Tag: Isabel Allende


A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

April 26th, 2020 — 6:54pm

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
This is an excellent novel. Not only is it a history lesson about Spain and South America in the mid and late 20thcentury but it is also a perceptive and sensitive examination into interpersonal relationships where there is love, separation at the time of war and revolution.
The story opens by focusing on two people as they flee from the ravages of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s under Franco’s fascist government which killed and tortured many of his opponents The author is obviously enamored with the writing of Pablo Neruda whom she quotes frequently throughout the book. Neruda also was the savior of thousands of Spanish refugees fleeing from Franco, who fled mostly on foot to France and then were allowed to board the SS Winnipeg, which he had actually chartered to cross the Atlantic and bring the fleeing Spanish refugees to Chile.

The Chilean people were generally receptive to the fleeing Spaniards. Among the various leaders that they encountered was the popular government of Salvador Allende (who is actually the author’s uncle and godfather). Alas, Allende’s government was overthrown in 1973, which created an unsafe environment for many of his supporters including the characters in our story, which led them to then flee to Venezuela. Finally, in their later years, the characters in this book whom we are following, returned to Chile where they feel most at home.

As I mentioned, as interesting as this is a political history, most of which many of us did not learn in school in the United States, it is also a moving story of a romance and meaningful relationship. We met Roser as a young girl growing up in Spain where she became a pianist, then widowed while she was pregnant. We then get an insight into her complicated relationship with Victor Dalman who was a physician and brother of the father of her child. We come to understand how circumstances led them to get married, become life partners and ultimately lovers.(2020)

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The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

December 14th, 2018 — 1:59pm

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

The author provides an in-depth description of the various characters presented in the book. This includes the experience of a Jewish family in Eastern Europe as the Nazis take over, living in a Japanese internment camp in the United States during World War II, as well as the subsequent life of some of the survivors of these events. We also meet a young woman who suffered from tremendous abuse and molestation as a child by her stepfather. However, this writer found this book disjointed as it jumped from one character to the other without any particular theme or purpose. While this approach often allows for the unfolding of the background after we have met a character much as a therapist learns the psychodynamics as the sessions progress, each of these tales did not seem to have coherence. Even the love lives of the various subjects of the book while very interesting did not seem to have relevance to any storyline. It may very well be that the characters were based on real people and this is the nature of their lives. If this is the case, the author gave no such clue in any postscript to the book. Certainly, we are open-minded and appreciate any variations in the love life and relationships that people may have but a novel describing these things becomes more engaging when we can see how they develop or have some insight into any response or struggle to a biological propensity.

The author certainly had empathy for how people might deal with aging as she tried to show how her main characters handled the late stages of life. It is also interesting to try to understand how the author chose the title for her book. The essence of the various stories in my opinion was not simply centered around this particular man or the fact that he was Japanese. Although I had concerns, this book appears to have been well received by the public and is another best seller from Ms. Allende.

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