This is an engrossing work; within the first chapter or two you understand why it has become such a popular novel. It's 1945, it's Barcelona, the Civil War has been lost and Franco's Fascists are firmly in control ... though feeling insecure, because Hitler's Fascism is crumbling and Mussolini's has already been dismantled. A bookseller takes his young son, Daniel, on an adventure ... a visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, there to choose one forgotten work and treasure it.
Thus begins the child's fascination with the author of "The Shadow of the Wind", one Julian Carax. The child grows, determined to discover who was this mysterious Carax, why did he flee Barcelona, and why is some mysterious stranger determined to destroy all copies of his books and all trace of his life.
The destruction of an artist's life and works is a potent exploration of censorship and the ability of Franco's followers to fictionalise history. Carlos Ruiz Zafon has life imitating art: Daniel's life seems to parallel Carax's! Is this a case of not learning from history? One of the characters remarks that true evil requires thought and reason, but that most people who do evil are too stupid to intellectualise their behaviour: they act simplistically out of corrupted emotions ... fear, anger, jealousy, guilt, greed.
Fascism, we see, took a hold because not enough people were prepared to act to stop it. Fascism will return if people are too lazy to think, to value, to question. History can repeat itself unless people learn.
But Fascism - which tries to impose a rigid structure on the State and its people - creates intense loneliness. People live in fear of exposure, of seizure by the secret police because they dare to think differently. Daniel's is the loneliness of fear, but it's also the loneliness of teenage love - lusty, erotic, but ultimately fragile and insecure. As a teenager, how do you know you are in love? You weave your dreams and hopes, but lack the experience to compare, to know for sure. You barely understand desire, let alone love. As a teenager, history never repeats itself, because you simply don't yet have enough emotional history!
Haunted, pursued by the mysterious leather-faced man who is out to destroy Carax's work, Daniel is haunted by the women he desires, is haunted by the need to construct a sexual and emotional self beyond the boundaries of childhood. Freedom, here, is hardly political freedom, but rather escape from emotional and sexual censorship. As Daniel strides out into the world, we watch his friendships and family dissolve around him. He has to build adult relationships now, not childish ones.
This is a book which works on so many levels. The focus is primarily on the fantasy world Daniel creates, the fantasy, shadowy world of resistance to Fascism, to censorship and mind control. It is fantasy until it runs smack into reality, the reality of a mature world. Suddenly, we have a murder mystery on our hands. We have political intrigue. We have eroticism.
"The Shadow of the Wind" is an extraordinarily well-written novel. It moves at a gentle, cerebral pace - you barely notice you are on a rollercoaster ride through fantasy. Yet it is a wonderful evocation of Barcelona - not the city of tourist brochure and sunshine, but a dark, mysterious city, lived in by real people enduring real fear and oppression. The fantasy is merely a dark cloak - once you begin to peer under it you feel this is a vivid insight into the subconscious of Spain.
It is a wholly absorbing, and highly unusual, mystery which will engross you. If I have one criticism, I felt the last quarter of the novel is comparatively weak. The ending can appear a little hasty and contrived. Having created a fantasy, turned it into a dark mystery and eroticised the romance, the ending could have been better played and plotted. But overall, a lovely, thoroughly enjoyable novel which will engage you on a number of levels and leave your mind stimulated.

Artur Schnabel (Austrian born, in 1882) has been described as a 'musician' rather than as a 'pianist'. There are technically better exponents of the instrument, there are pianists who are more disciplined and less explosive than Schnabel, but his interpretation of Beethoven's piano sonatas remains an outstanding contribution to music and to an understanding of the composer.

Schanbel had a composer's mind - he wasn't only a performer, he wrote and arranged as well. He also seems to have entered into Beethoven's mindset and established an almost telepathic link with the genius. Contemporaries of Schnabel certainly felt that no one in their era came as close to expressing the 'real' Beethoven.

And there is a significant parallel in Schnabel's recording of the work and Beethoven's writing of them. The piano sonatas were first and foremost Beethoven. They were written by him at a piano, and were played by him at a piano - not by an orchestra or quartet or trio. This is a direct link to Beethoven's hand, ear, and mind. The sonatas are passionately individual and intimate.

And they were written at a time when the piano was evolving - Beethoven was pushing the instrument to its then technical limitations. Schnabel records the works in the face of rapid developments of the technology of his time. Though recording techniques and equipment look at least quaint and antiquated by today's standards, this was the cutting edge of technology in the 1930's. Yet Schnabel was reluctant to record the works initially - he couldn't quite accept that it was legitimate.

And he had good reason. The original recordings (made between 1932 and 1938) were on bulky, fragile, shellac discs: scratchy, cranky, to be played on wind up instruments and generate a barely acceptable noise, the music lost behind crackle and hiss, the life expectancy of the disc limited by its fragility and ease with which it could be abraded or scratched. This was hardly 'real' music or 'real' musicianship - not like playing before a live audience.

Yet Schnabel, once he overcame his objections to the technology, settled down in EMI's Abbey Road studios and recorded all thirty-two of the sonatas, giving each an immediacy and astonishing presence. Primitive they may be by contemporary standards, but no one has achieved such a sense of 'live' recording, no one makes the music sound so intimately present in your sitting room.

There are better technical recordings in terms of the skills of the pianist - Richard Goode and Alfredo Perle are two I could recommend. There are more modern recordings which produce a more perfect sound - there is a hiss on these discs, a hiss which some will accept as giving the recordings authenticity, provenance and atmosphere, a hiss which will drive others demented. But there is no one who approaches Beethoven with greater insight or emotional integrity.

These recordings of the sonatas are available individually - you do not have to buy them as a box set, you can pick and choose your favourites, you can dip your toe in the water and see how you cope with the sound and feel of just one. There is, as I say, a hiss. But these recordings have all been superbly remastered by Mark Obert-Thorn from the originals, and offer a greatly enhanced sound quality compared to the earlier EMI box-set by Schnabel - the sound is rich, enveloping, yet intimate and immediate.

Musicianship of outstanding quality and integrity, and no little courage.