Having finished The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the short story collection The City of Mist, I have only four Young Adult novels left to me in the Carlios Ruiz Zafón, Canon:
El príncipe de la niebla (1993), translated as The Prince of Mist (2010) Crescent Hill Library, Younger Teen Fiction, 214 pages
El palacio de la medianoche (1994), translated as The Midnight Palace (2011) Northeast Library, Older Teen Fiction, 298 pages
Las luces de septiembre (1995), translated as The Watcher in the Shadows (2013) Northeast Library, Younger Teen Fiction, 262 pages
Marina (1999), translated as Marina (2013) Remote Shelving - Shawnee, Younger Teen Fiction, 326 pages
So if the library information with respect to page counts is accurate, that means I have 1,100 pages of Carlos Ruiz Zafón left to me.
A couple of weeks ought to do it, I think.
Day 1 (DDRD 2,396) May 23, 2024
El príncipe de la niebla (The Prince of Mist)
Started reading an e-copy courtesy of hoopla, then switched to a real copy after SEE BELOW.
Read to page 87. The writing is more than a little bit clunky, and there is some slipshod storytelling at times, but it still moves, for sure. At this rate this is only going to be a three day read.
"Teenage girls, thought Max, were a mystery of evolution not even Copernicus himself could fathom." (18)
BELOW
Had to go to two different libraries for these books...and send a request to a third for Marina (which is On The Way)...but unless things take a nasty turn, I'm going to be finished reading all of CRZ's books in the near future. Woot!
Day 2 (DDRD 2,397) May 24, 2024
Read to page 214, The End. Had a lot of layover time. And even though the writing continued to be as clunky as sneakers in the dryer, it still worked in a Stephen King Light kind of way. And I need to keep in mind that this was CRZ's first book, so some clunkiness was inevitable. I'd definitely say that it was worth reading, though, and I've got high hopes for the rest of the so-called Mist Trilogy.
So on to the second book:
El palacio de la medianoche (The Midnight Palace)
Day 3 (DDRD 2,398) May 25, 2024
Read to page 66. Not sure that this really is a sequel to / part of a trilogy with The Prince of Mist. Nothing to connect them yet, anyway.
Almost immediately ran into one of the tired cliches which always makes me question a writer's worth:
"...[he] raised the tip of one forefinger to his lips and licked the dark, thick blood as if it were a drop of honey." (16)
The blood-licking shtick of the Bwa-ha-ha villain. 🤮 I really hate that shit.
Day 4 (DDRD 2,399) May 26, 2024
Read to page 116. Now in church for Jacqueline's choir practice. Let's see how many more $s I can put into the Reading 🏦.
Turns out quite a bit. With Waiting For Church time plus a little Other, I read to page 161. But while the reading is easy and not unpleasant, I still am not finding myself caught up in the story. I think it's the lack of good characters. On the other hand the writing itself is smoother than the previous book, so at least there's that. 137 pages to go.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,400) May 27, 2024
Read to page 241. 57 pages to go. The reading is getting a bit unpleasant now. Confusion reigns as amorphous characters stumble through overly complicated scenes which are quick cut with other scenes. Bleh. I'm ready for this to be over. Good news: tomorrow ought to do it.
"...there is nothing as terrible and difficult to believe as the stark reality of facts...." (213)
This (⇑) is (at least) the third time this idea has been stated in this book. Just sayin', sir. But...why?
Day 6 (DDRD 2,401) May 28, 2024
Read to page 298. The End. This was a tiring read...and there's really no reason for you to attempt to wade through it. It has nothing to do with The Prince of Mist--even if it's (as I've seen) billed as a trilogy. And it's just not a good book. Part of the problem is that the narrative splits into three parts, and it becomes a confusing jumble. Part of it is that the characters are not well-defined, and you never really care about any of them. And then there's the Bwa-ha-ha villain. Nope.
Next up: Las luces de septiembre (The Watcher in the Shadows). Here's hoping that The Midnight Palace was a bit of sophomore slumping and that CRZ picks it up from there.
ADDENDUM: Wanted to find out if The Watcher in the Shadows was going to be any good, and ended up reading the first 40 pages. So hopefully that's a good sign.
Day 7 (DDRD 2,402) May 29, 2024
Read to page 200. Yep. In large part because I was babysitting and there was a rather long nap involved. But, of course, also because the story did pull me in completely. So much so that I'll probably be finishing up tomorrow. Fortunately
And assuming that that goes well, it'll be the end of my Carlos Ruiz Zafón readings. (Or at least first readings.)
"...most of my friends were books. " (82)
"Loneliness created strange labyrinths in the mind." (87)
Things this book has in common with The Prince of Mist: brother and sister in new place, sister smitten with guy who lives on the island, sunken boat, snorkeling, mysterious and malevolent ghost or spirit.
On page 119, Andreas Corelli appeared. I'm not good with names, but I'm pretty sure that was the name of a character in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. Google?
Quoth the Google: Andreas Corelli appeared in The Angel's Game. And someone suggested that he was also the character who appeared as The Prince of Mist in CRZ's first YA novel.
Day 8 (DDRD 2,403) May 30, 2024
Read to page 262, The End.
This was definitely the best of the first three "YA" novels...though in some ways it almost read like a rewrite of the first one. The climax avoided the confusion of its predecessor, but left a big lake of lack of resolution to swim in. Why did Irene and Ismael lose touch? Dunno. Maybe I just missed something. After all, I did choke this thing down in just a tad over three days, and my first reads tend not to be too scrupulous.
On to Marina, then.
If nothing else, CRZ's first three books have done wonders for my per diem page rate. I'm at 96.75 pages per day on these three. Yowza!
Marina
"That day, Gaudi's ghost had sculpted impossible clouds across the shimmering blue skies of Barcelona." (3)
And when I checked to make sure that Gaudí was the name I remembered from a previous CRZ book (The City of Mist)--it was--, I found this:
Which you can listen to here:
https://youtu.be/oxEKt1E_wN8?si=HfKnn8RlYcoCD8AC
It's also on Amazon Music if you are a Prime kind of brah or tah.
So thats pretty cool, ennit?
Also, there's a cat named Kafka and a reference to Delibes' Lakmé. What more could you want?
ANYway...I read to page 50. I have high hopes for this one.
Day 9 (DDRD 2,404) May 31, 2024
Read to page 167. Mmm-hmm.
"I could go on painting for a thousand years...but that wouldn't change men's folly, bigotry, and savagery in the slightest. Beauty is a breath of air that blows against the wind of reality...." (70)
"...the public will always choose a warmed-up lie over the cold truth." (93)
Yes they will, Carlos. Yes they will.
Well, we have underwear swimming with a pretty girl and puppets that move of their own accord again. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, it just interests me how all writers seem to have touchstones that they can't restrain themselves from throwing into their different rivers.
"Time does to the body what stupidity does to the soul...it rots it." (138)
🔥🔥🔥🔥!
Oscar and Marina find a book of photographs. The pictures are of deformed children. As I read, it hit me how lucky I am to have three physically sound children. Sometimes I get overwhelmed or even feel sorry for myself when I think about the "curse" of autism that has been visited upon my two youngest kids...but the truth is that I and they are blessed in so many ways. There are many people who have it much, much worse. And I had to stop and say a prayer of thanks...which made me cry a little bit.
It also reminded me of a time when I went into my daughter's room and put my hands on her and prayed, "Please, God, let her be normal." It took me a few years to learn a different tune, and then I prayed, "Thank you, God, for this girl. She's perfect."
As to this prayer business...yes, I have gotten into the habit. Think of it as my soul reaching for the infinite...mostly just to say, "Thank you." I'm not at Wordsworth's "all which we behold / Is full of blessings" level, but I have become cognizant of the implicit ingratitude in NOT counting your blessings.
Day 10 (DDRD 2,405) June 1, 2024
Read to page 278.
In response to Marina's question about what he's going to do, Víctor Florián replies, "What all old people do: sit down and remember, and ask myself what would have happened if I'd done everything differently. " (183)
Well, I'm no Frank Sinatra: I've got more than a few regrets...more than enough to mention. But most of those regrets are inextricably tied to good things that I couldn't part with. For instance, I regret not accepting the scholarship I was offered to go to West Point. In retrospect, I see what an amazing opportunity that was for 19 year-old me. But if I'd done that, I'd probably never had come to live in Kentucky, and I certainly wouldn't have gone to Bellarmine College. Which means I'd never have met my first wife, Jo Ann. Which means that none of my kids would have existed. And I and the world we be poorer for the lack of them.
As for that second marriage, though...I definitely could have done without that...and been a better man without it.
"The only reason he feared abandoning this wretched world was that he was going to leave the boy alone and helpless." (266)
I understand that all too well. A friend of mine who also has a special needs child once told me that he was initially stunned when his wife said that she hoped their daughter died before they did. But then he got it. You don't want to leave your defenseless kid to the cruelty of this world.
😔
Hey, only 48 pages to go! I could probably do that tonight.
Hmmm.
Day 11 (DDRD 2,406) June 2, 2024
Read to page 326, The End. Didn't make it last night, but got to it second thing this morning after watching the first episode of Season Three of The Mayor of Kingstown. Which is quite a kick ass show.
Marina ended on a very sad note, but this was a good book. Definitely the best of CRZ's YA books...and better than the book of short stories. Worth doing, for sure.
So there it is: The Complete Works of Carlios Ruiz Zafón now reside in my gullet. And you know what? I STILL have a hankering for that Folio edition of The Shadow of the Wind. Well...Father's Day is coming up, ennit it?
So I read the four YA books...1,100 pages...in eleven days. A nice, even, and imPRESSive average of 109 pages per day. Yowza. And the four A novels = 2,263 pages in 40 days, for a per diem average of 56.575. Not bad. And my total stats for Carlos Ruiz Zafón's oeuvre? 3,363 pages in 51 days, for an average of 65.94 pages per day. That has ggot to be my highest sustained reading rate, which tells you something about Carlos Ruiz Zafón's writing.
Yes. Time well spent, indeed.
Now what?
No comments:
Post a Comment