Was Carlos Ruiz Zafon The Greatest Fiction Writer Ever?
You probably know by now that I love Ken Follett’s writings more than anything, and I have tried to emulate him in what I have written so far. But I have to wonder about Mr. Zafon as a special inspiration. Unlike Ken Follett – and me, so far – every paragraph of Zafon’s books are like a beautiful exercise in poetry. He has his characters become essentially philosophers or representatives of concepts and ideas, and their words weave into the stories. Consider this beautiful statement, quoted from one of his characters:
“Envy is the religion of the mediocre. It comforts them, it soothes their worries, and finally it rots their souls, allowing them to justify their meanness and their greed until they believe these to be virtues. Such people are convinced that the doors of heaven will be opened only to poor wretches like themselves who go through life without leaving any trace but their threadbare attempts to belittle, and to exclude – and destroy if possible – those who by the simple fact of their existence, show up their own poorness of spirt, mind and guts. Blessed be the one at whom the fools bark, because his soul will never belong to them.”
Who writes like that? And in the middle of a fiction book? And every paragraph is kind of the same extraordinary prose. It is truly amazing!
It is a tragedy that he has died so young – at age 55 – imagine what he would have done.
I know this is a strange thing to say – especially about a man I never met and know virtually nothing about it – but he has inspired me – and I hereby covenant that in one of my future writings I will do my best to write like Zafon. This will be very difficult to do and maybe even impossible. But one thing I have learned in my 65 years so far is that if I don’t give it a try I will definitely fail and if I do give it a try I might succeed.
Wish me luck!!!