Customer Reviews

El principe de la niebla (Trilogia de La Niebla) (Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been fascinated with Carlos Ruiz Zafon ever since I read The Shadow of the Wind two years ago. I would have gone into a shameless author binge sooner, but his previous novels have either not been translated to English or I have had not luck finding them in English. After enduring the sight of this book and three others by him, targeted at the young adult market, I finally broke down and decided to put my skills in Spanish to the ultimate test of reading an entire book. (I'm a native Portuguese speaker who's never learned Spanish properly, but reading comes with little effort.)

It was well worth the minor struggle of reading this wonderful story in its original language. Zafon's writing is, of course, much less mature and polished than in TSOTW, but it still shines bright. The story isn't complex, but the main character is vivid. I imagine that this book would find a lot of interest among 12 year olds with a taste for suspense and bewilderment.

First I read The Shadow of the wind!!!! then I tried to get more books from Ruiz Zafon, I bought some of his previous work, I have read them and this is one of the best! not as good as "The Shadow" but is a good story, very good!!!!

Este es un excelente libro. La lectura es bastante sencilla de llevar. El autor hace un gran trabajo en capturar la imaginacion del lector. Sin embargo no le puedo dar 5 estrellas, ya que hay varias lagunas en la historia que al final dejan con un sabor agridulce.
A pesar de estas fallas es un libro que disfrutaras muchisimo, una excelente inversion...
Es excelente para aquellos que quieren iniciarse en el mundo de la lectura, y para los fans de los libros de misterio este tiene lo suficiente para hacerlos pasar un buen rato... totalmente recomendado..

He leído varios libros en español, pero creo que éste es el primero que ha sido escrito específicamente para adolescentes. Por eso, yo quería ser un poco más simpático en esta crítica, porque Sr. Ruiz Zafón no escribió este libro para mí. A pesar de eso, puedo decir que lo mejor de El príncipe de la niebla es el lenguaje que utiliza el autor y el lugar del cuento. Fue interesante leer un cuento en español que ocurre en Inglaterra durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Desafortunadamente, eso casi no tiene nada que ver con el argumento del cuento.

Algo que no me gustó fue la estructura del cuento. Una gran parte del libro consiste en una serie de personajes contando versiones más y más detalladas y correctas de algo que sucedió años atrás. Eso limita el impacto de lo que dicen porque uno empieza a dudar todo lo que te están contando, porque a lo mejor otro personaje va a dar una versión más correcta que ésta.
Hay otro problema más importante: hay un personaje en el cuento cuya edad no va con el año dado de su nacimiento. O Sr. Ruiz Zafón se equivocó o está mintiendo en el cuento para ocultar la identidad de una cierta persona.

Además de eso, hay varios acontecimientos que nunca se explican. Por ejemplo, ¿exactamente cuáles son los poderes del príncipe de la niebla? ¿En qué está limitado? Parece que tuvo cientos de oportunidades de matar a una persona, pero nunca lo hizo. ¿Cuál es el vínculo entre el personaje principal y el tipo malo? Y ¿qué tiene que ver todo esto con los relojes? No sé. A lo mejor lo tengo que leer otra vez, pero en este momento, todo se me ha vuelto confuso e incompleto. Dicen que es un libro para adolescentes, pero a mí me parece demasiado complicado. Parece que el cuento se escapó del control del autor.


I've read quite a few books in Spanish, but I think this is the first one I've read that was written specifically for adolescents. With that in mind, I wanted to be a bit more forgiving in my criticism, because Mr. Ruiz Zafón didn't write this book for me. Despite this, I can say that the best thing about El príncipe de la niebla is the author's use of language and the setting of the story. It was interesting to read a story in Spanish that takes place in England during the Second World War. Unfortunately, the setting has almost nothing to do with the plot of the story.

One thing I didn't like was the story's structure. A large part of the book consists of a series of characters telling increasingly detailed and correct versions of a story which happened years before. This limits the impact of their words because the reader starts to doubt everything that's being recounted, expecting another character to offer up a more correct account later on. There's another, more significant problem: one character's age does not match up with the year of his birth. Either Mr. Ruiz Zafón goofed or he's lying to us within the story in order to hide the identity of a certain character.

Additionally, there are several events that are never explained. For example, what exactly are the fog prince's powers? How is he limited? It seems that he had hundreds of opportunities to kill one particular person, but he never did it. What's the connection between the main character and the bad guy? And what does this all have to do with watches? I don't know. Maybe I need to read it all over again, but at this point, it's all become confusing and incomplete. People say this is a book for teenagers, but I find it way too complicated. In fact, it seems that the story escaped the author's control.

I bought this book for my sister(she told me she liked this author) not knowing it was a trilogy. She loved it and is now forcing me to buy her the other 2 books, blaming me for getting her hooked on it.

In my humble opinion, Señor Zafon can rest on his laurels with "La Sombra del Viento" *La Sombra del Viento (Vintage Espanol) (Spanish Edition) (otherwise known as the Shadow of the Wind *THE SHADOW OF THE WIND. Translated by Lucia Graves.) It is not only his masterpiece, but a masterpiece of writing in its own right, rivalling Dumas or Sabatini and easily surpasses even the best works of Reverte.

His other stories (such as this one), written years before Shadow of the Wind, however, are more fare for younger readers. It is an enjoyable story nonetheless and one can see the beginnings of the genius that is Zafon.

El Principe starts off a little slow, but once the background is set, the mystery and adventure begin to develop quickly, but the pacing is excellent like most other Spanish novels and movies.

If you are only just learning how to read in Spanish, understand that this is classical Spanish, and though the book is targeted at young adults, the language uses the full breadth of this beautiful language. If you are ready to move to the Intermediate level of Spanish reading and vocabulary, you can do yourself a service and pick up this wonderful story to learn from and enjoy.

Este libro es una especie de thriller para adolescentes. Es entretenido y ligero. Pero no es tan impresionante como "La sombra del viento", ni tiene su encanto o arrastre. De todos modos, se deja leer bastante bien.

Like a number of other reviewers I read El Principe de la Niebla after La Sombra del Viento, but I for one wasn't disappointed. Yes it is a book for teenagers, but don't let that put you off as it is in fact beautifully written and in no way patronises its readers. I especially admire Zafón's linguistic craftmanship and in particular the humorous exchanges between the characters, which provide light relief from a story that is pretty scary and not to be read alone after dark.

Este es un libro maravilloso, soy una avida lectora y esta historia me capturo enseguida. Mi unico afan por terminar de leerlo fue para darselo enseguida a mi hija adolescente para que lo leyera ya que sabia que le iba a encantar. Recomiendo ampliamente esta novela y a este escritor.

Muy buenos los tres libros para adolescentes!!! deben comprarlos si te gusta leer. deben de estar en la bibioteca.