Introduction.
The present work will not be a plain or a simple account of the events that happen throughout the novel. Nor will it be a summary of each character, nor of each place or situation that was lived in what lies in the book. I will limit myself exclusively to narrating everything that “The Shadow of the Wind” transmitted to me, each of the lessons that it taught me, each advice and word of encouragement that were born within each of the characters that give life to it, because the meaning of the work lies in the reader. You don’t choose which book to read, the book chooses you.
In advance, I will mention that I will inevitably have to resort to scenes, characters, moments and places in order to portray with more impetus and strength each of the emotions that arose in me while my gaze crossed each written word and my mind gave it an image, but that life was in my heart. In the end, no matter which book we read, we will always or almost always have to understand what already dwells inside our spirit, inside our soul, but that, simply, each character we meet ignites the coals of our heart, with the imperative purpose of, freeing from any bondage to who we are under the social masks we wear at different times of the day and with different people.
Discovering the world.
Daniel Sempere, a child who with every page that advances, we see him grow, or rather, we do not see him grow, because in reality, who is growing is oneself. Daniel Sempere, the son of a bookstore owner. We could say that life “took away” from him the joy of exploring the world with his mother, but we would be falling into an obvious mistake, because, with the procedure of each chapter, with the walk of each adventure by which he takes us by the hand, if we observe well, but not with the eyes that allows us to see colors and shapes, but, with the eyes of the soul, of those who grant us the joy of contemplating beauty within chaos, calm in the midst of the tempest, and happiness in the midst of calamities, if we make use of that great gift of God, we will be able to distinguish with singular clarity how he, together with his mother, are discovering the world around them, how together they are walking through each of the streets of a mysterious and Gothic Barcelona that had been hit by the Spanish civil war.
He presents us with the fear of the unknown, but at the same time, he makes clear the imperative and undeniable need to live, to explore, to explore each new horizon hidden among the words found inside the books. He teaches us that books have a life of their own. Inside that ink that rests on those pages, there are people who, just like you and me, have a life before and after even opening the book. A life that does not belong to us until precisely they whisper in our ear that we give them an opportunity to tell us a story, to hold their hand and walk through unknown terrain, to together, review and create paths that already existed but turned out to be alien to us.
Inside those pages, there is life, there is hope, there is pain, struggle… There is a spirit that fights against the chains that keep him prisoner, that once we manage to reach him, he frees himself; he embraces us, enters into us, now, we are no longer as we were before, that brave and bold spirit rests in our heart. It begins to forge its values in our moral and ethical axis. That is why, no matter how much it says “End”, it is not really its end, it is simply a new beginning, the beginning of a new, and perhaps longer adventure. He showed us his world, now it will be our turn to show him ours, to draw before him our reality, and perhaps, if we have the bliss, we will be able to see the world in a different way, because that spirit is already part of us. Just as Julian Carax’s spirit was for Daniel.
A look inside.
Friendship, I’ve come to think, can also be a verb. I find no reason why it should continue to be relegated to the simple plane of inanimate and sadly, mundane nouns as well. Let me explain. Daniel Sempere, a boy, a friend of the heaviest and strongest student, by the way, he (Tomás Aguilar) beat Daniel for some unpleasant comments about his sister (Beatriz Aguilar). There was no beating that was so great to extinguish the flames of friendship that were already brewing in the hearts of both. Being two guys who, to a certain extent, were opposites, but similar to each other at the same time. With beatific passion, each one dedicated himself to his own. Tomás Aguilar, on the one hand, is a child with a restless spirit and an explorer, always looking for what is beyond that escapes the simple vision, undoing and making gadgets that he baptized as “inventions” but that lacked real intention until that moment because as I mentioned, the real intention is not born in the mind or in the heart of its creator, but of the one who has the courage to adopt him.
On the other hand, Daniel was not very different from him in this regard. Driven by the insatiable need to know who was that writer who had touched fibers that no one else had ever touched, who had reached corners that even he did not know, Who is that individual who stole my breath, but, in return, lit the coals in my heart, the same ones that I thought were already just a pile of accumulated ashes and worthless? Who is Julian Carax? Why was I so interested in his name? Could it be that the world he put before my feet looks better than the one that my heart and soul feel and see today? There is no doubt, I must find him. But what if, at the end of the search, I end up finding myself?…
Returning to the initial point of this small block about friendship, and why I conceive that friendship should stop being a noun, and become a verb, and one that would turn out in a very peculiar way, but that, without a doubt, more than one of us, would rejoice the heart and sweeten our soul or spirit, whatever you decide to call it is the same, I see no distinction whatsoever.
Loyalty, a branch of friendship, moreover, if you dear reader will allow me, I will take the liberty of stating that, without loyalty there is no friendship, and without friendship there is no loyalty. It would be impossible to even think that we have never found ourselves in a situation of, “Either it’s me, or it’s him.” Daniel on more than one occasion sketches how his ideals mature as his adventure progresses. As, with the turning of the pages, their ideas, values, and moral conceptions, are taking firmness, and building their own character. Before continuing to talk about this point that I consider vital for any human being who is, even moderately interested in establishing meaningful links, I would like to review a few things, which by connecting the dots, will have a meaning, and which, by penetrating into your heart dear reader, will find a meaning.
Wandering through the dark streets of a Gothic Barcelona (to tell the truth, of course with your permission to deviate again a little from the topic of our talk; I would like to comment, that the Barcelona that is revealed, is particularly attractive to me because of the historical-cultural legacy of that region at that particular moment of the sum of human wills intertwined with each other, but that in turn, unfortunately, however, necessarily, live in constant conflict, well, to what we have decided to call “history”). Returning to the point from which we have started. Wandering through the dark, desolate and icy streets of Barcelona, with the fortuitous mission of meeting once again with that girl who taught him that you don’t need eyes to have vision, and that, despite not being able to see, that’s not an impediment to contemplating the beauty that life can bring. That girl who showed him that, even with hands, you can see things, and faces, and that, perhaps, they are able to reveal things that are imperceptible to the sense of sight; that’s right dear reader, I’m talking about Clara Barceló.
Beaten as he had never been before in his still young but promising life. Bleeding, on the verge of collapse, almost unconscious, if not already was. From the shadows emerges a mysterious subject. A homeless man, with no direction, no fixed steps to a destination other than oblivion. Fermín Romero De Torres. Hope, and therefore courage and loyalty personified. But that, he carried a painful and heavy past on his shoulders, where each scar told a new blow, not only physical, but also, deeper ones, ones that tragically, may not be healed, and on the contrary, may grow and make a bigger and painful wound, impossible to heal, that’s right, I’m talking about the wounds of the heart.
We all have a past. A story to tell, whether of success or failure, of glories or misfortunes, of honors or dishonors, but at the end of the day, a past. However, that past does not define us at the present moment, it does not say who I am at this moment, but yes, it constitutes to some extent the person I am right now. The past is something that cannot be erased, no matter how much soap and water we throw at the wound, it will not heal, and perhaps, after insisting so much, it will even bleed again, and with it, bring back the pain and suffering that we were trying to leave behind.
Past.
Fermín Romero De Torres, is a man who shows that it is possible to change, to be better people, to return to life, to see the world with new lenses, to heal the wounds that hurt us and that fill us with shame. A vagabond, who naturally, like a man of his time, presents a somewhat macho personality, but which, perhaps, is the result of the lack of love in which he lived from a very early age. Guerrilla, who was subsequently caught, beaten, and humiliated by Inspector Francisco Javier Fumero. If your heart is still beating, and there is still a pulse in your veins, it means that being here is not a mistake. Getting to where Daniel was that night was nothing more than the encounter of hope and passion, wisdom and impetus, insecurity and security, a skin marked by life and the past with smooth and scar-free skin, a skin with a life and a story ahead of it.
On the one hand, redemption and trying to live again, to reconcile with every part of himself, with his stormy past, to be able to love and feel loved again. On the other hand, a younger spirit lay inside Daniel. A spirit full of life, eager to get to know the world around him, to meet that mysterious being who had managed to move fibers that no one else had ever managed to touch, not even his father by giving him that pen that is said to have belonged to Alexandre Dumas; Julian Carax; without knowing that an encounter with him would be an encounter with himself from another perspective.
Resurrection.
Two strangers, who were walking in the same direction, but I’m not talking about their wandering steps, but about something more glorious, their destination. At this point, it is inevitable to answer with imperative necessity the question previously established. That is to say, the friendship that was gradually forged between the two of them, a friendship that did not know the ages, or rather, I will take the liberty of saying that, in fact, it was a friendship that widely recognized the differences in both ages, ideas, values, preconceptions, but that, even with all these reasons against, nothing could prevent that seed of friendship that was planted by their chance meeting, could blossom, and unfold in itself, that is, touch points where they had not dared to observe previously.
I’ll explain it a little more clearly. Daniel, a brave young man, but this one had not been exposed in the beginning. Fermín, a man thrown away, but who, was a prisoner of the chains that prevented him from “jumping into the pool” and loving again, and perhaps, being one day in what he needed so much, in a father.
With the evolution of the adventures that arose in their lives, each one was stripping the other of those shackles that kept them imprisoned. Daniel, seeing his friend, his beloved Bea, his father exposed to the imminent danger of Inspector Francisco Javier Fumero, decided to give himself up alive, provided that they could live, as can be read and live in a key chapter (I will not mention the chapter of which I am writing, because it would be missing the first established in this work). Later, we have to mention, the change, or rebirth of Fermín.
Thank You.
I have always thought that, even if, instead of fear, there were love in people’s hearts and souls, history today would undoubtedly be radically different from how we know it, and I will take the license to say that, today the world would be better. Deep panic and fear of love was latent in Fermín’s heart, because he didn’t even know that it was such a thing as love, he had an idea, but he wasn’t aware of it. When he met Daniel, and when he arrived home with his father, he was able to contemplate something that until that moment seemed unreal to him, the brotherly love of a father towards his offspring, and the love and respect on the part of the boy towards his progenitor. With the inexorable march of time, the moment came when he would meet the woman who would be able to teach him what it is to love. She freed his heart from the chains that held him hostage to fear, she removed the blindfold so he could see that in front of him, a present was prostrated, and that beyond that place, he still had life to build a future. It taught him to see that the past is not the only thing that exists, that by opening the windows of the heart, we will be able to observe a different world from the one we have known…
Dear reader, if you have reached this point, I want to thank you for taking the time to have chatted with me, and read me, because the intention of this writing was nothing more than to manifest everything that was born inside my soul when walking through each page, for each moment narrated… I wish that those feelings that were captivated with this book, can also be captivated in you… Before saying goodbye, I want you, when closing this page, to remember what is your greatest dream, which is what truly moves your heart, and once you have remembered it, anchor that dream to your heart and your mind, and never let it die in the abyss of oblivion and the everyday, because, one never knows when those dreams can save our lives, just as they saved the lives of Daniel and Fermin…
Says goodbye to you, your friend Jorge Arturo Vedolla Colin…
Leave a Reply