Amazon.com Review Book Description From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes The Angelâs Game--a dazzling new page-turner about the perilous nature of obsession, in literature and in love.
âThe whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that, when I opened those windows, its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets I could capture on paper and narrate to whomever cared to listen...â
In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David MartÃn, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the cityâs underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner.
Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. Close to despair, David receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. He is to write a book unlike anything that has ever existed--a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, and perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realizes that there is a connection between his haunting book and the shadows that surround his home.
Once again, Zafón takes us into a dark, gothic universe first seen in The Shadow of the Wind and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy. Through a dizzingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón on The Angel's Game
Years ago, when I began working on my fifth novel, The Shadow of the Wind, I started toying around with the idea of creating a fictional universe that would be articulated through four interconnected stories in which we would meet some of the same characters at different times in their lives, and see them from different perspectives where many plots and subplots would tie around in knots for the reader to untie. It sounds somewhat pretentious, but my idea was to add a twist to the story and provide the reader with what I hoped would be a stimulating and playful reading experience. Since these books were, in part, about the world of literature, books, reading and language, I thought it would be interesting to use the different novels to explore those themes through different angles and to add new layers to the meaning of the stories.
At first I thought this could be done in one book, but soon I realized it would make Shadow of the Wind a monster novel, and in many ways, destroy the structure I was trying to design for it. I realized I would have to write four different novels. They would be stand-alone stories that could be read in any order. I saw them as a Chinese box of stories with four doors of entry, a labyrinth of fictions that could be explored in many directions, entirely or in parts, and that could provide the reader with an additional layer of enjoyment and play. These novels would have a central axis, the idea of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, set against the backdrop of a highly stylized, gothic and mysterious Barcelona. Since each novel was going to be complex and difficult to write, I decided to take one at a time and see how the experiment evolved on its own in an organic way.
It all sounds very complicated, but it is not. At the end of the day, these are just stories that share a universe, a tone and some central themes and characters. You donât need to care or know about any of this stuff to enjoy them. One of the fun things about this process was it allowed me to give each book a different personality. Thus, if Shadow of the Wind is the nice, good girl in the family, The Angelâs Game would be the wicked gothic stepsister. Some readers often ask me if The Angelâs Game is a prequel or a sequel. The answer is: none of these things, and all of the above. Essentially The Angelâs Game is a new book, a stand-alone story that you can fully enjoy and understand on its own. But if you have already read The Shadow of the Wind, or you decide to read it afterwards, youâll find new meanings and connections that I hope will enhance your experience with these characters and their adventures.
The Angelâs Game has many games inside, one of them with the reader. It is a book designed to make you step into the storytelling process and become a part of it. In other words, the wicked, gothic chick wants your blood. Beware. Maybe, without realizing, I ended up writing a monster book after all... Donât say I didnât warn you, courageous reader. Iâll see you on the other side. --Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Product Description From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes The Angelâs Game â a dazzling new page-turner about the perilous nature of obsession, in literature and in love.
The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that when I opened those windows â my new windows â each evening its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets in my ear, that I could catch on paper and narrate to whomever cared to listenâ¦
In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martin, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the cityâs underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner.
Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. Close to despair, David receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. He is to write a book unlike anything that has ever existed â a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, and perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realizes that there is a connection between his haunting book and the shadows that surround his home.
Once again, Zafon takes us into a dark, gothic universe first seen in The Shadow of the Wind and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy. Through a dizzyingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.
Mystical and beautifully writtenApril 26, 2009 Bookphile(USA) 51 out of 56 found this review helpful
Anyone who has never read Zafon really should. It's rare for an author to have a way with words as he does and what makes his ability all the more amazing is the knowledge that these are works in translation. I can only imagine what a wonder his books must be in their original Spanish and his writing is so beautiful that it makes me want to learn the language simply so I can read his works in the original.
I read and loved "The Shadow of the Wind" and when my husband asked me if this book was better, I thought for a moment and told him I thought it was as good. It's hard to really judge which is better as this work is quite different from "The Shadow of the Wind".
Part of what really drew me into this work were its uncanny similarities to the works of Poe. Zafon imbues the very city of Barcelona with such menace that it seems like a beast, hulking over its inhabitants. So many of the pages are suffused with a sense of dread and there are scenes in the book that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. There are definitely more elements of the supernatural in this work than I remember there being in "The Shadow of the Wind", but that's not to say that this is a ghost story.
At its heart, this book is about obsession. Zafon delves into some pretty heavy questions about the nature of human obsessions with everything from faith and religion to literature to love. In reading about David's obsessions, it is easy for the reader to reflect on his or her own forms of obsession. Zafon has created a deeply psychological work that leaves the reader wondering just how reliable David Martin's narrative really is. How many of the horrors that he experiences are the product of his own imagination?
His characters are complex and well-drawn and they exist in varying shades of gray. Even though David is the hero, it's difficult at times to really reconcile with his behavior. He is certainly a dark hero and this is a dark novel. Zafon excels at plumbing the depths of the human psyche, at examining the question of what it is that motivates us to act as we do. Some characters are more admirable than others but very few are pure of heart. They are like actual living, breathing people--usually propelled by their own desires and their own sense of self-interest.
This is truly a very dense work, one that will leave the reader thinking long after the last page has been read. Zafon's gift is singular and he rewards his reader with a story that will stick with him or her for a long time.
Back to the fantastical world of Shadow of the WindMay 3, 2009 sb-lynn(Santa Barbara, California United States) 20 out of 23 found this review helpful
I was delighted just now to read the interview Amazon posted with the author, Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I had no idea that that he had thought about writing one book about a fictional universe, and instead broke it up into four stories. Shadow of the Wind ("the nice good girl in the family") is one of those stories, and The Angel's Game, ("the wicket, gothic stepsister") is another.
There is such a wonderful and strange feel to both these books. If I were to try to describe the tone of The Angels Game, I would say it was like the movie Pan's Labyrinth, but with funny and witty repartee. (As much as that may make your head spin.) This world is eerie, dreamlike, and fantastical.
Short, no spoiler summary:
We return again to the dark, mysterious Barcelona of Zafon's imagination. Whereas Shadow of the Wind starts off in 1945, this story begins almost 3 decades earlier.
David Martin is a young journalist and aspiring novelist who works for a small newspaper that has "seen better days". He is befriended by a a wealthy coworker named Pedro Vidal, who sees the young man's potential and helps him get an assignment writing an action-packed series about the dark side of Barcelona.
David is not physically well, and he is in love with someone who may or may not love him back. He finds himself strangely drawn to a sinister towering residence, and he ends moving in. David also receives, and accepts, a lucrative offer from a mysterious publisher to write a book that will make people want to live or die. Things start to go wrong, people are dying, and David tries to find out what's going on.
And of course, we revisit that mystical, wondrous place, The Cemetery of Lost Books, as well as the Sampere and Son bookshop.
Lastly, there is an epilogue - which takes place in 1945. The same year Shadow of the Wind, begins. (And we see another example of how this story ties into that one.)
It is difficult to do a decent summary of this book, mainly because Zafon is such a masterful storyteller, and there is so much that happens. That is one of the reasons that this book gets 5 stars - because it is such a rich, amazing, imaginative, gothic world, replete with villains and heroes, joy and horror.
One of the things you may not realize, hearing the various summaries of this book, is that it is incredibly funny, and has some of the best banter I've read anywhere. Truly laugh-out-loud funny. That's part of what makes this such a fulfilling reading experience - you're laughing one moment and horrified at the next.
Also know that there is a wonderful "twist" in the story, that comes close to the end.
If I were to rate my favorite between Shadow of the Wind, and this novel, I'd have to pick the first one. (And you can read either book first - you don't have to read them in any order.) If I were to have any criticisms of this book, it's that the book can get a bit confusing in spots, and people are going to have varying opinions on whether or not they like how it ends.
In conclusion, I am thrilled knowing that there will be two more books in this series. I think Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a masterful good old-fashioned storyteller, and I anxiously await his next novel so that I can be transported back to this imaginative world that has completely charmed me. I rarely reread books, but I would like to to do that when this series is completed, so that I could have a greater appreciation of how they are all interconnected and part of one great story.
A dark incandescenceMay 12, 2009 switterbug(Austin, Texas United States) 8 out of 9 found this review helpful
In his follow-up prequel to Shadow of the Wind, Zafon continues to astonish me with his intoxicating prose and enigmatic story. He explores the more shadowy aspects of morality with a blend of valiantly Sphinx-like characters and cretins that go bump in the night. The pages flew. It is like he handpicked every word for flavor and saliency.
In 1917 Barcelona, David Martin is a struggling writer working for a second-rate newspaper in a third-rate position of employment. When the rich, talented Pedro Vidal opens doors of influence and opportunity for him, David embarks on a career of some merit, writing penny dreadfuls for the newspaper and maintaining a friendship with his new avuncular mentor and patron. Through Vidal, he meets and is mesmerized by Cristina Sangier, who is Vidal's secretary and the chauffeur's daughter. Subsequently, in an act of altruism toward Vidal, Cristina and David form a strong working bond with each other that becomes like an opera to a Gordian Knot.
David also becomes a mentor--to the young and wily Isabella, with whom he develops a deep fondness. She has native writing talent but no guidance. Their insouciant banter adds levity to the novel and acts as counterpoint to the melodrama. The eventual gravitas of Isabella's character will echo long after you close the pages of the book.
The pilot light and flame-thrower of the novel and David's nemesis is the sartorial and subterranean Andreas Corelli, the Jungian shadow of archetypes. He makes David a beguiling offer that will make him a wealthy man. It requires him to write a most extraordinary doctrine.
David is plagued by surreal and erotic dreams that take him through a labyrinth of streets, alleys, and dwellings. These dreams are more like Carl Jung's unconscious and subconscious states that impel David's character and intensify the sinuous story.
But rather than try and give a detailed description of this highly complex novel and its events, I recommend immersion. You will be hooked by page two, and a goner soon after that. The Angel's Game is like a Dali painting with Escher strokes, an amalgam of impressionistic and surreal textures overlaid with Penrose stairs. The city and streets of Barcelona is also a character with a visceral, beating heart. And, as in Shadow of the Wind, the bookshop of Sempere and Sons and The Cemetery of Forgotten Books figure importantly as touchstones for the protagonist and Rosetta stone for the story. Zafon, throughout the book, conveys that every book has a soul that deepens with each reader. The beauty of this belief reflects an enigmatic antagonism to patriarchal and suffocating religious beliefs and, I think, a lucid compass to his themes.
The ending is circumspect to some degree. But the more I meditate on it, and the deeper into my consciousness I go with it, the more it makes sense as a paradox--and a portal to Zafon's next magnum opus.
PS Lovers of this novel can expand their relationship to this story with its accompanying music! I was so happy to discover this. It has Zafons stamp of approval (it is part of the book's website). Google the book's website--I tried to leave it on my review but Ammy edited it out.
Long Awaited, Doesn't DisappointMay 5, 2009 Harkius(Laramie, WY) 5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Overview:
A few corrections to the back flap. The similarities in David Martin's life are not with the book he chooses from the mysterious Cemetery of Forgotten Books, but is instead eerily similar to the life of a former tenant of his domicile, and Diego Marlasca.
Obviously, there are some familiar places and people in this book. The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, that mysterious and beautiful place that we visited for the first time in the Shadow of the Wind. The Sempere and Sons bookshop is here as well, which is a bookstore that all of us would like to peruse, and would love to have grown up with (particularly after this novel). There's a lot of novelty, here, though, as we are left to our imaginations to try to discover how the two are connected, and to guess what are false leads.
A. Plot
The plot of the story is quite complicated, centering on a single character, David Martin, with a constellation of supporting characters from a wealth of backgrounds, including the Barcelona police force, the elite of the city, the booksellers and publishers of the town.
The story begins with David working in a newspaper, publishing little stories that lead to bigger and bigger breaks, at the hands of his patron, Pedro Vidal. Soon, Martin is publishing a series of stories about the City of the Damned. After a few years of this, he quits writing kitsch and begins to try to write his first artistic novel. After it is a critical and commercial flop, and the rest of his life starts to fall apart, he discovers that he is terminally ill. David makes a Faustian bargain, attempting to survive. The deal he makes is surprisingly resemblant of a similar deal made by Diego Marlasca, with similar results.
Both authors have decided to write a book for the publisher Andreas Corelli, who appears to want a book about religion. His motivations are never made clear, but his identity seems clear from early in the story. As you read through the book, the ending seems clear, as we know the fate of Diego Marlasca, the last pawn of Corelli. The question is only whether David can avoid the same fate.
A note about the ending. While I can't honestly say that I clearly understand the ending, I certainly don't think that it is as contrived as some have suggested.
B. Characters
The characters are quite nicely developed in the story. David Martin, the main character, is a writer obsessed with literature, with his own writing, and with Cristina, who is another of the people aided by Senor Vidal, the story's old money man, a true Barcelona gentleman. Andreas Corelli, a close-mouthed, distant, and suspicious French publisher paying 100,000 French francs (before World War II, when they were still good). Isabella, a tempestuous, and lovely, young woman who plays the triple role of love interest, assistant, and mentee to the veteran author. Along with a pair of extremely unfriendly police officers and their slightly friendlier boss, another veteran, but discredited police officer, his purported lover, and a pair of odd shucksters from the past. Add in Senor Sempere (a different one from The Shadow of the Wind) and his shy son to round out the cast. Yeah, there really are that many characters that are central to the story.
You could also see the Cemetery of Forgotten Books as a character, if you wish. We do see a new facet of the magical place in this book, which makes it more mysterious than its ever been before. I hope that some more definition, although it should be limited, to prevent the place losing all of its mystique. Some things should remain a bit of a mystery.
Unlike so many stories, where there is no development even in the main characters, there is development even of the setting in this book! How often can you say that?
C. Setting
The story is set in the streets of Barcelona. The corruption in the city is one of the background elements. Pedro Vidal, patron of David Martin, belongs to one of the most powerful families in the city, and has the police in his pocket. The narrow, claustrophobic streets wandered by David as he plays detective and tries to uncover the truths about his mysterious employer and the events surrounding the inexplicable death of the former owner of the creepy house, trying to understand what may be in store for him.
D. Theme
The themes of the novel are bitterness, despair and obsession. The themes are resonant throughout the course of the book, being returned to and struck unforgivingly and stridently, making you feel every moment of sorrow on the part of the main characters. Make no mistake, this is not a happy book. It doesn't have much in the way of hope, but the tones of the story are painted with a master's brush and conducted with a maestro's touch.
E. Point of View
The point of view is third-person limited omniscience, which adds to the feeling of mystery. First person may have increased this slightly, but it would have felt weird, since The Shadow of the Wind shared the third person.
F. Aesthetics
The story is beautiful. The language is beautiful. The aesthetics of the story compellingly add to the overall picture, adding a nice facade to the solid understructure. This is the way that it should be done.
G. Translation
(And a special thanks to switterbug and Bookphile for bringing up the absence of the information on the main product page in our discussions on the Vine Item discussion page!)
The novel was translated, according to The Independent of UK, by the wonderfully talented Lucia Graves, who also did the linguistic work on Carlos Ruiz Zafon's other adult book, The Shadow of the Wind. I am not fluent in Spanish, nor do I have a Spanish copy, so I can't comment on the fidelity of the translation. But, it is fair to say that many of us who have read this are QUITE impressed by the passion and the skill that Ms. Graves puts into her job, and the beauty of the result. This is one of those cases where the translation does exactly what it should: stays in the background but acts as an essential part of the process. Well done, Ms. Graves, and a pat on the back to the editorial team who paired this author and translator once more. Please, do it for the last two titles as well!
Conclusion:
This is a beautiful novel, full of interesting characters and lovely plot developments. The story is well worth reading, regardless of whether you have read The Shadow of the Wind. This book is great literature, and I can, with no compunctions, recommend this to almost any reader. I cannot honestly think of any characterized reader I am familiar with who should avoid this work.
A-
Harkius
"Some Prices Cannot be Paid with Money"May 3, 2009 Biblioholic Beth(Portland, Oregon USA) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For every person who has ever wanted to write, and for some who do, this amazing story is what we all dream of creating. It pulls you in to become part of the events, giving you entrée to feel the terror and pain and love written within the pages of the book. The story leaves you wanting to read ahead to find out what happens, but knowing that to do so means to miss some portion of the amazing storytelling and the emotion that walks alongside.
They say those who have lost their minds believe they are the only sane people. David Martin has just lost the love of his life, his best friend and is now losing his life when he is given a commission to write a book. This book is to be a book like no other - but as David writes, his life begins to unravel. People are dying, others that should be dead are not, and a manuscript he retrieved from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books seems to foreshadow his own decent into madness. And in the center of it all is the mysterious publisher who is not as he seems. For David, where does reality end and madness begin? Or is he sane and just trapped in a nightmare of his own making?
The storytelling is masterful - there are so many underlying layers that reading it once will not be enough. Honestly, The Shadow of the Wind has been one of my favorite novels, and I questioned whether or not this novel would leave me with that disappointing feeling of not living up to its predecessor. This book excels on its own merit, and I can easily say that both will have places of honor in my bookshelf.
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Years ago, when I began working on my fifth novel, The Shadow of the Wind, I started toying around with the idea of creating a fictional universe that would be articulated through four interconnected stories in which we would meet some of the same characters at different times in their lives, and see them from different perspectives where many plots and subplots would tie around in knots for the reader to untie. It sounds somewhat pretentious, but my idea was to add a twist to the story and provide the reader with what I hoped would be a stimulating and playful reading experience. Since these books were, in part, about the world of literature, books, reading and language, I thought it would be interesting to use the different novels to explore those themes through different angles and to add new layers to the meaning of the stories. 