Tuesday
Not a book review
I don't want to/ know how to write a book review, so I'm simply going to recommend Shadow of the Wind. It's a great read, despite the fact that the blurb which convinced me to read it ("Gabriel García Márquez meets Umberto Eco meets Jorge Luis Borges") is largely wrong. It's not nearly surreal enough for Marquez, metaphysical enough for Borges, or historical enough for Eco. Now one might be tempted to say that it could still attain some kind of middle ground between those three, but trust me that it doesn't. It's Borgesian element is that it's largely concerned with the author of a fictional book (like Pierre Menard), it takes from both Eco and Borges a concern with libraries and labyrinths, and I suppose it has something of the detective fiction which Borges aped. I have no idea what it's supposed to share with Marquez other than being good and originally written in Spanish. But read it. I think I've missed some of it's humor on my first read through, perhaps subsequent experiences will tell.
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