"When a library disappears, when a book is lost in oblivion, we who know this place and are the guards, we are making it happen here. In this place, books that nobody recalls, which have vanished over time, continue to live until one day in the hands of a new player, to reach a new spirit.
was a nice idea, however, that the "Cemetery of Forgotten Books. "Make a handful of elected guardians of the library at risk, instruct each of the survival of a book he would somehow be the godfather ... Yes but now, if Carlos Ruiz Zafon loves stories of drawers and intrigues of seven hundred pages thick, if he has read and reread Dickens, Eugene Sue and Dumas and has plenty of other fed to the source of the best popular literature , that he writes is peppered with excess and baroque. In English. It drained the blood does not treasure, it is empty pools scarlet, and corpses litter the quest heroes.
the same time, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a place dripping wet and hidden in the depths of Barcelona, looks like a crypt housing the books that are all thirsty vampires watching fresh blood. Two novels, The Shadow of the Wind and Game of the angel ; two heroes turn crossing gate of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and choosing a book in the maze (which does not house bound, moreover, good books, because the only criterion is the threat of extinction.), or chosen by him. Both hero, Daniel Sempere in the first and David Martin in the second novel, will embark on a quest since obsessive literally haunted by the author of the novel which has been entrusted. Dangerous quest, oh, since it exposes the threat of repetition of a sinister fate. No, the books of the Cemetery of Forgotten Carlos Ruiz Zafon is anything but a gift, considering the amount of trouble and mortal dangers they are worth to their beneficiaries ... And if eating these two novels, you, readers, you leave your turn to haunt the mind of Carlos Ruiz Zafon ... then this would be an abyss into a fascinating set of Russian dolls. And look, this is precisely how Daniel Sempere, the hero of The Shadow of the Wind , describes the novel that will change her life:
"As I advanced, the structure of the story began remind me one of those Russian dolls that contain when they are opened, countless replicas of themselves, more and more small. Step by step, the narrative is derived into a thousand stories, as if entered a hall of mirrors where his identity is splintered into dozens of different reflections which, however, remained the same.
Game of the Angel , beginning in 1917, took for his theme of the Faustian pact at the heart of Barcelona dark and scary at will. His hero, David Martin, is a young novelist-assured that burns to rub literary glory. In other words an ideal prey for Mephistopheles became publisher who offered him the fame and fortune in exchange for writing a book a bit special. Not only do writers have the power vampirize their readers, but to sell their souls "by natural disposition," somehow ...
"A writer never forgets the moment when for the first time, he accepted some money or some praise in exchange for a story. He never forgets the first time he felt in his veins the sweet poison of vanity and believed that if no one discovered his lack of talent, his dream of literature could provide him a roof over their head, a square meal every evening and what he wanted most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper, he is safe, live longer than him. A writer is condemned to remember this moment because, once it is lost, his soul has a price. "
So innocently that this talented writer, afflicted with a brain tumor and heart broken by an unhappy love affair, will agree to sell his soul. And buy the haunted house that goes with it. Carlos Ruiz Zafon crazy about these haunted houses nestled in the heart of Barcelona as many black jewels, and reflect so tortuous soul of the city. And David Martin, a hero who takes Rastignac Balzac and Balzac himself, needs to feel throbbing near this city rustling the dark alleys and mysterious need this transfusion feverish and unhealthy, that "possession", there to write. What he ignores is that the dice are loaded and that if we always think one step ahead of the devil ... this is proof of our innocence.
"Barcelona entire extended to my feet and I wanted to believe that when I open new windows at nightfall the streets whispered in my ear stories and secrets that I would 'to attach the paper to tell who would listen. Vidal had his ivory tower and exuberant aristocratic height on the most elegant of Pedralbes, surrounded by hills, trees and sky dream. Me, I turn my loss set amid the streets of the oldest and darkest of the city, surrounded by darkness and miasma of this cemetery that poets and assassins had called "the Rose of fire. ""
Barcelona reigns supreme in these two novels, and you know the city or not, I invite you to visit (again) walk away and there L 'Shadow of the Wind - for which I have a strong preference - True love letter to the city fire and shadow. 
This novel resurrects indeed the dark years of the English Civil War and the beginning of the Franco regime, years that made this city for much of Barcelona, a "city of darkness" , beautiful and disturbing, oh hard unhappy with:
"Months of hard vicissitudes were to elapse before Jacinta finally found a stable job in a workshop Aldaya and son, near the former World Exposition of the Citadel. The Barcelona of his dreams turned into hostile city and gloomy, made of mansions and factories closed, who blew a breath of mist permeating the skin of coal and sulfur. Jacinta knew from day one that this city was a woman, vain and cruel, she learned to fear and to never look into her eyes. "
At the heart of this rule when the arbitrariness, unfairness and puritanism, the fire inspector Javier Romero has the power and impunity that goes with it to gratify his taste for torture and murder. Daniel Sempere lose his innocence, rubbing this dangerous enemy and discover his own cowardice. Tyrants wealthy young women of courage, outcasts and fortune tellers, Zafon's novels have a wide range of characters in their spiral Machiavellian. Dungeons Montjuïc shady alleys of the Raval, life humming the Ramblas in contemplation of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona bewitch and alienates Zafon hero ... and us.
And I confess that this writer has awakened in my memory the dark and powerful images of the two great films of Guillermo del Toro on the English Civil War, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth . Without doubt this mix of fantasy, poetry and realism, black, and shared taste phantoms that we should not worry too attendance because they have something important to say, as everyone knows.
"This city is a sorceress, Daniel. She crawls under your skin and steals your soul without you even remember it. "
soon.
Gaëlle Nohant
