*SPOILERS* although to be fair... I don't suggest you bother reading it.

As an admirer of The Shadow of the Wind, I bought pretty much everything Zafon has ever written. Unfortunately, owing to the popularity of his cemetery of forgotten books series, they republished a load of his early YA work with misleadingly stunning packaging.

At first I thought that there must be a translation problem because the writing is so unforgivably explanatory and the dialogue so bad.

Quite frankly, it reads like it's been written by a teenager. The darkness shrouds and blankets things, the stars form a canopy, the snow forms a mantle, the sun.... You get the picture. I don't mind a bit of clichéd weather-describing, but this takes the biscuit.

I was going to give it an extra star for having some atmosphere... But the plot made no bloomin' sense.

In the dramatic climax, the Big Bad starts what seems to be a sinister game of Deal or No Deal.

Oh and the fire monster/ demon /baddie... that's been on fire for 40% of his screentime? That melds himself with the engine of a firey train and storms about in a raging storm of FIRE VENGEANCE... how do you think he is finally defeated? ......... well the protagonist lights a match and.........

Also, it's supposed to be Ian that's narrating, but Ian is only present for a minority of the time and seems to be omniscient.

The dialogue is dodgy.

No character reacts in any kind of realistic way to any situation they meet. They do sometimes explain to the reader in dialogue WHY they aren't behaving in a way befitting of any human being, but I didn't find that helped...

The setting is - as always in Zafon novels - the best bit, the mesmerising misty palaces of Calcutta are luscious. Bringing a mystical setting to life is one of his fortés and in this early work you can see him developing this skill.

Sadly, though, I found the overall effect to be rather pants.

No zawiodłam się. Mam wiele zarzutów do tej książki, bohaterowie było nijacy, przewidziałam największy plot twist i przede wszystkim nie znalazłam tutaj tego wszystkiego co Zafóna, w jego powieściach, charakteryzuje. Ale sam pomysł na fabułę był świetny i na końcu oczywiście były płaczki.

“Who are the lunatics?’ asked Jawahal. ‘The ones who see horror in the heart of their fellow humans and search for peace at any price? Or the ones who pretend they don’t see what’s going on around them? The world, Ben, belongs either to lunatics or hypocrites. There are no other races on this earth. You must choose which one to belong to.”

Didn't really like this one.

I'm not really sure why.Maybe it's because I didn't like Ben,or maybe it's because I wasn't particularly interested in the story.I liked all the other characters,tho.I have to admit that I've skimmed through the last 40 pages-I just don't understand why Jawahal had to make everything so freaking complicated.Like,stop being so dramatic,dude.The ending,on the other hand,I actually really liked.It was a good conclusion to their journey.

Reviviendo mi adolescencia parte II.

Hay que decir que lo recordaba bastante mejor. Esta vez me ha parecido bastante previsible la mayor parte de la trama, pero teniendo en cuenta que es un libro de literatura juvenil, tampoco voy a ser muy quisquillosa porque entretener, entretiene.

Flat, boring characters. No reason to care about any of them.

Bueno! creo que este escritor se empeña en hacernos sufrir con tramas como estas, fué algo previsible lo ocurrido desde el principio, pero muy enganchable y amena la lectura.

In all of Carlos Ruiz Zafon books I found his locations to be the highlight. They come alive with rich gothic descriptions.

Prior to The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos wrote a series of young adult books that’s meant to entice young reader and adults alike. Unlike his first book in the series - The Price of Mist - I found the plot to be on the youngish side, the idea of orphan children forming of a group called the Chowbar Society, where their basic motto is to have each other’s back, no matter what, is not original in my opinion. There’s sufficient proportion of supernatural elements and adventure that I can see would appeal to the 12 - 16 year age group. Looking at it from their eyes, it will certainly enthrall and frightening them. But as an adult, I found the writing and translation fluent, and easy to read but it didn’t have the desired effect on me.

Pursued by an evil villain, two newborn twins are separated at birth. The boy, Ben, is abandoned at an orphanage, while his sister, Sheere, goes to live with her grandmother in hiding. The book primarily focuses on Ben. We get to know him very well, his interaction and friendship with his fellow orphan friends, his nightmares and fears. When it came to Sheere, I didn’t feel I had formed a strong bond with her. Sheere played a vital role in the finale, yet Carlos didn’t gave us enough time to get to know her as well, as she only appeared in the final few chapters. I would’ve liked for the chapters to alternate between the twins, to see what Sheere life was like on the run and form a connection with her.

The Midnight Palace is my least favourite book of Carlos Ruiz Zafon, but he’s a magnificent writer, and I’m a loyal reader of his work. If his books are available to me, I continue to read every single one of them.

Огнен демон дири отмъщение в “Среднощният дворец” на Сафон: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/s...

Двайсет години след написването й, най-сетне “Среднощният дворец” се появи и на български език. Тя е първата книга на Карлос Руис Сафон, която забягва далеч от мъгливата Барселона, прелита до далечна Индия и се приземява сред екзотичната Калкута. Там нещата си тръгват по изпитаната рецепта, която Сафон начева с “Принцът на мъглата”, видимо шлифова тук и в “Марина”, а после вече използва в целия й блясък при “Сянката на вятъра” и следващите от тетралогията за Гробището на забравените книги. Приятелството, свръхестественото зло, жертвата, която трябва да бъде пренесена, за да може раната от миналото да бъде излекувана – всичко това във втората приключенска книга от юношеската трилогия на испанския майстор, подплатено този път и с доста повече мрачивина, кръв и ужас.

Издателство "Изток-Запад"
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/s...

‘The Midnight Palace’ by Carlos Ruiz Zafón seemed an extremely tame paranormal mystery reminiscent of the Freddy Krueger horror movies, IMHO. I suppose I could say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or something, but we are talking about a Freddy Krueger plot. I'm guessing about such a possible source for the author's inspiration, though, so maybe you shouldn't listen to my wild speculations.

The setting is Calcutta (but there is very little detail given to really give a feel for living there, beyond throwing in a few, very few, Indian words and names). A young man, Lieutenant Peake, with a revolver and two babies in his arms ran and ran, smelling of death. It's 1916. At his heels, giving chase, is a hooded man with mysterious telekinetic powers. He is insane and will kill anyone who gets in his way. Peake evades his pursuers and gives the babies to their grandmother, Aryami, before running off into the dark.

Sixteen years later, the Chowbar Society, of the St. Patrick's orphanage in Calcutta, in 1932, met for the last time in the Midnight Palace. For one thing, the seven orphans had turned 16, and the orphanage did not allow the orphans to remain beyond that age. For another thing, the hooded man, now transformed into a charred monster, had finally discovered the whereabouts of those babies he had been hunting. Ben and his sister Sheere, who had no idea about the past, meet each other for the first time and begin to seek out what had happened to their mother and father. The other Chowbar Society members, Siraj, Roshan, Seth, Ian, Isobel, and Michael, all vote to help. Before long, mysterious ghost trains of fire with screaming children and explosions are almost killing them. The paper trail and other clues they discover seem to lead to Jheeter's Gate, the fabulous train depot their father designed. Once they are there in the magnificent ruin where many children had died in the inauguration celebrations of the station 16 years ago, they find a fresh puddle of blood. Distantly, sounds of screaming children float from the abandoned tracks.

The story is strong in atmosphere, but it has some real unsolved mysteries in the plot which are never explained by the last page. Jawahal, the villain, never makes sense to me as a character. His backstory is never fully explained in a number of areas; for instance, why is he so powerful in magic, but yet not able to use the magic in ways it seems to me he could have? Instead, he opts for theatrical and minor destruction which appears meaningless at times. Kylian's fate also seemed peculiarly horrible given that the violence of Lleweyn, the evil British Officer, was inadequately explained, as well. There were a lot of British military engineers around, and I suspect the British were more apt to bring in English professionals, in the first place, then get respectful and demanding of a local poor orphan self-educated native engineer. The psychopath English officer's passion for blackmailing Ben's father didn't make sense. Also WWII was a few years away, and what some call 'The Great Game' was being played out between Russia and Britain. Nothing of this was in the book. What was mentioned were the goddesses Dido and Kali as fire symbols connecting some of the imagery and psychodrama, but all it did was emphasize further the disjointed mishmash of the book. India has thousands of gods and goddesses who could have been chosen by the author to use, as well as wonderful folk tales he could have referenced.

In the novel the women all are destroyed if they are strong! Or disappear without being important in any way. Indian and British relationships struck me as wrong, too. Nothing of class divisions was ever mentioned, only vague descriptions of British power in building infrastructure and Jawahal/Lahawaj being so jealous, or something, but not vengeful, because instead of going after the officer's family, Jawahal wants to kill his own children along with innocent orphans of mixed/Indian/British parentages. The actual dysfunction and resentments of the British Empire was so cleaned up and avoided the story ended up somewhat without an understandable motive for everyone. Plus, I felt it was actually a little bit unconsciously racist and a lot consciously misogynistic.

All in all, the novel is misshapen and odd if the reader thinks at all while reading it.

4,5

n  La diferencia entre un crimen y una hazaña suele depender de la perspectiva del observador. n

La historia cuenta con una muy ambientación, me gustaron los personajes; los miembros de la Chawbar Society, grupo formado por jóvenes de un orfanato, cada uno con personalidad y habilidad diferente...en la noche de la última reunión del club, en el palacio de media noche su refugio secreto, conocen a una chica llamada Sheere, que les cuenta una historia como requisito para ingresar al club, esta misteriosa historia tiene mucho parecido a las pesadillas que tiene Ben un de los miembros del club...personalmente la historia me pareció muy simple, nada que resaltar, y un poco repetitiva pero entretenida.