The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
(Translated by Lucia Graves)
Daniel, our hero, is nine. He is taken by his father, an antiquarian bookseller, to a very secret place. He cannot even tell his best friend. "I followed my father through that narrow lane, more of a scar than a street, until the glimmer of the Ramblas faded behind us. The brightness of dawn filtered down from balconies and cornices in streaks of slanting light that dissolved before touching the ground. At last my father stopped in front of a large door of carved wood, blackened by time and humidity. Before us loomed what to my eyes seemed the carcass of a palace, a place of echoes and shadows."
It is as if he is entering a body rather than a place. The place is the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a labyrinth of books, with 'avenues of exposed spines' and a doorkeeper "somewhere between Charon and the librarian of Alexandria". It is a place where "books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever." As this is Daniel's first visit he must adopt one book and do everything to ensure that it is remembered. As he wanders around, "breathing in the small of old paper and dust" he begins to be aware of the treasure within books - "After a while it occurred to me that between the covers of each of these books lay a boundless universe waiting to be discovered, while beyond those walls, in the outside world, people allowed life to pass by in afternoons of football and radio soaps, content to do little more than gaze at their navels."
