I’ve been meaning to write this post for a couple of days now, but something is holding me back. Reviewing books is not always easy, but this time it’s really hard.

You might take that as something positive, that critically acclaimed Isabel Allende’s Zorro: A Novel touches on several planes. You might also reason that it’s an uncertain piece of work, lacking focus - or perhaps stained with downright bad parts.

Neither is true.

Zorro: A Novel is written as a story retold by a person close to the people’s champion in New California. We all know about the whipping fence-master Zorro, that he rides Tornado like the wind and is a charmer among the ladies. We also know about his more low-key appearances as Diego de la Vega, a well respected citizen with a big hacienda. We know this because we’ve seen TV shows and read comic books, perhaps a matiné or two as well. Zorro’s been busy.

This book doesn’t focus on Zorro’s escapades in New California, saving the innocent and eluding sergeant Garcia’s ever present guards. No, it’s about how Diego de la Vega became Zorro. We get to take a peak into his childhood, his Indian heritage, how he travels abroad to study and gets involved in the plight of people. And finally, how he invents Zorro as a champion against injustice, as well as an icon for his ego perhaps.

Isabel Allende has a special writing style and she is praised for her way of portraying characters. Granted, Zorro: A Novel is well written and I did finish it in a couple of days, but it didn’t wow me in any way. Actually, it kind of feels as it never kicks off. I realize that telling of what leads up to the hero Zorro isn’t bound to be as exciting as jailbreaks and midnight rendezvous, but that doesn’t mean that the book’s pace need to feel slow. It shares some parts with Alexander Dumas’ work – but without the many dialogues (which he wrote since he got paid per page) and the action sequences in between.

That’s not to say that there isn’t any action in Diego de la Vega’s life leading up to Zorro, but as with everything else it feels that it’s just touched upon briefly.

Touched briefly. That’s a good word to describe a lot of things in this book. It should give it a high tempo, but I think it somewhat fails at that and just pushes the story forward chronologically.

All that aside, I did finish this book in a couple of days and it is a good read. You shouldn’t get it if you’re after a brain-dead Zorro novel, or a book adaptation of the comic book. But if you’re like me and fondly remembers Zorro from your childhood, then this is a good way to rekindle those memory in a more adult manner than browsing through your old toys at the attic.

A bit more rewarding as well. The Zorro comics were mediocre at best.

[rate 3]

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Want to read the book? Go buy it from Amazon - and give me cash, courtesy of someone else! Nifty.