I left Madrid in love with Spain – and with the experience of reading location-specific novels while traveling. Reading The Familiar and experiencing a dark, historical angle of Madrid left me craving a similar experience over the rest of my travel. As we hopped on the train to Barcelona, I pulled out The Shadow of the Wind and began to read…

For those not already familiar, The Shadow of the Wind is famously one of the best-selling novels of all time. It follows Daniel Sempere, the son of a Barcelona bookseller, as he investigates the life of a mysterious author. His investigations take him all over Francoist Barcelona and through all walks of life. The author, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, was born in Barcelona and has a clear love for every corner of the city; the book is, in fact, published with a walking tour that retraces the most common haunts of Daniel and his compatriots.

Perhaps more importantly, the book is extremely well-loved as a modern Gothic classic. As a reader, this is the kind of book that makes me nervous – it’s well outside my comfort zone. Gothic writing is not my cup of tea, but I hoped that reading The Shadow of the Wind in Barcelona itself would help me appreciate more aspects of the writing and the storyline. And while I’m still not a fan of Gothic novels, this reading experience helped me feel closer to Barcelona’s history and its geography, unlocking a new layer of its story.

A dark and stormy story

Barcelona in summer is warm and bright – not, perhaps, the most natural time and place to read a modern Gothic novel. The Shadow of the Wind emphasizes the darkness of Francoist Spain – from the literal torture exacted during the Spanish Civil War and its lingering effects of fear, to the more controlling elements of Spanish family life at the time. That pain is amplified through the eyes of our teenage narrator, who has both the naïveté and overconfidence to make terrible investigative choices, and the emotional rawness to feel terrible about each misstep. Zafón is excellent at conveying the pain and fear of being a teenager in a world full of rules you can’t understand.

Daniel, the main protagonist of the framing story, may have a challenging time – but his subject, Julián Caráx, has it much worse. Daniel and Julian’s stories flow almost in parallel. Through Julián and his generation, Zafón gets to indulge in the darkest elements of human conduct, from isolation to torture. Daniel serves as the character foil and redemptive chance – not just for Julián, but for his living family and friends as well.

Zafón’s cast ranges from a monk-schoolteacher to an aging nurse to a mysterious publishing clerk, each bringing a different part of Barcelona to life. The wealthy Moliner family, who live on Tibidabo, allow us a view into the lives of richest in Barcelona. Daniel’s close friend and mentor, Fermín Romero de Torres, starts out the novel homeless; his story shows just how precarious a decent life can be. As one would expect of a Francoist-set novel, it’s a dark outlook on life – but there are bursts of hope and redemption, and it’s a perfect execution of the Gothic approach.

Physical and emotional landscapes

As with The Familiar, then, I found that reading The Shadow of the Wind offered me a layer of emotional insight into Barcelona I may not have had. I had briefly learned of the Spanish Civil War I history class, but now I could imagine its aftereffects while wandering the same haunts as these characters. The darkness in the novel made the brightness of the city even more poignant – Barcelona became much more obviously a city that overcame pain rather than simply a place of art and celebration.

Zafón took great care in detailing very specific spots in the city, and I found myself looking out for them on our daily adventures. Els Quatre Gats, already a cultural landmark, became richer for Daniel and his father’s regular drop-ins. La Rambla went from simply a shopping stroll to one full of story. Barceloneta’s beach became sweeter once it was framed as a site of resolution, even redemption.

Perhaps nowhere was this effect more clear than on our visit to Montjuïc, a fort on the hill of the same name. Montjuïc looms large as a site of torture and pain in the novel, and I found myself dreading the visit. Another visit, I may have tried to tune out the less pleasant elements of the site’s history. This time, I found myself tearing up over the exhibits of the locals who preserved their stories of pain at the site. (Barcelona’s city government has done a wonderful job of telling their stories respectfully and balancing both the positive and more painful elements of the site’s history.) It’s an experience that was much richer (if more painful) having read the novel, and one for which I’m grateful.

A note on objectification

As a female reader, my one gripe was the consistent objectification of women in the narrative. Each of Zafón’s male characters is obsessed with controlling the female body, breaking it into parts that they can ogle over and lust after. Perhaps for a male reader or writer, this feels realistic and accurate to the experience of teenager-hood. As a female reader, I consistently felt thrown out of the narrative as I found, yet again, that the protagonists had somehow gotten distracted by a female body part.

(I recognize that some of these moments did, in fact drive the story forward. But many felt gratuitous, from describing Fermín’s obsession with a movie star, to Daniel’s descriptions of almost every women he meets. Hard to stay focused in a moment when you know that the protagonist would objectify you quite so much…)

Reading layers

The Shadow of the Wind was not precisely my preferred reading, but I’m glad that I got the chance to read it in Barcelona itself. Seeing the city though Daniel’s (and Zafón’s) eyes revealed layers of emotional and historical depth. Another point for a good travel read!

Before we hit our final stop, I wanted to take a minute to read a train novel – a critical form of transport throughout this trip. So next up is The Main Character, a modern take on the train story.

Until next time, stay cozy, and stay curious!

*This will count for my 52 Book Club Challenge as an author that “everyone” has read except me – millions of readers would agree!