- ISBN13: 9780767931113
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
From the author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes a riveting new masterpiece about love, literature, and betrayal.
In this powerful, labyrinthian thriller, David Martín is a pulp fiction writer struggling to stay afloat. Holed up in a haunting abandoned mansion in the heart of Barcelona, he furiously taps out story after story, becoming increasingly desperate and frustrated. Thus, when he is approached by a mysterious publisher … More >>
5 Responses to “The Angel’s Game”
Dismal writing with stick-characters with no interior life whatsoever!What a drivel of a book.
Repetitive use of the word undulating, spiders, cobwebs, and snakes all describe the utter failure of this book. How this book received critic’s praises in Northeast Papers, is probably worth more of a story than this disgraceful excuse of a story could ever offer.. At first I thought, “Surely this book is a film noir spoof on cheap Japanese crime pulp paperbacks.” To give any credulity to the seriousness of the book would mean to overlook the highly pretentious/contrived plots and would require a complete suspension of reality. The black and white German film, “City of Angels” did a much better job in portraying darkness. This book is a horrible
rendition of the Mephistophelian tale or of old l930’s films on the man who sold his soul to the devil. What a fraud of a book to perpetuate on a non-suspecting reading public.
Rating: 1 / 5
I shold have listened to the other reviewers who advised people to save their time and not bother with this book. Others wrote the ending leaves you hanging, is ambiguous, and fails to tie things up. I thought if I read it, I would understand the meaning, that I would get the same feeling I did when I read Shadow of the Wind…well, I did not grasp the big meaning, I did not feel gripped by the story, and I should have heeded the advice to skip this book. The first 2/3 is good, then it becomes a blood bath that is hard to follow. Save your time, save your money.
Rating: 1 / 5
“The Shadow of the Wind” is without doubt one of the finest literary achievements in recent history. Sublime in Spanish, it is possibly even surpassed by the remarkable translation of Lucia Graves, and “The Angel’s Game”, in Spanish, is as rich, beautifully written, original and thought-provoking as its predecessor. We look forward to the English-language version, with its incomparable use of language.
Rating: 5 / 5
Update: 06.22.09
I finished the book. At around 65-75% towards completion of the book, it lost all momentum and resolutions were patchworked together. It is almost like the author didn’t know how to end the book, so he grasped at straws to come up with neat or not so neat endings to conclude the book. The final confrontation between pro- and ant-ogonist was so weak I thought why did I invest 8 hours into reading this book to get this no-answer, not even mysterious ending. Plus, talk about creepy, borderline kiddy-adult relationship forced into a literary fix, in order to truly avoid finishing the interesting premise of the thought to it’s rightful end was just not right. Not good. Major let-down.
06.21.09
I read some of the other reviews that questioned the book’s brilliance. So, I started it, having read “Shadow..” which I read from start to finish in days, and was expecting it not to be as good. But, then I started reading it. I can’t exactly what happened in “Shadow”, just the transfixed memory of being lost in a world in which I had never been and I enjoyed it.
We are never sure where this master storyteller leads us, but I always think I am moving in a direction he wants be to go in. I think I have it all figured out, but more interesting are the questions I start to ask myself about life and death; mortality; religion and what it’s exact function is and why is both a blessing and a curse; the master and servant relationship; obsessive love and why we can never forget our first love; who is the real diablo… and, why they really conncet with us to begin with; and, finally, the power of books, which reveal the soul of the author and why we connect again and again to the written word, no matter how seductive film and television are.
If you want to question all of the above, and remember all these same questions, and many more, then this book will demand your utter attention. I began the book yesterday at 4:30 p.m. PST and have not stopped reading it… I will amend this review once I am finished. Which will be quite soon.
Now, I’m up to page 252.
Rating: 5 / 5
I read this book in Spanish as soon as it came out because I loved La Sombra del Viento. I was very disapointed. The author took Faust and placed him in Barcelona in the 20’s. The book is a great screen play and about 150 pages too long. There are two scenes, the one on the telesphere and the one in the house of the old witch in the Port of Barcelona that were inserted for movie special effects and could well have been left out of the text without been missed.
I hope Ruiz Zafon takes some time out to really think about his writing and redirects himself to literature and forgets about writing screen plays.
Rating: 1 / 5