There’s an excellent article about the life and works of Roald Dahl in the New Yorker, written by Margaret Talbot. I first came across Dahl as a young adult, reading the eerie tales of Switch Bitch and Kiss Kiss, I never had the pleasure of reading his tales for children through a child’s eyes. A tinge of regret for that, I think.

…to the ridiculous. After the glories of Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind, I hesitate to mention the name of Dan Brown, but Geoffrey Pullum over at the Language Log drags me crashing back to earth with yet another example of Brown’s atrocious writing. Yup, Pullum is going to don the decontamination suit and venture into the hideous depths of Brown’s Digital Fortress.

 

It looks like it’s going to be eyebrows arched all the way in…

That’s the translated name of a novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The Spanish title is La Sombra del Viento.

 

I first came across it when it was mentioned in a blog by a someone working in the Far East. It sounded intriguing, so I added it to the list of books to read.

 

I’ve just finished it, and I can thoroughly recommend it to people who like both books and Barcelona (a near-perfect combination, as far as I am concerned). The book starts with such an arresting idea (a child is taken by his father to a mysterious building housing the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and is told to choose a book to read). That the book takes root in his life and those around him is almost inevitable. The book was like a marvellous piece of machinery – a great steam locomotive  – that gradually gains speed and ultimately becomes an elemental force pursuing its inexorable course to the climax. I loved it. As the blurb on the dustjacket says: the subplots have subplots; but never once did I feel that Zafon was losing control of his material. This is storytelling with the simplicity and power of Dickens. Read it.