I've been reading the novel Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and I've found it particularly challenging—not because I'm enjoying it but because I'm having trouble articulating precisely what I don't like about it.

This book came highly recommended by a lot of people in my everyday life. Which is to say, it's not SFF. It's semi-historical, but fundamentally mainstream fiction, so I won't be reviewing it on the magazine. But it's been so perturbing for me, that I felt compelled to talk about it here.

The novel, for those who have not read it, follows the story of the main narrator, a young boy growing into adulthood, as he investigates the mysterious life of the author of a rare book that comes into his possession. I don't want to give a plot synopsis here, so much as the story structure. As he grows older, the narrator unravels more and more details about this mysterious author's life as he speaks with people who know something about him. Select events in the narrator's own life echo what he uncovers about the author's life.

The initial feeling I had about why I don't like this book is that it's a "mystery" structure story, rather than a character-driven story. As I read further, I realized that it's not so simple. There are subplots that follow the character's own life independent from the mystery. And the unfolding mystery is, itself, a character-driven story, rather than, say, a whodunnit where clues are brought to light to solve a crime. The mystery, rather, is in discovering the perspectives and motivations of the various players in the mysterious author's life. While I'm not finished reading this novel, I imagine that the conflicts in the mysterious author's life will tie together with the conflicts in the main narrator's life.

If the story is, at least, in part character-driven, what's the problem? Why am I having so much trouble being interested in this story? I have come to the conclusion that I don't like the narrative choices that have been made in this book.

Most of the problematic narrative choices stem from the main narrator. First problem—the main character's story is character-driven only in places. We understand why he loves literature, why he's attracted to certain girls, why he misses his dead mother, etc. But so much space in this novel is devoted to scenes where the main character is listening to a secondary character tell his or her particular "puzzle piece" of the mysterious author's story. What's completely missing here is the main narrator's continuing motivation for finding out about the mysterious author's life. Why does he continue the investigation? What meaning does he find for it in his own life? What emotions compel him to continue the search? Readers may speculate on the answers to these questions, but they never make it "to the page"—which is not to say that I'm advocating "tell don't show." The narrator could be transparently wrong or even confused about his own motivation, but we never hear the main narrator's own speculations on why he feels compelled to follow this quest.

The next problem is the heavy use of secondary narration, i.e. main narrator sits quietly while another character speaks for long periods of time. This means that we, as readers, must continually process the fact that we're hearing someone tell a story to the main narrator, i.e. we must remember that we're hearing character X tell a story through the main narrator's ears. Now, don't get me wrong, multiple levels of narration can be a quite effective literary device. Filtering one character's narration through the point of view of another character can be very effective and fascinating when used well. The problem in Shadow of the Wind, though, is that we get huge stretches of narration where it's the secondary narrator speaking and lacking any narrative interjection from the main character. In other words, the main character is listening without a word or a thought, fundamentally turning over the narration duties to someone else. We get no information on how the main narrator is processing the information he's getting, how it's affecting him, whether he thinks the secondary narrator is telling the truth, etc. Nothing. Narrative silence. Not only is the main narrator effectively deadened, any story of his put on hold, but it's a practical nightmare. Novels, after all, aren't meant to be read in one sitting. When I put this book down, and then pick it up later, I have no idea for several paragraphs whether it's the main character talking or a secondary character. The other day, I came back to this book after a couple weeks away, and thought that the main narrator was having a gay romance with the mysterious author until I realized it was a female former lover of the mysterious author telling her story to the main narrator.

One of the people who originally recommended this book to me promises that the threads of this story come together splendidly in the end, shedding light upon all that came before it. I'm reminded, however, of one of our recent associate page topics. What is the most important part of a story? For me, it's not the ending, but how I get there. What I enjoy most about fiction is spending hours with fascinating characters, not being ''in the dark'' until the ending ties it all together.

I'd be interested to hear from other people who have read this book, and their opinions on the effectiveness or difficulties with this narrative style.