The Angel’s Game (2008)
By Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Doubleday, 544 pages
*
* * ½
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An old adage goes: be
careful what you wish for, you might get it. The 10th Commandment
admonishes against covetousness. More ominously, a considerable body of
folklore tells of the eternal consequences of making a bargain with the Devil.
(It’s numbers M200-299 in the Folk Motif
Index if you’re keeping score.) From Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of
Life to Faust, Paganini, and Robert Johnson, the message is clear: don’t meddle
with the Devil.
The Angel’s Game is Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s (semi) prequel to The Shadow of the Wind. It is not up to the first book’s standard
and, in fact, might even be viewed as a messy sometimes-trite piece of work. It
is nonetheless a thrilling, often scary read. Like Shadow of the Wind, this one is set in Barcelona, though slightly
earlier: the 1920s and 1930s, the eve of the Spanish Civil War. Parts of it
take place in the Sempere bookshop, though they involve Daniel Sempere the
elder, not his son. (This detail has confused some readers.) The Cemetery of
Forgotten Books also factors into the story. Of these, only the latter is
important rather than coincidental, which means you need not read Shadow of the Wind first.
Great Expectations is a clear model for Angel’s Game.
David Martin, like Pip, grew up in poverty and suffered the torments of an
abusive father. Despite this, David’s natural intelligence, love of literature,
and hard work lead him to publisher and surrogate father Pedro Vidal, for whose
newspaper he gains modest employment. After a time, David harbors a desire for
more things of this world: money, reputation, and residency in a rambling empty
mansion called Tower House. He gets two of three; he leaves Vidal for greater
opportunity, but is soon pumping out sensationalist stories under a pseudonym that
captivate the reading public. He has money and a house with a spooky past, but
he’s not viewed as a serious writer. Soon, David is both bored and tired of
being looked down upon; he’s not even good enough to court Cristina, the
daughter of Vidal’s chauffeur.
David’s life takes a turn
when a French publisher named Andreas Cortelli offers David an enormous sum to
be his ghostwriter. Cortelli is a stimulating intellect, though an odd
individual who wears an angel pin in his lapel and has a habit of consulting
with David at irregular hours in unusual places. His commission is stranger
still; Cortelli wants David to write a book that will unseat old religious systems
and establish a new one. Moreover, it must be such a powerful piece of
propaganda that the masses will follow it.
All of this is overlaid by a
chilling discovery David makes about the previous owner of his house, the
disruption of an adoring but forceful live-in intern, a series of murders for
which David is thought a suspect, increasing demands from Cortelli, and the
shock of discovering that Christina has married his old benefactor, Vidal. As
in Great Expectations, not everyone
is whom they appear to be, Cortelli primary among them.
It does not surprise me that
not all readers liked (or could follow) this book. It is not clear what we are
to make of all this. Is Zafon’s novel a Gothic tale of the supernatural? A
murder mystery? Is it an exercise in Jungian psychology? A tale of David’s
breakdown? A vampire tale? An overdose of magical realism? Or something more
ominous? Zafon does not tell us what is real and what is imagined, thus any one
of these readings has merit, though I think he tips his hand by calling Cortelli’s
scandalous tract Lux Aeterna
(“Eternal Light”).
I would yield to those who
say that Zafon jumped the shark in Angel’s
Game. There are too many elements, too many subplots, too many improbable
circumstances, and too much ambiguity for the center to hold. Nonetheless, memorable
lines such as this enthralled me: “Poetry is written with tears, fiction with
blood, and history with invisible ink.” Part of the book, including its
conclusion, scared the bejesus out of me. All I am sure of is that this book
within a book is also an allegory on Francoism. As for the scariest thing of
all, I will end with a prolonged quote from a lecture delivered to David by
Cortelli. Zafon wrote these words in 2008, but I’ll excuse you if you thought
it was last week.
Nothing
makes us believe more than fear, the uncertainty of being threatened. When we
feel like victims, all our actions and beliefs are legitimized, however
questionable they may be. Our opponents… stop sharing common ground with us and
become our enemies…. The envy, greed, or resentment that motivates us becomes
sanctified, because we tell ourselves we’re acting in self-defense. Evil,
menace–those are always the preserve of each other. The first step for
believing passionately is fear. Fear of losing our identity, our life, our
status, or our beliefs. Fear is the gunpowder and hatred is the fuse. … It’s
not enough that people should believe. They must believe what we want them to
believe. And they must not question it or listen to the voice of whoever
questions it.
This would be a disturbing
yet enlightening book if only for these passages. I’ll leave it to you whether
the rest makes sense, just as I will allow you to apply Zafon’s words in an analogical
context of choice. I will say, though, that you should exercise great caution
before striking a bargain for all you think you desire.
Rob Weir
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