colorful cast of characters, every single one of whom is fully shaded. A dash of romance, a lot of danger, a creepy old house and a twist ending: it's a recipe for a Gothic romance. And Gothic it certainly is. There is no beacon of light, no redemption or even real love in the entire story. The devil figure of the book is utterly hateful, cruel, psychopathic, and given no chance for redemption. Additional characters act selfishly, wholly for their own interests, which makes the entire book a downwards spiral. True, the mystery of Julian Carax's life certainly captured my attention throughout the book, and I read on until his full life had unfolded. Unfortunately, it was nearly all predictable, and the parts which weren't predictable, while certainly original, were nothing better than interesting. They showed no piercing insight into human nature, but simply paralleled that of other books.

It parallels Leif Enger and Thornton Wilder in its beauty of prose: their books (reviewed here in this blog!) are some of my absolute favorites. But unlike Enger or Wilder, the words are empty, beautiful phrases and sentences and turns of phrase shaping nothing but thin air. Truth breathes life into the words of Enger and Wilder to make it truly beautiful. Not so in Shadow of the Wind. It has many ingredients of a good story: beautiful writing, an interesting idea, strong characters. But the author did so little with his materials.

It's something that struck me: as Christians, we can live with eternity in mind, with a goal and a purpose and, as my small group leader says, a dignity to our everyday lives. We live for Christ, our purpose is to worship him, to be "little Christs" in the world, and to demonstrate his love to others. If everything in our life is aligned to that purpose, our life is infinitely more meaningful. Without this purpose, we too would be a shadow of a wind, passing through life with no lasting effect. As a writer, I want my writing to speak of Christ in every word, to "tell the truth about the human condition," to exemplify the best traits of God. As a writer, this book showed me how not to write.