The Angel's Game

• Publisher:   Doubleday
• Number Of Pages:   544
• Publication Date:   2009-06-16
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0385528701
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780385528702

From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes The Angel’s Game — 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 — my new windows — 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 listen… 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 city’s 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, 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.

Book Description
From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes The Angel’s Game--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, its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets I could capture on paper and narrate to whomever cared to listen...”

In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martín, 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 city’s 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.

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 don’t 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 Angel’s Game would be the wicked gothic stepsister. Some readers often ask me if The Angel’s Game is a prequel or a sequel. The answer is: none of these things, and all of the above. Essentially The Angel’s 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, you’ll find new meanings and connections that I hope will enhance your experience with these characters and their adventures.

(Photo © Isolde Ohlbaum)

I would have never heard of the first book Shadow on the Wind--it had just been published in English for the first time and my cousin sent me a copy.Everyone in the house ended up reading the first and second book.
Both books were well written with many plots-characters and subplots-very interesting read.
A must read--especially if you have read the first book.

I don't envy any writer who has to follow a book like Shadow of the Wind. However, The Angel's Game was a valiant effort and Zafon definitely avoids a sophomore slump with this book. It isn't as good as SOTW, but it carries the same Gothic Catalonian atmosphere with it and includes visits to some of my favorite places and from some memorable characters.

More On The Story & My Review
"...What I want you to do is find an intelligent and seductive way of answering the questions we ask ourselves and you should do so using your own reading of the human soul, putting into practice your art and your profession. I want you to bring me a narrative that awakens the soul." Tall order from a publisher, right? David Martin is a writer who loves words and the art of story-telling. Writing is his passion, his existence. But, what he begins to discover is that perhaps he has aligned himself with a dark, deceptive benefactor/publisher/boss who knows more than he should about David's life: present, past and future. By the time that he realizes that he may have, in fact, made a deal with forces beyond the human realm, it is too late to terminate his gentleman's contract with Andreas Corelli. Martin has agreed to write a very specific book for Corelli in exchange for 100,000 Francs. The terms of the topic of this book are nebulous to Martin. Corelli tries to assure Martin, "...There is nothing in the path of life that we don't already know before we started. Nothing important is learned, it is simply remembered." Martin's options are essentially removed. He must write this book. However, there are complications he faces all around him, personally and professionally. Money of that consideration in the early 1900's was a small fortune. You would assume that the money would solve a plethora of issues for a poor man. However, the monetary compensation became the least important consideration of this contract. This contract became about Martin's life or death, love or loss, sanity or madness. As much as Martin loves writing, he loves Cristina more, however life's circumstances prevented him from being with her. Heartbroken and searching, Martin receives an important reminder of love and loss comes from the words of a wise librarian.... "Do you know the best thing about broken hearts?" the librarian asked. I shook my head. "They can only really break once. The rest is just scratches." "Put that in your book." If you're David Martin committed to a life-threatening contract, living alone in the world, and surviving the loss of the love of your life, how do you face the day? What do you do? How do you solve the mysteries that surround you? How do you find the answers and escape the forlorning doom that awaits you? For Martin, it was becoming fearless. The reader follows Martin on a journey of the spiritual world as well as the physical one. There are depths of mystery and metaphysical forces at work that take the reader on an intricate trail of intrigue and deception. It's a wild ride! What Carlos Ruiz Zafon and his translator Lucia Graves have created is a literary masterpiece that is epic! I understand that this book is tied to his previous work The Shadow Of The Wind, which I hear is a remarkable novel. The beauty of the writing in this novel is beyond memorable with such amazing passages as: "Nothing is fair. The most one can hope is for things to be logical. Justice is a rare illness in a world that is otherwise a picture of health." "We'll get to the adult by having recourse to his frustration. As life advances and we have to give up the hopes, dreams and desires of our youth, we acquire a growing sense of being a victim of the world and of other people. There is always someone else to blame for our misfortunes or failures, someone we wish to exclude. Embracing a doctrine that will turn this grudge and this victim mentality into something positive, provides comfort and strength. The adult then feels part of the group and sublimates his lost desires and hopes through the community." "...He didn't know whether we created God in our own image or whether God created us without quite knowing what he was doing. He believed that God, or whatever brought us here, lives in each of our deeds, in each of our words, and manifests himself in all those things that show us to be more than mere figures of clay. Senor Sempere believed that God lives, to a smaller or greater extent, in books, and that is why he devoted his life to sharing them, to protecting them, and to making sure their pages, like our memories and our desires, are never lost. He believed, and he made me believe too, that as long as there is one person left in the world who is capable of reading them and experiencing them, a small piece of God, or of life, will remain..." As awe-struck as I was by reading this book, I was equally confused. I had trouble navigating the last 1/3 of the book. Perhaps that was the exact intent of the author, to leave the scenarios open to the interpretation and imagination of the reader. To avoid spoilers for this #1 New York Times Bestselling book, I will reserve my observations and questions about this mysterious ending. However, if you elect to read this book (and/or have read it) and find yourself confused by the ending like me... then, check this out! The Rating The Angel's Game and I will have a love-hate relationship in that I loved it, yet because of how it ended I will always be perplexed by it. Again, this may be intentional or somehow connected to The Shadow Of The Wind. And, I'm okay with that. Therefore, because all aspects of this book hit on all cylinders, I'm going to give this book a rating of 9 out of 10. That last point is just lost to my confusion on the ending. The ending was exciting and creative, just a tad too confusing for my mere mortal mind.

From the very first sentence, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Angel's Game grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go. I quickly became engrossed in Zafon's smooth, flowing style that made it easy to get lost in the story. This was a very good thing, as this is a story which one has no choice but to get lost in. From David Martin's humble beginnings as a newsroom gofer to his writing success and failure to his Faustian bargain to write a book "for which people will live and die, elements layer one on top of the other to create a deeply satisfying novel that straddles the gothic, noir, mystery and romance genres without seeming to fall cleanly into any one. Zafon manages to create truly beautiful imagery in somewhat spare, though lovely, language. The Angel's Game is one of those books that make me wish I could read it in the original language. Woven into the narrative are powerful observations about human nature - strong enough to resonate when you least expect it, but not as though the author was preaching. I haven't yet read The Shadow of the Wind, but based on the success of The Angel's Game for me, I've already checked it out of the library. I think that this book will appeal to those who have a taste for gothic, macabre literature but want a cut above the typical genre fare. It will also appeal to those readers who delight in beautifully written language.

A story about a young man (with shady past in tow) who has been commissioned to write a novel that will change the world, THE ANGEL'S GAME by Carlos Ruiz Zafon falls short of its grand intentions. Written to be a breathtaking and imaginative display of secrets, gothic imagery and a bit of magical happenstance, this longish novel was more adept at putting me to sleep than entertaining or wowing me. Although the intended plot is original and inventive, it's clouded by some very amateur features of the author's writing style. Zafon (or perhaps translator of the novel from Spanish to English, Lucia Graves) has a gift for exquisitely beautiful language that seems to sweep and soar right off the page, but it is at times excessively melodramatic (" A moment before the first drop touched the ground, time came to a standstill and hundreds and thousands of tears of light were suspended in the air like specks of dust.") and at other times boring as straw. The author seems to be quite wed to a few choice phrases. For example, he often writes, "And then I saw it..." in order to introduce new action, which seems redundant and elementary to me. The constant mention of streets and neighborhoods in Barcelona was irritating and I had to resist the temptation to simply skip over them. A person who speaks no Spanish and has not visited Barcelona will find that annoying. Too many of the characters have the same personality. Senor Vidal, David's mentor, often speaks in inspirational quotes of the sort found in fortune cookies, which would normally make for a very peculiar, singular and even likable character, except that Andreas Corelli, the man for whom David is writing the great novel of his time, also speaks in those (by now, very annoying) fortune cookie inspirations. Even David himself occasionally does it, which tells me that it is not the characters who are extending these witticisms, but the author himself and because of that, I find it difficult to really get close to these characters. They are all essentially the author himself, who apparently believes he has a great deal of wisdom to impart to the world.
This novel is written in almost exact chronological order. There is something about this that bores me. It seems like I'm following the main character, David Martin around and watching his life, most of it totally boring, little snippets of it somewhat interesting. But I tire of it quickly, like I'd tire of any normal person's life after following them around for hours.
Despite Zafon's beautiful and skilled manipulation of the language, his plot's contrived conveniences bored and annoyed me and the gothic darkness of his novel was depressing. For an author whose control and command over the language is as beautiful as Zafon's, I was unpleasantly surprised at how poor he was at spinning a good story.

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