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I Have Written Pages Upon Pages
Nov. 8th, 2008 12:12 pmI've finished Englenes Spill (The Angel's Game, I think, is the English title), the perquel to The Shadow of the Wind. The dust jacket informed me that this is to be the second of four novels, and the book had an intermittent feel to it.
It's set a generation before the first novel, involving the parents of The Shadow of the Wind's protagonist. Zafon's strongest point is his description, he is good at evoking appropriate scenery. The downside is that, it, too is terribly cliché: he has obviously read the masters, and copies them down to the comma. I've seen all these images before. His supporting characters turn out to be better thought-out than Martìn. They have emotions, and they react. How Zafon sees it fit to let his main character react to everything but killing is beyond me – a proper lack of a reaction, even, would be better. He seems to have forgotten about it entirely.
The plot is not particularly exciting, but I could've seen past that. Again I find the execution lacking. Had he just taken everything a little further, I could have argued so many fun points. Zafon could have led us completely astray when we question "the boss's" existence, but does so only half-heartedly.
The book is, in short, half-hearted and reads very much like Zafon is trying to set the stage for his next book. I am convinced that Martìn is in fact Carax. Like the other bestsellers I've read lately, it's not bad, but neither is it sublime. As is usually the nature of bestsellers. They aren't written to be fantastic.
It's set a generation before the first novel, involving the parents of The Shadow of the Wind's protagonist. Zafon's strongest point is his description, he is good at evoking appropriate scenery. The downside is that, it, too is terribly cliché: he has obviously read the masters, and copies them down to the comma. I've seen all these images before. His supporting characters turn out to be better thought-out than Martìn. They have emotions, and they react. How Zafon sees it fit to let his main character react to everything but killing is beyond me – a proper lack of a reaction, even, would be better. He seems to have forgotten about it entirely.
The plot is not particularly exciting, but I could've seen past that. Again I find the execution lacking. Had he just taken everything a little further, I could have argued so many fun points. Zafon could have led us completely astray when we question "the boss's" existence, but does so only half-heartedly.
The book is, in short, half-hearted and reads very much like Zafon is trying to set the stage for his next book. I am convinced that Martìn is in fact Carax. Like the other bestsellers I've read lately, it's not bad, but neither is it sublime. As is usually the nature of bestsellers. They aren't written to be fantastic.
