Old Friends

“One mustn’t dream of one’s future; one must earn it.”  Truth.

“There’s always another train. Always.”  Truth.

46.12 The Prisoner of Heaven

 The Shadow if the Wind is one of my all time favorite books.  My experience reading it was exciting and invigorating jus when I needed to believe in the fun of reading again.  The mystery, the romance, the books! I loved the characters and the places.  I thought Fermin Romero de Torres was the most romantic man I had ever read; a bit of a cad to be sure, but romantic.  These are characters that I have since wondered about and hoped for (is that crazy?).  I missed them in Zafon’s The Angel’s Game, a sort of prequel, but with The Prisoner of Heaven all of my old friends are back and they are an absolute joy to read.  I think the feeling of characters being old friends is one of the most wonderful things about being a reader, what an amazing thing.

They remind me of the importance of family, friends, and loyalty.  I love their Barcelona, Sempere and Sons, and of course, the Graveyard of Forgotten Books, the return there even brought the tears.  They also remind me about hope.  Each of them has been at a point where they have lost everything, but they trust one another, help one another, and come to find that happiness can return.  And maybe that is why I picked up this book right now, I needed a bit of hope on my horizon, and it doesn’t surprise me in the last that these are the characters that brought it to me.  They made me believe again before, and they did it again here.  I am very thankful.

I know Zafon does not want this to be considered a sequel, he wants all the books to interact with each other with no need to read them in any specific order but I think that the emotional punch of this book, as well as some of the mystery and its clues, would not have been as profound without having read the other two first.  It also sets up what could be a really great fourth book, which makes me all sorts of giddy.