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rubysm1th's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
inspiring
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
4.0
pushingdessy's review against another edition
5.0
A brutal yet beautifully written story about love flourishing and triumphing even in the face of oppression.
I first read this book when I was 16 for my high school Literature class with one of my favourite professors, along with Sabato's El Túnel and Benedetti's La Tregua, a sort of southernmost Latin America trinity. At the time, it became one of my favourite books, although all three ended up making my favourite books list that year.
I must have read it at least once more after that, easily ten years ago, so I wanted to re-read it in my 30s to see if it holds up.
The story is set in Chile towards the middle of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), aided and abetted by the United States. It follows Irene Beltrán and Francisco Leal as, looking for an interesting story for the magazine they both work for, they stumble into a mystery that will lead them down the dark and dangerous road of political persecution.
While at its core this is a love story, it's also and intrinsically a mirror to the horror that dictatorships were unleashing all over Latin America. What this means is that Allende's characters, individuals as they are, are also meant to symbolize archetypes. We see the militaries who know full well what they're doing, but also those who truly believe they're doing something good and later on realize how wrong they were; we see the wealthy, who benefited from the new regime and believe in their propaganda, unwilling to see the truth; we see regular people who are just trying to survive every day, who can't afford to question, who suffer in silence; we see people who are risking their lives to help others, to resist. Reducing this to a cartoonish painting of villains and heroes ignores the whole spectrum Allende offers us - and, really, she should know, as she lived it.
The story is not divided by chapters but in three parts, and the writing is in the third person omniscient point of view, jumping to a variety of characters. Allende's style is at times evocative and descriptive, slowing down to set a scene, and abrupt and to the point at others. The brutality is not slowed down and sugar-coated; it's flung at you when you least expect it. This made an impression to me when I was younger, and it hasn't grown old. It should go without saying, but a book about a bloody dictatorship includes a lot of potentially upsetting scenes and topics (suicide, incest, assassination, torture, rape, to name a few).
Something I found very interesting was that Allende includes a gay secondary character, and while the language the narrator uses to refer to gay people is certainly jarring, I was also impressed to realize that the way she actually portrays this character and his relationship to the main characters was quite progressive for the time it was written.
The love story between Irene and Francisco is iconic. She's a reporter and the daughter of a wealthy but conflictive family, whose father took off when she was a child and left her and her mother to find a new means of living, as well as to face suspicion. Francisco is the third son of a middle-class family who escaped Franco's dictatorship in Spain, a psychologist who was forced to find a new job as a photographer in the new regime. Irene grew up protected from the hardships and unpleasantness of the world, and set to marry a military man; Francisco grew up with his father's leftist ideals and activism, and completely aware of what's going on. There are many barriers for their love, but they are knocked down, symbolizing that love can be the light in the darkness, the only thing that keeps us going and save us - not only romantic love, but platonic and philial love as well, which are also part of the story.
This is a hard book to stomach at times, and the narrative style might not be for everyone, but it certainly remains one of my favourite books and I would recommend it to anyone interested to learn a little bit about Latin American dictatorships through a fictional setting.
(PS, if you think this book is "too unfair to Pinochet", you literally can go f- yourself, you fascist POS.)
I first read this book when I was 16 for my high school Literature class with one of my favourite professors, along with Sabato's El Túnel and Benedetti's La Tregua, a sort of southernmost Latin America trinity. At the time, it became one of my favourite books, although all three ended up making my favourite books list that year.
I must have read it at least once more after that, easily ten years ago, so I wanted to re-read it in my 30s to see if it holds up.
The story is set in Chile towards the middle of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), aided and abetted by the United States. It follows Irene Beltrán and Francisco Leal as, looking for an interesting story for the magazine they both work for, they stumble into a mystery that will lead them down the dark and dangerous road of political persecution.
While at its core this is a love story, it's also and intrinsically a mirror to the horror that dictatorships were unleashing all over Latin America. What this means is that Allende's characters, individuals as they are, are also meant to symbolize archetypes. We see the militaries who know full well what they're doing, but also those who truly believe they're doing something good and later on realize how wrong they were; we see the wealthy, who benefited from the new regime and believe in their propaganda, unwilling to see the truth; we see regular people who are just trying to survive every day, who can't afford to question, who suffer in silence; we see people who are risking their lives to help others, to resist. Reducing this to a cartoonish painting of villains and heroes ignores the whole spectrum Allende offers us - and, really, she should know, as she lived it.
The story is not divided by chapters but in three parts, and the writing is in the third person omniscient point of view, jumping to a variety of characters. Allende's style is at times evocative and descriptive, slowing down to set a scene, and abrupt and to the point at others. The brutality is not slowed down and sugar-coated; it's flung at you when you least expect it. This made an impression to me when I was younger, and it hasn't grown old. It should go without saying, but a book about a bloody dictatorship includes a lot of potentially upsetting scenes and topics (suicide, incest, assassination, torture, rape, to name a few).
Something I found very interesting was that Allende includes a gay secondary character, and while the language the narrator uses to refer to gay people is certainly jarring, I was also impressed to realize that the way she actually portrays this character and his relationship to the main characters was quite progressive for the time it was written.
The love story between Irene and Francisco is iconic. She's a reporter and the daughter of a wealthy but conflictive family, whose father took off when she was a child and left her and her mother to find a new means of living, as well as to face suspicion. Francisco is the third son of a middle-class family who escaped Franco's dictatorship in Spain, a psychologist who was forced to find a new job as a photographer in the new regime. Irene grew up protected from the hardships and unpleasantness of the world, and set to marry a military man; Francisco grew up with his father's leftist ideals and activism, and completely aware of what's going on. There are many barriers for their love, but they are knocked down, symbolizing that love can be the light in the darkness, the only thing that keeps us going and save us - not only romantic love, but platonic and philial love as well, which are also part of the story.
This is a hard book to stomach at times, and the narrative style might not be for everyone, but it certainly remains one of my favourite books and I would recommend it to anyone interested to learn a little bit about Latin American dictatorships through a fictional setting.
(PS, if you think this book is "too unfair to Pinochet", you literally can go f- yourself, you fascist POS.)
albagh2003's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.25
heliosthereader's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
colettieb's review against another edition
5.0
I wish every book had this exact ratio of love and longing, Marxism, mountain climbing, dunking on neoliberals and Catholicism
lostinadaydrem's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
jobinsonlis's review against another edition
4.0
This is the first Isabel Allende I've read all the way through and if this is one of her less-famous ones, I can't wait to read all the others. Her writing is really beautiful and she writes people in this way that is instantly recognizable. You know some of these people, they're real people and it feels like she just happened to catch them during a brief moment in their lives. Really wonderful.
giuliapesta's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0