My first favourite book!
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We can all remember that book that showed us how reading can be genuinely enjoyable. For me, The House of the Spirits was that book. I was to read this book in 11th grade when we were given 2 months to finish it. Back then I had better ways to distract myself from homework by the time I realised it was 2 days before the deadline I had only read about 4 chapters. Of those two days, I forced myself to read as much of it as I could, and the first night I ended up reading just over 100 pages, leaving the remaining 250 pages for the following day. Needless to say, it was not a struggle and I actually enjoyed reading the whole thing, even though it took most part of day and night.
Isabelle Allende is Chilean, and very proudly molds her stories around her knowledge of her country and her ancestry. She has extremely powerful ways of describing expressions and feelings in detail, and will write in words what some of us wouldn't be able to describe. Love is one of those, and this book is full of it. Love for the country, love for the family, love for that one special person, and the power it has over you, giving you the strength to accomplish anything.
Like all memorable novels, The House of the Spirits is a mixture of melancholy, joy, sadness, laughter; an array of powerful feelings that grasp the reader's heart. Tragedy has a continuous presence in this story as it evolves around Chile's civil war and the way the characters lived, or died, through it. Some of the characters used were based on real relatives, adding a biographical touch to the story, enhancing the power of the novel.
A must read, and if you like Isabel Allende, I strongly recommend PAULA, Isabel's autobiography, but be prepared for a very powerful and captivating book.
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Magical...
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Really magical book that follows a family through four generations. A strange mix of fantasy and reality. Didn't get 5 stars as it took me a long time to get through (not because I'm lazy, just sometimes could only get through a few pages at a time). The authors description of characters is brilliant, I really felt like I knew them. Becomes extremely political towards the end (which would usually stop me reading) but Allende's writing style and dashes of fantasy throughout kept me going. Strange book but very very good!!
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A difficult but worthwhile read
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This book is very well-written with a fairly good story but I must admit I found the magic mixed with realism quite difficult and hard going.I was glad that I persevered though.
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Dull, pretentious, patronizing garbage
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For those of you who aren't aware, this book is now widely taught on the IB program's World Lit assignments. Essentially thousands of teenagers worldwide are being forced to read it and sing it's praise in order to get a decent grade as negative criticism is widely discouraged. That's right, as opposed to being introduced to the literary classics of Tolstoy, Kafka, Grass and Marquez, a fundamentally horrific writer like Allende is the first choice for introuducing students to literature at a higher level.
Why is this such a bad thing? Well firstly, sentence by sentence, Allende is a dreadful writer. Her complete contempt for subtlety is not helped by any sense of witty dialogue or deeper understanding of her subject matter. There are no hidden meanings to anything she writes and all points made have absolutely no impact beyound simple tedium. Her irritating assurance in her own intelligence is constantly obnoxious and her boring, one dimentional characters do proceedings no favours. She is essentially the type of writer that remarkably dumb people find to be intelligent and moving. If you're not forced to read this book, don't bother. If you are, I'm really sorry.
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No ordinary revolution!
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I loved the beginning of this book! Allende writes beautifully and evocatively, particularly of the gaping contrasts of life for the rich and poor in an (unnamed)South American country during that period.
The visiting spirits are among the most ordinary of the characters in the novel, however, and after a while the extraordinary nature of every family member becomes a little tiresome. Trueba is not an easy patriarch to admire, and I felt unconvinced, or perhaps unsympathetic, at the conclusion among the bitter ruins of the revolution.
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