Autumn breeze gently touches my face and carries me away.
The Spanish novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind (2004 [2001]) came to life, to my life in Edinburgh last summer. During my three-month stay, I finished only one and a half fictions. The Shadow of the Wind is the one. Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves (2010) is still unfinished on my bookshelf (one-third to go). I picked up writing and editing this blog recently and found my excerpts from The Shadow of the Wind. It is brilliant! It is a book connecting two generations of mysteries, romance, and friendship in Barcelona. It is also a book with lots of wisdom, some from the main character Daniel Sempere's confidant Fermín Romero de Torres.
"if you ever have a daughter, you'll begin, without realizing it, to divide men into two camps, those you expect are sleeping with her and those who don't." (Isaac Monfort, p. 70)
"Nobody knows much about women, not even Freud, not even women themselves. But it's like electricity: you don't have to know how it works to get a shock." (Fermín, p. 89)
"Like the good ape he is, man is a social animal, characterized by cronyism, nepotism, corruption and gossip. That's the intrinstic blueprint for our 'ethical behaviour'" (Fermín, p. 95)
"As Freud tell us, women want the opposite of what they think or say they want, which, when you consider it, is not so bad, because men, as is more than evident, respond, contrariwise, to the dictates of their genital and digestive organs." (Fermín, p. 134)
"man, going back to Freud - and excuse the metaphor - heats up like a lightbulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand - and this is pure science - heats up like an iron, slowly, over a low heat, like a tasty stew. But then, once she has heated up, there's no stopping her. Like the steel furnaces in Vizcaya." (Fermín, p. 134-5)
"the echo of my footsteps followed me through the corridors and galleries that led me to the cloister...sitting on one of the benches, her silhouette outlined against the fountain" (p. 177-8)
"One has to pay some price for being able to piss standing up." (Fermín, p. 194)
"Womandkind is an indecipherable maze. If you give her time to think, you're lost. Remember: warm heart, cold mind. The seducer's code." (Fermín, p. 195)
"Love is a lot like pork: there's loin steak and there's bologna. Each has its own place and function." (Fermín, p. 200)
"There are few reasons for telling the truth, but for lying the number is infinite." (Mr. Barcelo, p. 201)
"The most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach them to want to imitate the rich. That is the poison with which capitalism blinds the [poor]" (Fermín, p. 203)
"Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you." (Daniel, p. 215)
"Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visit. You have to go for it yourself." (Fermín, p. 233)
"Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen." (Mr. Barcelo, p. 303)
"This city [Barcelona] is a sorceress...It gets under your skin and steals your soul without you knowing." (p. 496)
"I leafed through the pages, inhaling the enchanted scent of promise that comes with all new books." (p. 504)
No comments:
Post a Comment