The House of Spirits

Rating:
Summary: A true work of art
Review: Having read both editions of Isabel Allende's literary masterpiece THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS, it is safe to say that her gift for storytelling and infinite imagination has given birth to a true classic. Her adaptation of magic realism to the world and life of the Trueba family is only slightly surpassed by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE. One grows to love or hate all the characters in the novel, which she gives in such intimate details that one begins to actually feel as if they have come to life. In short I highly recommend this novel, it will take you to a world so full of fantasy yet so close to reality

Rating:
Summary: Fantasty and Reality
Review: What a fabulous book! I can not express how much I loved this book. The main reason I enjoyed it so much was that it presented South American culture in a very true light~ it never draws the line between fantasy and reality but rather meshes them together as is common in South American cultural views. The blending of the fantasy world with the real world was a breath of fresh air~ a good aside from all the rigid structure of most books. The characters of this book are also very fully developed~ by the end the reader feels as if she knows each one intimately. And the stories themselves of the characters are straightforward and honest. The book is definitely a must-read for anyone interested in fantasy or world cultures

Rating:
Summary: An Escape from Real Life
Review: I thought this book was truly an escape from real life, and I do not mean this positively. I do not understand what goes through the minds of people to write like this. The entire book is very unrealistic and cynical of life.

Rating:
Summary: Hipnotizante........
Review: A la verdad que esta fabulosa novela de I.A. es una muy hipnotizante que no podras parar de leer...Es una historia de amor y corage de una familia...que puede ser NUESTRA familia y como esta sobrevive a los problemas..es una gran novela...

Rating:
Summary: Great book! Inspirational!
Review: I really love this Isabel Allende's inspirational book "The House of The Spirits". It is the story of young, proud men and women who suffer and triumph in many ways. When I started reading this book I could not stop I felt as if I were living it out with the charachters because of the persuasive language. It is a magical tale with force, passion, charm. It is unforgetable tale that anyone would love to read! Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: magical realism at its best
Review: Isabella, we love you. On my first reading of House of the Spirits, many years ago, i was transported to a magical, wonderful place ..... somewhere that was Chile but beyond Chile, a place where magic is real and reality is magic .... just like my life, really. Many years later, and many of Isabella's wonderful books later, House of the Spirits remains my favourite, and the best that the genre has to offer. It is a unique book, highly-crafted, mesmerising, passionate, and true to the madness that was Chile in those turbulent times. If you dont love this book, you've got no soul.

Rating:
Summary: Fast read, Marxist slant, Garcia Marquez cloning
Review: Although I am Chilean and I could have read this book in Spanish, I borrowed the English translation from the library. Wise decision: I really would have hated to buy it. The book is relatively easy to read because Allende is a good story-teller, and she must have taken Magic Realism 101. All the fantastic, impossible wonders we can find in a Garcia Marquez's novel, are found here, right down to the Marxist view of the universe with flat, unidimensional characters that are all good or all bad. The good ones are leftists, the bad ones are fascists. If one or two bad ones change in the end, it's because they have suffered and find themselves closer to the left, therefore now they are good. The simplistic description of Chilean history in the 20th Century will capture the imagination of those who don't know Chilean history, and will satisfy those who, politically, agree with Allende regarding the basic goodness of Socialism. The author has done a superb job at convincing readers that her fictionalized account of decades in the life of my country is an accurate one: plenty of people have told me that most -or all- of what they know about Chile comes from this book. No wonder they can't understand Chilean reality. Even if you do away with all the Garcia Marquez-inspired sections (quite a lot), the end result is still a nasty message that tells us that Chile would have been happy with Socialism, and that only Yankee-imperialists and their friends in Chile killed that wonderful hope for my country. Incredibly enough, there are many people who agree with such a message. Isabel Allende has written that Chile was on its way to Paradise when the bad guys showed up. She is either blind to the reality of Socialist countries and the disasters that all Socialist experiments caused in every country they ruled, or she knows perfectly well that reality, but has managed to apply doublethink in a truly clever example of mental gymnastics. The one star her book gets from me is because she really can tell a story. But her political message is poisonous.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful prose, beautiful story...
Review: I very much enjoyed Isabel Allende's novel, The House of the Spirits. I normally read a book every two or three days, but this has taken me almost two weeks because you really have to stop and think about the text and mull it over a bit to fully imagine what's happening. I think this would be a great book for reading groups to discuss. I'm also looking forward to reading Daughter of Fortune.

Rating:
Summary: Una leccion de vida.
Review: La primera vez que lei este libro, fue fascinante, de verdad que lo fue me transporto a cada uno de los momentos que Isabel Allende decribia y narraba, con tanta pasion.... Es precisamente su narrativa descriptiva la que permite al lector internarse en lo mas profundo del libro y dejarse llevar. Fue un libro que no me permitio parar, cada noche queria leer mas y mas, asi le pasara a usted. Si usted esta familiarizado con los libros de I.A. se dara cuenta porque este libro ha sido uno de los mas vendidos en el mundo, traducido a un sinumero de idiomas.... es simplemente exelente. Lo mas hermoso de este libro es la leccion de vida que encierra, teniendo encuenta el contexto cultural de la chile de aquella epoca.... Si tiene la oportunidad de acceder a este libro, no la desprecie , tomelo en sus manos lea su primera pagina, ud no podra dejarlo. Angela.

Rating:
Summary: Blah
Review: This book is like rain on your wedding day, not ironic, but merely unforunate