Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

This novel was only good enough back in ninth grade. At the time I was a kid newly acclimating to the idea of pseudo Byronic heroes - Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy. I believe this is where I like the movie better - only the movie mind you, the other adaptations I'd rather not talk about.

The amount of criticism I've read on Austen can fill up a whole cupboard. The thing is, we dragged this story and at this point it's become so ordinary that it no longer holds any appeal for me. Mostly because for some unfathomable reason I can not bring myself to wholly like Elizabeth Bennet.

While reading the novel I realized I started getting irritated by almost every other character. And that is bad news because then how do you expect to stick with the story? Mr. Bennet is amusing only in the first few chapters, after that I want to ship him to Boston (but knowing him that will only be a blessing in disguise). I'll say my opinion of some characters sort of improved. Mrs. Bennet is surprisingly one of them. And Mary Bennet. Lydia and Kitty are as cardboard barbies as ever and I'd rather not talk about them.

Mr. Darcy, hmm, well he is not the same I imagined him to be' he appears more human now, with his faults. He makes mistakes. He admits them. He is pigheaded at times. But he is gentle of heart. All right Austen, I'll buy into that.

Anyway so the point is, within all that dissection of Pride and Prejudice I did learn to appreciate (if you can call it that) new characters and admit the limitations of others. Rest, I do not want to hear any Pride and Prejudice references for some while in the near future thankyouverymuch.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow of the Wind

I looked at that man whom I had once imagined almost invincible; he now seemed fragile, defeated without knowing it. Perhaps we were both defeated. I leaned over to cover him with the blanket he had been promising to give away to charity for years, and I kissed his forehead, as if by doing so I could protect him from the invisible threads that kept him away from me, from that tiny apartment, and from my memories. As if I believed that with that kiss I could deceive time and convince it to pass us by, to return some other day, some other life.

I think I may have found a new favourite literary character. And that's saying a lot.

This was a chance buy, and I don't regret a single moment of my splurge on this book, even when I was broke.

This is actually a translation, since Zafon writes in Spanish. I feel the words "beautiful" and "gorgeous" don't do justice to this book. There were passages where I would stop for hours going over and over again; they broke my heart so. And for some reason, I like getting my heart broken over a book. I believe there is nothing better than that.

The Shadow of the Wind encompasses a lot of genres, it's basically hard to categorize it. It's a mix of mystery/thriller/period drama/romance/historical and within this the comic element never fails. My new favourite literary character is the larger-than-life Fermin Romero de Torres. I can't even begin to describe him. And I like him better than Julian, the supposed bad-ass, and Daniel, the protagonist. With Fermin it sort of goes like this: you either hate him or you love him. There is no in-between. Fermin makes you want to scratch your hair out but mostly her proves to be the best source of laughter (even in his pathetic state). He has opposing views to almost every universally acknowledged idea or notion and he sticks to that; "what the world really needs are more thoroughly evil people and less borderline pigheads". I could write a whole dissertation on this man.

At times it gets a little over-the-top but that is the fun element of this book. Amidst all the gruesome murders and parallel stories, you are still drawn into the life of the characters. And I can never not fall in love with the idea of a "Cemetery of Lost Books".