The Shadow of The Wind

Saturday Stories

August 25, 2018

I

In the first part of the last century in Barcelona, Spain, there was a library called The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It was big, designed like a maze, and not a few have found themselves lost. For those who respect memories long forgotten, it was hallowed ground.

There is a tradition known only to those with a deep reverence for books and what they represent. When you go there for the first time, you have to choose a book that will be yours forever, but you have to take care of it, for you also keep the memory of its author alive.

Daniel was nine when his father, the bookseller, Señor Sempere, took him there. The boy went around the labyrinthine corridors, and of all the literary treasures within those shelves reaching up to the ceiling, he found himself fascinated with an obscure novel titled "The Shadow of The Wind" by someone named Julian Carax.

He chose it, or perhaps it chose him, then strange things begin to happen.

II

With a good book I can disappear for a while, then come back with a renewed spirit. I think it is a privilege to enter a world created by other people, to meet characters given life through imagination.

When I read a novel, I see in my mind a movie, a spectacular pageant with only me in the theater. I remember when I found an old copy of Stephen King's "Christine" during the nineties. I "played" Arnie with my "leading lady," Winona Ryder, as Leigh.

I have been doing my "mental movie versions" since I was a teenager, and hundreds of books later, I'm still "directing." Last week, in Raymond Khoury's "The Sanctuary," I was almost killed in a sword fight against Antonio Banderas; and last night, in Daniel Easterman's "Spear of Destiny," I saw the mortals remains of Joseph of Arimathea.

I love "The Shadow of The Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and it has become special to me since I read it almost two weeks ago. I feel a sense of comfort in the image of me working in an old-fashioned bookshop in the 1950s at Calle Santa Ana in Barcelona, of many a quiet afternoon with my beloved father and a mysterious and amazing friend named Fermin Romero de Torres. The characters are Spanish, so I had a Filipino "cast."

Naturally, I'm the narrator.

The Shadow of The Wind

Daniel Sempere – Huggybear

Señor Sempere – Robert Arevalo 

Fermin Romero de Torres – Jaime Fabregas

Julián Carax – Christopher De Leon

Francisco Javier Fumero – John Arcilla

Beatriz Aguilar – Bea Alonzo

Penélope Aldaya – Chin-Chin Gutierrez

Nuria Monfort – Hilda Koronel

Jacinta Coronado – Anita Linda

Clara Barceló – Penelope Cruz

Bernarda Cherry – Pie Picache

Miquel Moliner – Joel Torre

Jorge Aldaya – Bembol Roco

Tomas Aguilar – Dingdong Dantes

Don Gustavo Barceló – Tommy Abuel

Don Ricardo Aldaya – Eddie Garcia

Sophie Carax – Lorna Tolentino

Don Federico Flavia – Noni Buencamino

Don Anacleto Olmo – Leo Martinez

Antoni Fortuny – Spanky Manikan

Padre Fernando Ramos – Subas Herrero

Isaac Monfort – Lou Veloso

Enrique Palacios – Cesar Montano

Merceditas – Eugene Domingo

Adrian Neri – Allan Paule

Pedro Sanmarti – Mon Confiado

Sister Hortensia – Gina Alajar

Doña Encarna – Lorli Villanueva

Doña Aurora – Caridad Sanchez

Professor Velasquez – Noel Trinidad

The Aldaya Caretaker – Ronnie Lazaro

Photo courtesy of ClearEyesFullshelves.com