Book Review
Apr. 21st, 2009 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe House of the Spirits
by Isabel Allende
I found this magical realist novel completely absorbing, as well as one of the best books I have ever read. It covers the lives of three generations of the Trueba family during the twentieth century in an unnamed Latin American country that closely resembles Chile. The Trueba family is populated with vibrant and often eccentric characters: Esteban, the patriarch who is filled with both a consuming rage and deep love for his family members; Clara, Esteban's clairvoyant and mystical wife; Pedro Tercero Garcia, a Marxist activist and folksinger who becomes the lover of Esteban and Clara's daughter Blanca; and many others. The large cast of characters and the long span of time Allende covers never gets in the way of a feeling of luminous intimacy, warmth, and empathy with the family members and their stories. Allende is also quite frank about the political upheavals and the heinous actions of the military junta, which she renders through the eyes of the aging, conservative Esteban, and Alba, his gentle and liberal grand-daughter. It's quite poignant without descending into bathos.
This novel deserves to be considered a contemporary classic.
by Isabel Allende
I found this magical realist novel completely absorbing, as well as one of the best books I have ever read. It covers the lives of three generations of the Trueba family during the twentieth century in an unnamed Latin American country that closely resembles Chile. The Trueba family is populated with vibrant and often eccentric characters: Esteban, the patriarch who is filled with both a consuming rage and deep love for his family members; Clara, Esteban's clairvoyant and mystical wife; Pedro Tercero Garcia, a Marxist activist and folksinger who becomes the lover of Esteban and Clara's daughter Blanca; and many others. The large cast of characters and the long span of time Allende covers never gets in the way of a feeling of luminous intimacy, warmth, and empathy with the family members and their stories. Allende is also quite frank about the political upheavals and the heinous actions of the military junta, which she renders through the eyes of the aging, conservative Esteban, and Alba, his gentle and liberal grand-daughter. It's quite poignant without descending into bathos.
This novel deserves to be considered a contemporary classic.
