This book is a perfect example of what is wrong with the publishing world. Zafon's first book, The Shadow of the Wind is one of my all time favorites. Ever. The second book The Angel's Game is well up there on my list, so when I saw The Prisoner of Heaven on display, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, it is very clear that Zafon was under time pressure from the publisher on this book, enough so that the story was irreversibly ruined.
You see, Zafon is a master of prose, character, and theme. Indeed I would just say that Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a master storyteller in general, but he is also one that needs time to polish and work his product. The only problem is that because of the HUGE success of his other two books, the publisher (who's biggest concern is for money and not story) wanted a third book yesterday, not tomorrow, not next week, out with it! Some authors fight this or have a brilliant agent and publishing team behind them that believes in story rather than speed, not so with Zafon. Don't get me wrong, this book is still well written and at times brilliant, but in the end it is unfinished. This book is short, a mere 279 pages, compared to a solid 587 pages for The Shadow of the Wind and 531 pages in The Angels Game. What this tells me as a reader is that Zafon wasn't even close to done and it shows. Where this book ends feels like the mid point of a longer book, it isn't really a conclusion, things aren't really tied together, but it was close enough to cut it off and call it "done".
I did enjoy The Prisoner of Heaven, but the rushed style, short story, and at times sloppy writing tells me that this once great author has been screwed by his publisher. Had this book had another year or even six months of work it would have been another shining example from one of the best writers of the 21st century. Instead we are left with a deep sense of betrayal at an incomplete story put out merely to make as much money as possible. Hopefully in the future Zafon is given the time necessary to produce books to his full potential and not merely for the quick cash. We will see I suppose.
One of the additions I want to make to this is Zafon's loose idea of a series:
The Prisoner of Heaven is part of a cycle of novels set in the literary universe of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books of which The Shadow of the Wind and The angel's Game are the two first installments Although each work within the cycle presents an independent, self-contained tale, they are all connected through characters and storylines, creating thematic and narrative links.
Each individual installment in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series can be read in any order, enabling the reader to explore the labyrinth of stories along different paths which, when woven together, lead into the heart of the narrative.
The last bit there is the interesting part and something that I realize as I was reading the novel. You really can read them in any order because they are so loosely tied together that even some of the references made about the previous two, just seem like back story rather than direct inside jokes. With that in mind while I was reading it it was interesting to try and look at the book as something completely new and unique, from that point of view it was masterfully thought out and brilliantly written. No other author, that I've read anyway, has been able to write a "series" and not make the readers experience completely dependent on the other books to truly enjoy the novel. Indeed, it is quite amazing that he was able to pull this off with how rushed the rest of the novel was and actually makes me way more sad for the potential this book had had the industry not infected the author.
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