She had the key to all the secrets.
Marina is a 1999 novel by Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón.In September 1979, cynic Ordinary High-School Student Óscar Drai likes to explore the old parts of Barcelona during the little free time given by his depressing boarding school. His life is dull until in one of his walkouts he meets a dreamy, beautiful girl named Marina Blau, who soon involves them both in a mystery that has its roots in the city's glorious past. Through the story, Óscar and Marina will be forced to solve an enigma that will threaten their very lives and whose sinister nature few could imagine, all within a world of nostalgia, decaying love, and blurred memories. After all, as Marina says, sometimes we only remember what never really happened.
This novel has the distinction to be, in more than one way, the end of an age in Zafón's writing career. It was his very last work in the young adult genre, released after his juvenile Trilogy of Mist and before his flagship adult tetralogy The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and also remains as Zafón's first, only and last stand-alone book.
Tropes in this work include:
- Action Survivor: Óscar may be just an average highschooler, but he is resourceful and quick-thinking when it's needed to save the day.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's never explained how exactly does Kolvenik have his zombies Brainwashed in order to obey him. In fact, Óscar gets María to momentarily snap out of the mind control when he finds her turned into an abomination.
- Artistic License – Biology: Kolvenik uses a serum synthesized from a butterfly species that allows to reanimate clinically dead but otherwise intact (or rebuilt) organisms. While this could be Hand Waved as merely Applied Phlebotinum, the fact that Kolvenik himself could be resurrected after rotting in his grave during 20 years strains its own rules, as his tissues would be too decayed for a serum to work in them in the first place. Of course, the handwave is still there.
- Arc Words: "Sometimes we only remember what never happened", a quote by Marina which comes to define the entire book.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Although vaguely Eastern European-sounding, "Kolvenik" isn't actually a name anywhere. It may be a mispelling of Kolenik, a fairly popular Czech last name, though.
- Back from the Dead: Kolvenik is resurrected by María Shelley as a cyborg zombie and brings a horde of dead with him.
- Big Bad: Mijail Kolvenik is ultimately the novel's antagonist, although it's unclear how much control did María had over him when she resurrected him.
- Bittersweet Ending: Kolvenik is killed again and his nightmares burn with him forever, but Marina dies of her own illness, leaving Óscar to his lonely life again too. The Framing Device implies he will be able to lick his emotional wounds and carry on, but life is never that easy.
- Body Horror: Kolvenik and his creatures are cyborgized in various degrees of crudity, some of them twisted into clowns, parodies of people and other forms of amusement.
- Broken Bird: Marina's lonely upbringing has made her a clearly depressive girl. Moreover, she has the same illness that killed her mother, and knows she has little time to live.
- But Not Too Foreign: Marina, full name Marina Blau Auermann, is a Spanish-German girl who looks quite Nordic.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: In this case, Kolvenik knows where you live. He somehow tracks Óscar to his boarding school and attacks him there. Oddly enough, he then seems unable to track him to Marina's house.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Óscar describes himself as talented for nothing and little more than an average highschool boy.
- Cool Old Guy: Germán is generally a friendly, stylish gentleman.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Subverted in Kolvenik's case, as he was already insane before he turned himself into a cyborg. Possibly played straight with his creatures, who are rebuilt into almost mindless drones.
- Cyborg: Kolvenik started dabbling into artificial organs back when he was an apprentice, and perfects the art to a point he can reanimate people and make them superhuman drones, although seemingly with little conscience of themselves.
- Darker and Edgier: Zafón's previous young adult works are already quite dark, but this is the first time the story deals with Body Horror and in a familiar, realistic setting, not to mentions it contains surely the saddest death of a character in Zafón's entire bibliography.
- Deadpan Snarker: Óscar, and Marina to a slightly lesser degree, are both quite snarky teenagers, including occasionally at each other.
- Death by Newbery Medal: Marina Blau, Óscar's trascendent friend, adventure partner and eventually girlfriend (not stated but implied to be his first love), dies at the end.
- Diesel Punk: Kolvenik's story is set in the period, and his cyborgs carry a certain old-fashioned mechanical imagery.
- Direct Line to the Author: The narrator claims to be a 30-year-old Óscar finally telling this story.
- Disco Dan: Óscar describes Germán as a true 19th century gentleman, and Germán certainly does his part, down to his old car.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Happens at the beach, with surprisingly discrete results compared to most examples of the trope, when Óscar eyes Marina's wet underwear after swimming until she covers herself upon realizing this.
- First Love: Marina is implied to be Óscar's first love, and given her not much better social life, he is probably hers as well in turn.
- First-Person Smartass: A Zafón trademark. Óscar spends the novel being a gloriously snarky teen.
- Friendless Background: Marina, as she is homeschooled and has a reclusive father. Even the more mundane Óscar qualifies as well, as he seems to have virtually no friends aside from JF.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: The titular girl has hay-colored hair, in the protagonist's words, and is generally sweet unless spurred.
- Heroic BSoD: Óscar suffers one and runs away from his school after Marina's death.
- Humanoid Abomination: Kolvenik and his creatures retain most of their human frames, but they are heavily disfigured by his grafts.
- Hypochondria: JF suffers of it according to Óscar, although the only time he demonstrates it on-page it comes across as Terrified of Germs instead.
- Inner Monologue: Another trademark of Zafón, in this case also because the novel is written in first person.
- Invisible Parents: Óscar's parents are mentioned, but we never meet them, as they are away due to their jobs and he lives in a boarding school instead.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Again, both Óscar and Marina. They can be somewhat jerky and/or displicent, especially when their buttons are touched, but deep down they are genuinely kind people who care very much for each's other.
- Kavorka Man: Quim Salvat, Germán's mentor and probable biological father, is described as looking like a bear yet being somehow also great with the ladies.
- Macabre Moth Motif: The teufel moths are present throughout the work, especially given they are the Velo-Granell's Sigil Spam.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Deconstructed and played for drama. Marina definitely lights up Óscar's life, and even he acknowledges to himself how Wish-Fulfillment-ish is the case of a lonely daydreamer like him befriending a sweet beautiful girl who makes his joyless life dangerously interesting. However, this only causes him to completely break down when she dies, as he loses the girl he loved and the only meaningful relationship he had in his life.
- Marionette Master: Kolvenik creates puppet minions out of dead people.
- Meaningful Name:
- A man named Germán went to marry a German woman.
- Marina's favourite place is a spot on the beach, fitting for someone whose name means "of the sea" and whose surname translates as "blue".
- Phenotype Stereotype: The title girl is half-German, and as it couldn't be otherwise, she's beatiful, blond and with clear-colored eyes.
- P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl: The book plays this dynamic down to a T, title included.
- Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Downplayed. Marina is not particularly energetic by the trope's standards, but she is the one who drags the duller Óscar to their adventures, at least until the adventures themselves start dragging them around.
- Secondary Character Title: The book is called "Marina", but the central protagonist is Óscar. Justified as, in his own words, the story is about her.
- Shout-Out:
- Joan and María Shelley's surname is an obvious one to Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, another story featuring surgically created monsters.
- Kolvenik's room full of toylike artificial beings (among them a weird harlequin) and JF's name are probably nods to Blade Runner, yet another work about cyborgs and human misery, which was released back when Zafón was still a teenager like Óscar (three years older, though).
- Soap Opera Disease: Marina's mom Kirsten had one of those, with syntomps like dizziness, weakness and frequent bleeding from the mouth and/or nose. Which Marina also demonstrates.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Marina's personality fluctuates between sweet and cynic.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Kolvenik definitely wants.
