Product Description

Spanning four generations, Isabel Allende's family saga is populated by a memorable, often eccentric, cast of characters. Together, men and women, spirits, the forces of nature and of history, converge in a brlliantly realised novel.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11767 in Books
• Published on: 1994-02-03
• Original language: Spanish
• Binding: Paperback
• 490 pages

From the Back Cover
Spanning four generations, Isabel Allende's magnificent family saga is populated by a memorable, often eccentric cast of characters. Together, men and women, spirits, the forces of nature, and of history, converge in an unforgettable, wholly absorbing and brilliantly realised novel that is as richly entertaining as it is a masterpiece of modern literature.

About the Author
Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru. She has recently lived in Caracas, Venezuela, with her husband and two children. Her first two novels, The House of the Spirits and Of Love and Shadows are published by Black Swan. The House of the Spirits was made into a film starring Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Winona Ryder, Vanessa Redgrave, Antonio Banderas and Keanu Reeves.

Customer Reviews

a fantastic book!
A massive book bursting at the seams with magic and fantasy and also encompassing over half a century of Chilean history veiled under the disguise of metaphor. The story may run for 500 pages but they disappear so quickly that when you read the words 'The end', you flick back to page one and begin Allende's mystically real realm of spirits all over again.

The haunting truth of this book is its realism. One feels a part of the landscapes such as the cordillera or the vineyards, even though you are never told you are in Chile. However Allende, born in Lima and now US citizen yet Chilean through her parents (indeed a niece of ex-President Salvador Allende, who crops up as the candidate in the story), is attempting to reclaim the history of her country as well as suggesting hope for the future in the female lineage of her family.

One must remember the context in which this book was written. Allende had fled her country following the 1973 coup d'etat, and was living in Venezuela. The book despite its metaphorical disguise breaks the silence of dictatorship, and demonstrates how the barbarities of the despotic Pinochet have plunged her beautiful country into turmoil. Her haunting real descriptions broadcast her experiences and those of her countrymen to the outside world, and this seemingly magical yet sadly realistic literary world aligns this novel with that masterpiece of magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude, by the Nobel Prize winning Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Despite the easily readable accounts of her eccentric family and her marvellously painted 'country of catastrophes', Allende blends her lyrical magic with figures of historical importance, such as her Uncle, Pablo Neruda (the Poet) and Victor Jara (the guitarist, Pedro Tercero Garcia). This book could be read as a fictional account of Chile between 1910 and 1980, but I would recommend it more simply as a masterpiece of modern fiction and a classic to be enjoyed by lovers of fiction of all ages.

Magic turns sour
This is a pretty incredible book from Allende - the only thing that stops me giving it five stars is a somewhat unnecessary occasional swap in narrative from third to first person.

This Peruvian author is very much in the Marquez tradition - a cast of bizarre characters telling a story that covers generations and includes psychic abilities, ghosts and bizarre accidents.

What makes this book special is how it takes your affection for this family from the unusual to the deeply serious, as revolution ravages the country. The final 150 pages or so are harrowing stuff, and deeply affect you.

The plot is compelling, the characters brilliantly drawn, and an amazing achievement for a first novel.

Excellent!
Similar to Garcia Marquez's "100 years of solitude" this novel mixes magic, religion, love, realism, history, political ideology, etc to tell the story of 4 generations of family history. I just kept on reading and reading, seeing how the characters change as they grow up and age, and as they face achievements and disappointments.