pamela
Written on Mar 20, 2015
I am always wary with translated books, as they do seem to lose a lot in the method of translation. I feel that perhaps this may be the case with Zafon's 'Marina' as most Spanish reviews seem to give it glowing praise. Perhaps there is something about the language and descriptions in the Spanish language that give this novel a depth which it lacks in English. Or perhaps that Zafon's labour of love was translated by someone else, rather than the author himself made it lose a little of its impact.
The pacing of 'Marina' is way off. It starts with Oscar being mysteriously discovered alone in a train station by a policeman, unwilling to talk about the recent ordeal which had him missing without a trace for a week. We would hope that this mystery would have a thrilling resolution, however the reason for the week's disappearance is truly mundane as we find out toward the end of the novel. The mystery which is unrelated to Oscar's disappearance is also never solved organically. Instead, we follow the protagonists Oscar and Marina from secondary character, to secondary character who give us all the relevant information we need to know in long, convenient soliloquies with no apparent reason for doing so.
We are given no sense of character for anyone in the novel. We know nothing about Oscar or Marina other than they exist in this one moment. The novel seems to be narrated by an adult Oscar, but we don't even know what he went on to become, or how this tale effected his life to the point where he felt it had to be told. The motivations for secondary characters to give these two teenagers all the information they ask for are non-existent, indeed in some cases I would go so far as to say it would be a breach of confidentiality to have given these two teenagers any of the information. A policeman decided to give a random 15 year old information about an ongoing corporate investigation, and a doctor decides to share the patient details of not only a patient, but his friend? Any why? Because they asked nicely? The set ups for this information simply beggars belief. Zafon's female characters are appallingly written; he is very old fashioned in his descriptions of women who always remain white, virginal and fragile. The pedestal grates after a while.
When I say this book is derivative, it is because it smacks of unoriginality. The two most glaring comparisons can come from Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' (to the point where there is a doctor Shelley who's daughter is conveniently named Maria...) with motif's of the creation of life, what playing god can mean for yourself and those around you, and the monstrosities created when you play god. The second most notable parallel is between 'Marina' and Gaston Leroux's 'The Phantom of the Opera'. We have the setting of an opulent theatre, the theme of physical deformity, even some vague allusions to 'carnival freaks' which is never really properly developed other than providing a convenient McGuffin of the discovery of an old photo album full of pictures of those with physical deformities, which Marina and Oscar, quite untastefully, continuously describe as 'horrific' (which also never goes anywhere in the plot...)
This book had potential, but to say that potential was not reached is almost understating it. What an absolute disappointment.
