DDR: La ciudad de vapor (The City of Mist) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Well, this is it so far as (1) The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and (2) the Adult books of Carlos Ruiz Zafón goes. He has four Young Adult books which I'm planning to read, and then that's all. A shame that he died so young (55) with so many books left unwritten.

Day 1 (DDRD 2,394) May 21, 2024

Read to page 46. Which included the first three--

"Blanca and the Departure"

"Nameless"

"A Young Lady From Barcelona"

I'm sorry to say that none of them were very good. Part of the reason for that is brevity, which is not always the soul of wit. The stories were 15, 5 1/2, and 17 pages long...and that's just not enough room for CRZ to do more than give a basic summary of a story. So eight stories to go...and low expectations. 

ADDENDUM: Read another one, "Rose of Fire," 15 pages...which took me to page 64. And? Meh. Should have been interesting,  as it was about the creation of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books,  but it wasnt. Once again it read more like a summary of a story than an actual story. 

Mo' Better ADDENDUM: had a layover in Tom Sawyer Park, so I read some more.

"...it was his practice to firstly tell himself the things of the world in order to understand them and then tell them to others, draped in the music and light of literature, because he sensed that if life was not a dream it was at least a pantomime where the cruel absurdity of the narrative always ran behind the scenery, and there was no greater or more effective vengeance twixt heaven and earth than to sculpt beauty and wit by dint of words if one was to find sense in the nonsense of things." (73)

Read to page 81. 

Day 2 (DDRD 2,395) May 22, 2024

Read to page 162.

Read the 5th story, "The Prince of Parnassus," which was much more substantial (41 pages). It was also more interesting, as it was a story centered around Cervantes. (So of course it made me want to go back and read Don Quixote again.)

"A Christmas Tale" was very slight--just 3 1/2 pages--and pretty much a waste of time. I think it was the first story in this collection that didn't involve the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in any way.

"Alicia, at Dawn": almost 4 pages long. I suppose the titular Alicia is our very own Alicia Gris, but there's really no textual support for that. A shame, as she is a mist wonderful character and deserves much better than this for her final story.

"Men in Grey": 15 1/2 pages. A semi-interesting assassin story. 

At this point I'm thinking ill just go ahead and finish this book off tonight, since I've only got 22 pages to go...and some of them is blank as a-card tricks.

"Kiss": almost 3 pages. Not enough there to talk about...but I do wonder why so many of CRZ's sexy women are 19 years old.

"Gaudí in Manhatten": slightly over 11 pages. Whilst Googling Gaudí (to get that little accent mark) I found that he was a real oerson, an architect, who had proposed a skyscraper for Manhattan in 1908 which would have looked like this:

Public Domain

So that's kind of cool. And the story? It was kind of interesting. Made me want to know more about this Antoni Gaudí fellow,

" Two-Minute Apocalypse": slightly more than one page.

So there you have it. Some decent moments, but all in all not worth your time unless you're A compulsive completist...like You Know Who.