The Angel's Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
The Angel's Game is a puzzle; and it's one which I'm not entirely sure has an actual solution. It's ultimately so confusing that I'm not entirely sure whether or not I enjoyed it, or if I'm just colossally disappointed. I think it must be somewhere in between.
David Martin is an aspiring young writer who gets his start writing tawdry, sensationalist novels for a Barcelona newspaper. Even though his stories are wildly popular, he is still working his fingers to the bone for bread crumbs due to the political nature of such things: those with money and/or power are the ones who get credit for lesser works, while those with true talent and no name recognition stay in the gutter. Everything begins to change when he is approached by a mysterious foreign publisher who wants to pay him a fortune to write a great work. David's life becomes one of his novels, full of intrigue, violence, and consequences. As the story progresses, one finds that the narrator seemingly becomes less and less reliable, and in the end, the lines between fact and fiction are completely blurred.
Written in the first person, Zafon's protagonist is actually a pretty enjoyable character. He's clever, self-deprecating, and has a wonderfully sarcastic sense of humor. I think it's part of what really works, is that even while the action becomes more and more fantastical and far-fetched, David Martin's earnestness and candor keeps the reader believing his side of things. Most of the other characters are nicely drawn sketches, and we don't delve into them too much. Again, I think this helps the narrative along, as it keeps David isolated. He doesn't share his mystery with anyone for most of the novel, and when he finally does, it's a complete and utter mess.
I realize I'm probably not selling it, but it's really hard to talk about it without going into the plot in a more serious way, and I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. Here's what I'll say: it reminds me of the movie Memento. I think Zafon is playing with similar themes, questioning memory and perception, and wondering exactly how reliable our own senses are sometimes. Just when you think you've got things figured out, he turns them on their head, goes in another direction, and then does another 180 when you've gotten comfortable with a new theory.
The writing is excellent; descriptive without being verbose, which is just the way I like it. Once again, I don't know how I came across this book, but I think it was mentioned that it dealt with books and writers and things like that, so of course I was interested. While I am a bit frustrated and befuddled by it, it was still a very good read that I think almost anyone can enjoy, provided you're willing to devote a bit of time to a novel. Which, if you're reading this post at all, you probably are. Apparently there's a previous novel entitled The Shadow of the Wind that takes place after the events of this novel, but has much in common with it, both in terms of setting, characters, and style. I might be willing to give that one a try as well ... once I stop trying to dissect this one.
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