You know how sometimes a book can have an effect on you? Its story draws you in so much that you feel you are IN the story, looking at all that is happening and unravelling right before your eye, as if you are there, watching, like a fly on the wall.
I felt like this reading The Shadow of the Wind. It's a mesmerising tale and it was hard to put the book down. I didn't want to put it down. I wanted to keep reading, to find out what would happen to Daniel and what happen to Julien all those years ago. Such sorry and lost love. But what an adventure and mystery! Reading this book also made me want to visit Barcelona.
When I did visit Barcelona last year I almost felt like I knew the place, just from the names I'd read in the book. I said to my friend 'We must go to Montjuic!'. I really didn't know what was at Montjuic, aside from being high on the hill. I knew of Barceloneta yet I am still to visit it. We ran out of time.
I'm now reading 'Angel's Game' by the same author and again it is drawing me into Barcelona. Those tiny cobbled winding streets and laneways. The magic and mystery of the city. It's beauty and hidden crime and dirt. It's laughter. It's light, it's darkness.
Again I want to travel there. To experience and explore the city more. To spend a day watching it go by. To swim in the water, to lose myself in those streets and get lost, without a care in the world. To stumble across a bar and order a sangria and sample plates of tapas. To have a mid afternoon/evening slumber before heading out for more food and drink and warm summer nights with the air of happiness, laughter, and smiles of families, couples, individuals, and children soaking around me. Just like in Plaza Real.
Next year. Hopefully.
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