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Summary: Now I understand
Review: "The House of the Spirits" gives the reader an extraordinary view of 20th century Chilean history. Through the Trueba family and the myriad characters that drift in and out of their lives, we see so many of the elements of the political and class struggle that continues until this day. Beginning with the landowner vs. tenant worker conflict and culminating with the left-wing vs. right-wing political/social conflict, we are given a glimpse into the inner workings of a country in turmoil. We see the horror of the Conservatives when a Marxist government is democratically elected, and their terror when the coup they so finely crafted becomes a dictatorship as terrible as they expected the Communists to be. Neither the left nor the right were winners--only the military. I lived for several years in Chile during the 1990's. Even though Chile is emerging as a stable, fairly democratic economy, the political struggle remains. I could never grasp the true essence of my Chilean friends' passionate hatred for or passionate support of the Pinochet regime until I read this book. I always marveled that there was no middle ground. Now I understand why.
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Summary: Book Banners Bite
Review: This book was on our required reading list last year, and I must say that this was the best book that I have ever HAD to read. The few graphic sexual scenes got it banned from our International Baccalaureate program, but they are not the heart of this book. Imagine being a silent spectator of life through three generations of the Trueba family. We start with Esteban, the patriarch, and his trials that he takes through life in order to start the beginning of his family's life. He falls in love with a girl who has an untimely death, but then years later, marries her future seeing younger sister Clara. Then we follow Blanca, Clara and Esteban's daughter, and her life as she falls in love with Pedro Tercero, her father's mortal enemy. Pedro is a natural leader and tries to get the farm workers to revolt, as other communists are doing, against their patrón. Pedro and Blanca then lead the story with their love child Blanca. Here the story ends. All in all, this is a great book, and I'd reccomend it to anyone. Our whole class loved this book, and I'm sure you will too.
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Summary: Characters with geat potential yet plot unfulfilled
Review: I was somewhat disappointed with Allende's 'The House of Spirits'. Everything about the book seemed to evoke a sense of great things will come from this writer, but unfortunately I was left wanting. So much untapped potential was made of the characters and yet after reading a while in to the book I realised that this is as far as Allende is going to take them. Why? I was left wondering. This is the first book I've read by this author but I'm not going to let it put me off reading more of her stuff. Perhaps my expectations of the author were too great but I don't think so some how.
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Summary: The House of the Spirits
Review: Isabel Allende has magic inside of her. I say this because it takes pure magic to make me enjoy a book as much as I enjoyed this one. At first, it started off a bit slow and tedious but once I managed to get through the first chapter, everything else that followed was brilliant. Her novel, The House of the Spirits, has a bit of everything. It has a South American vibe, political warfare, a big family, conflicts between men and women in society, physical abuse, and this is just the beginning.
The characters are very well developed and this impressed me. I feel like I know so much about each individual whether they are the protagonists, Clara and Esteban Trueba, or minor characters like Amanda and Transito Soto. Allende includes all of her characters consistently throughout the novel which is important and key. They all somehow tie in together creating this mass web of an intricate and interesting story. The plot takes course over a long period of time, a generation it seems like. Clara is clairvoyant and very spiritual and intuitive while her husband is ambitious and pretty much evil. Esteban rapes girls and obsesses over his wife, Clara. They have three children, Jaime, a scholar, Nicolas, an adventurer, and Blanca, a girl in love with a man she is forbidden to see. There are passionate relationships and themes of forbidden love and pride. It seems like a lot of the story also focuses on the difference between men and women and the rich and the poor. Esteban prohibits Blanca from seeing a boy from the Tres Marias. His name was Pedro Tercero. At times the story was a bit disturbing. I found it a little graphic when the setting was at whorehouses or scenes of rape. Overall, thanks to my English teacher for assigning this book to read. Had it not been for her, I would have probably never been exposed to such a wonderful piece of modern literature.
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Summary: Real and. . .
Review: This is simply such a beautiful book that I cannot do it justice in any description. The wonderful liquid style of writing make you flow from page to page, unable to stop. The fact that I read this book in only two days might speak for itself, because it certainly isn't an easy read. The book cronicles the life of three generations, mother, children, granddaughter. It shows in loving detail at the little things that make up a life, however small and insignificant they may seem when viewed out of context. All the little actions, meetings, choices that continue to weave in and out of a lifetime. The most amazing thing is the beautiful descriptions, moods and athmospheres that make this story linger in the mind long after the book is closed. The real and sureal feeling of the house and family of the little girl growing up in silence, the farm brought from ruin to glory, the country itself. The illogical way most lives are lived so rarely make their make their way into fictin of this caliber, but here they are, countless lives and deaths, all real and present. And whether the story is comic or tragic, it is alway a delight to read. You will not regret reading this book.
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Summary: Absolutely Sensational!!!!! Sends Shivers down my spine!
Review: Absolutely one of the best novels! The unforgettable Trueba family and Allende's brilliant use of magical realism makes this a timeless tale of love and war. AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ! I get tingles down my spine reading all of these other reviews because it reminds me of Allende's magic! Do yourself a favor and delve into this literary masterpiece!
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Summary: Reality washed with soap
Review: Set in a nameless South American country (ie Chile), "The House of the Spirits" is the story of Estaban Trueba and his family, related by one of the family members (written in the third person) and by Trueba himself (written in the first person). The reader really gets a broad sweep of Isbale Allende's view of twentieth century Chilean history up until the chaos of the Allende government, its overthrow by a military coup and the subsequent repression. All of this is related through the trials and tribulations of the Trueba family. Or, rather, that's what you are left with at the end when you can place the story in some context. When you're reading through the novel you get a family saga with little or no social backdrop: it's really only in the last 80 pages or so that Allende shifts the focus of her narrative, and that the story becomes more balanced and, for me at least, more interesting. "The House of the Spirits" is a famous and well-regarded book. That in itself should act as a warning to the new reader. I confess to being very frustrated by most of it, for several reasons. Most of the novel read like an extended soap opera, with little character development and unrelenting melodrama.It was as if Allende felt that the only way to move her plot was to pump it and her characters full of action and emotions. I lost count of the number of times there was love at first sight, copulations abounded, heated argument followed heated argument, and it was a miracle Estaban Trueba lived as long as he did given his endless fits of rage. All of this meant that when important family events happened, they lost their impact - it was just another family crisis in the long list of such crises. My patience become thinner and my attention span shortened. The novel cried out for changes in pace, for introspection. The novel also contained stuff I've never got on with: "magical realism" for example. You get the character Clara, who can levitate objects, predict the future, cause pianos to play on their own, etc etc. This still appears weird to me,and I confess to never having cottoned on to why some Latin authors feel the need to include this in the fiction. Perhaps it's a cultural thing I've missed out on. After all of the criticisms above, the last 80 or so pages were the most interesting, perhaps because Allende focused her action more in reality, thus forcing her to control her flights of fancy. Whether or not you are in sympathy with her view of the dictatorship and what brought it about, I think that it was the most interesting part of the book and saved it (though not completely) for me. Given its reputation though, a disappointment. G Rodgers
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Summary: Allende does it again
Review: When an author is able to take a far-fetched idea and pull it together into a plausible story, I'm usually smitten. Call me smitten. Isabel Allende builds a beautiful, dramatic tale of spirits, powers, family and love into The House of Spirits. She chronicles the life of her ancestors and their mystical powers in a tale that's heartbreaking as well as uplifting. Only Allende has been able to carry off this combination, in my opinion. The story is strong, if not a tad too long. In typical Allende style, the book is wrapped in beautiful, poetic description. It's a strong showing by a strong author.
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Summary: Sweeping epic
Review: This book is a sweeping epic, spanning decades in the history of an unnamed South American country, following the life of one family. While the story is gripping, the sheer volume may leave the reader feeling that episodes and characters throughout the book don't receive as much attention as one would want.
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Summary: Isabel's Voice is In There Somewhere
Review: Isabel Allende is a fantastic storyteller, and she probably deserves the million of dollars she got for this. The characters are well developed, and this story is a rich and mystical concoction hovering halfway between fairy-tale and political polemic. It is a beautiful and sensuous piece of writing, and is often hailed as a supreme example of the school of magical realism. The problem is that Allende's own voice is stifled by that of Gabriel Garcia Marques, and there are too many of his opinions, descriptions, sentiments, and even characters echoing through the work. I doubt very much that Allende is a true magical realist in the way she would like us to believe: most of the 'magical' aspects of the novel have direct parallels in Garcia's One Hundered Years of Solitude. If Garcia Marques is the Master, then Allende makes a poor apprentice: there is none of the easy blending, the merging of Divine and Profane; the sense of ruined beauty which infuses Garcia Marques' prose. What we see in The House of the Spirits is flattery and hero-worship in the form of clumsy imitation. Nevertheless, this is a book that could only come from Latin America: it is fantastic, rich, and extremely pleasing if it were possible to consider it in isolation. The genius and originality shines through in Allende's canny treatment of her characters - where even the monsters are described compassionately. The final chapters, based no doubt on Allende's personal experience of the Chile's military coup are the most brilliant and moving, and reflect the pain, endurance and tremendous resilience of a whole generation of Chilean women. It is Allende's lyrical feminism, and redeeming compassion, which makes this novel truly great. But she should have trusted her own voice. It's a beautiful one.
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