Inside the Labyrinth: A Conversation with Author Carlos Ruiz Zaf?n ...

During the second week of July, bestselling Spanish novelist Carlos Ruiz Zaf?n stopped by Book Passage, a bookstore located at Corte Madera in California, to promote his latest novel The Prisoner of Heaven. His previous works include the critically acclaimed The Shadow of the Wind and its follow up The Angel?s Game, both of which take place in the same world as The Prisoner of Heaven.

I read The Shadow of the Wind a few years ago and instantly fell in love with Zaf?n?s engrossing storytelling. The novel is a Gothic twisting tale of dark mystery, suspense and romance that challenges you. Most importantly it is for those who simply adore literature, and how words and stories form an experience. For those reasons, I just had to see Zaf?n speak. The format was a conversation type set up in which he and author Isabel Allende discussed his work. Afterward, it was opened up for questions from the readers. Here are some of the topics touched upon during the event:

Translations

Originally written in Spanish, The Shadow of the Wind has been translated into over fifty languages. Zaf?n works closely with his translator, wanting to ensure readers are getting the exact experience and elements he intended them to have. There are those instances where things couldn?t be translated, perhaps humor, so he would come up with something different that would be just for the English translation, but it essentially projects the same function.

Settings

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is not just a visual metaphor for forgotten books but forgotten ideas and the story of memory. He believes ?[W]e are what we remember. The less we remember, the less we are.? He was intrigued with memory and how there are times when we lack it?it?s a labyrinth. ?The books were going to be a labyrinth [like memory]. This structure of knowledge, stories made of stories that lead to other stories is a gigantic clockwork mechanism rearranging itself. The more you explore it, the more it keeps changing.?

Also for Barcelona?the city where his novels take place?at the time he wrote The Shadow of the Wind, he believed readers thought of it as a place for fun, as the playground of Europe, and that it was a place full of cafes and megastores. But ?that?s not really Barcelona. It?s very complex; its history is complex and very dark.? He tried to capture ?the soul of the city, this stylization, this Baroque Gothic esthetic which was the core of what Barcelona is.? His goal was to get ?beneath the surface.?

Writing Process

Zaf?n had the overall plans for his books ahead of time, but knew it would take himself years to write it out. He is a constant rewriter who throws away a lot of his work?one example would be getting to page 400 of his work and then going back to page 20 rewriting everything. His work and research is all on the computer, and in fact he never prints anything or keeps other versions. Once he has the finished product, all his digital files are deleted.

Books to Film

If you had your hopes up for a film adaption, you?ll be sorely disappointed to hear Zaf?n has never wanted that for his novels and never will. In his own words, it would be ?over my dead body.? Additionally, he doesn?t see why everything needs to be transformed into other mediums. Not that he thinks there?s anything wrong with them. He has been in the film business as a screenwriter and knows how the industry works; and since his novels are his personal work, he wanted to keep it separate from the other world. The only reasons to sell rights would be to get more popular or make money, neither of which he wants because his work is ?about the readers, about the writers, about literature, about language, about storytelling, about the [reading] experience.? He specifically wrote scenes and images so that readers ?have the best possible film version of it projected in the theater of [their] minds.?

Order for Reading

Most readers go through Zaf?n?s novels following sequentially the year each was published?The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel?s Game and The Prisoner of Heaven. In terms of time frame, it goes Angel?s, Shadow and finally Prisoner. He, however, says they can be read in any order since he designed it so readers can take any path they fancy, like a labyrinth?a reoccurring term he used throughout the evening. Each route allows a different experience. You can also just read one novel, which would give you a closed story. Read another novel and it would expand your knowledge of the world, give you connections to the previous book read, allowing yourself more perspectives. It sort of constantly moves and gives you different angles of the stories.

Young Adult Novels

Zaf?n has written four young adult novels, but he actually came into that genre by accident. His first book had won an award and became successful. Though he continued writing for that field, he never felt like a true YA writer and actually admitted it felt like being an imposer. He stopped once he felt he couldn?t add anything new to the genre.

Zaf?n is now focusing on the fourth and final book set in the world of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books which will bring all the secrets, twists and turns together. He?s an extraordinarily talented writer and if you haven?t already, I highly suggest you pick up one, if not all of his novels.

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Images copyright of Edna Lyn.

Source: http://www.witandfancy.com/2012/09/22/inside-the-labyrinth-a-conversation-with-author-carlos-ruiz-zafon/

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