Scan barcode
A review by ellies_92
La casa degli spiriti by Isabel Allende
4.0
It’s the first time I read something from Isabel Allende and I will be reading more for sure.
At first I hated Esteban Trueba’s misogyny and I must admit I would have quit had I not known this book had been written by a woman (and therefore I understood it couldn’t reflect the author’s thought for sure) but I was impressed with the how the character evolved over time.
His evolution happens in a realistic way, I might add. No over-night big changes but small breaches in his personality & way of thinking over the course of decades.
I liked how Del Valle family traits were “handed down” in generations, but I would have liked “stronger” women. They were depicted as brave and with feminist thoughts but they lacked independence in my opinion. It is also true that this reflected how women from the high society would have probably behaved back in those years.
And this brings me to the next point: I was not expecting a political excursus and a history lesson on Chile’s golpe de estado.
I liked it, but in all honesty it felt like another book, and it’s hard for me to put the first part of the book where Allende tells us about “La Tres Marias” and Trueba’s fictional life & his ascent to wealth and power with the real-life facts of Chile’s military dictatorship.
I’m not sure this two stories belonged in the same book.
I understand the importance of including the impact of economic & Politic facts on the life of the characters, and maybe this was the whole point of the book, that we cannot escape generational traumas, fate & dictatorships… but it confuses me on how the economic & political facts are completely missing in the first part.
Should I consider this a historic novel or not?
Again, this doesn’t mean I didn’t like jt, it just felt unrelated & like it was another book.
Overall I liked it, and I would recommend it, a special notion goes to Allende’s ability to depict a character’s feelings though the increasing rhythm of their words flowing out like a river. It reminded me exactly how when you’ve been holding a thought, it then comes out by itself in a moment of anger.
At first I hated Esteban Trueba’s misogyny and I must admit I would have quit had I not known this book had been written by a woman (and therefore I understood it couldn’t reflect the author’s thought for sure) but I was impressed with the how the character evolved over time.
His evolution happens in a realistic way, I might add. No over-night big changes but small breaches in his personality & way of thinking over the course of decades.
I liked how Del Valle family traits were “handed down” in generations, but I would have liked “stronger” women. They were depicted as brave and with feminist thoughts but they lacked independence in my opinion. It is also true that this reflected how women from the high society would have probably behaved back in those years.
And this brings me to the next point: I was not expecting a political excursus and a history lesson on Chile’s golpe de estado.
I liked it, but in all honesty it felt like another book, and it’s hard for me to put the first part of the book where Allende tells us about “La Tres Marias” and Trueba’s fictional life & his ascent to wealth and power with the real-life facts of Chile’s military dictatorship.
I’m not sure this two stories belonged in the same book.
I understand the importance of including the impact of economic & Politic facts on the life of the characters, and maybe this was the whole point of the book, that we cannot escape generational traumas, fate & dictatorships… but it confuses me on how the economic & political facts are completely missing in the first part.
Should I consider this a historic novel or not?
Again, this doesn’t mean I didn’t like jt, it just felt unrelated & like it was another book.
Overall I liked it, and I would recommend it, a special notion goes to Allende’s ability to depict a character’s feelings though the increasing rhythm of their words flowing out like a river. It reminded me exactly how when you’ve been holding a thought, it then comes out by itself in a moment of anger.