The House of the Spirits

I in no way understand why my mother recommended this. I also do not get why the rating of this book is so high by so many people. In the first chapter, there was already much unnecessary grossness and violence towards women. But in the second it was even worse, and it did not get better as the book went on. Call me crazy but I would rather not read a whole chapter about some racist, misogynistic, child-raping paedophile having a tirade about how much better he is than everyone else and trying to justify his slave-owning ass. 

I do not want to read about exploitation or rape. I do not give a shit about torture and the most dark psychological hellscape you can come up with. But just 500 pages of a garbage human ruining the lives of this magical family made me feel sick to my stomach. It's a fucking miracle I even finished this book although I am quite sure I was dissociated for the last 2 chapters at least. 

Reading this is like unfurling a long tapestry full of rich detail and vivid color. Allende effortlessly brings the characters to life, endowing them with beautiful, vibrant, flawed personalities. I felt joy at their triumphs and anguish at their hardships. The wild, spiritually-entangled Trueba house feels like a second home, a base from which to venture out into the alluring world Allende has dreamed up.

I felt drawn into this story to a level matched by few others. One of the most beautiful and poignant books I've read in a long time.

Una importante obra del realismo mágico, que, aunque narrado ante la perspectiva de una sola de las protagonistas, narra de forma palpable la vida y perspectiva de cada una de las tres mujeres principales. Clara, Blanca y Alba son las tres mujeres de la familia Trueba, quienes son el objeto de varias de las peripecias y tragedias que pasa cada generación. Tras la muerte de Rosa, la auténtica pretendiente de Esteban Trueba, éste mismo decide hacerse cargo de la finca de su familia hasta construir una especie de imperio en la misma, abusando a su vez de una de las criadas. Regresa después de años a la casa de los Del Valle y desposa a Clara, la hija menor, quien tiene poderes de clarividencia y telequinesia.

A partir del nacimiento de sus hijos, de quien resalta Blanca, empiezan a vivir lo que parece una maldición bajo su estirpe, desatada a partir de la violación hacia la criada, viven un sinfin de tragedias que sólo hacen padecer a Esteban, terminando de negar la felicidad de su familia a cambio de su propio bienestar. Un ejemplo de ello es el romance de su hija Blanca con Pedro Tercero, el cual es desaprobado por Esteban, y al enterarse de que Blanca espera al bebé de Pedro, la obliga a casarse con un noble francés, del cual huye tras descubrir sus extraños fetiches.

De este modo, Blanca y su hija Alba terminan viviendo y creciendo en la hacienda de Las Tres Marías, la finca de los Trueba, solamente para seguir padeciendo no sólo de la maldición que Esteban desató, sino también de los estragos de la guerra civil chilena, que se desata en su peor punto durante la adolescencia de Alba.

Brilhante do início ao fim e tristemente atual. Não me perdoo por não tê-lo lido antes.

I'm so deeply touched by this book. Latin American literature is out of this world. What a story and I'm a sucker for magical realism living inside historical events. This is a gem with one of the best endings I've read. Tragical but hopeful. Happy to see that in reality, in the present, being hopeful was worth it. I have so much to say and don't have the words.

Sprawling family sage set over decades. Sort of spiritualism v the mundane with equal measures of beauty and brutality. As with all books like this, when my favourite character died, the story lost some of it's magic.

Meh. The story was certainly engaging but I found myself rolling my eyes so many times at the ridiculous reactions almost all if not all of the women had toward the main source of evil. Wouldn't recommend.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how I felt about this one. When that happens, my instinct is to just start writing and see if something comes through the fog.

This is a big ambitious novel, with a pretty giant scope - a family saga of three generations, and then the political coup brutally overthrowing the (presumably Chilean, but never specified) government and turning it into a dictatorship. It's pretty dark, even before the government overthrow stuff (the patriarch Esteban Trueba spends most of the early part of the book raping anything with legs and being generally angry/violent at the state of everything). Caste stuff and serfdom stuff and government corruption stuff, and Trueba cutting off people's fingers in fits of rage. The women are the real heart of this novel, especially Trueba's granddaughter Alba, but of course she stands for everything he hates and is mostly a pretty decent character/human. But unfortunately, other than Clara the matriarch, most of the women are seen mostly through Trueba's eyes.

And okay I am mad about the ending. I understand that rape is one of the spoils of war, sure. But in Alba's epilogue, she talks about how her grandfather raped a woman named Pancha, whose grandson Esteban Garcia was part of the new government, who raped Alba. And while this is not glorified in and of itself, Alba says that maybe someday her grandson will rape Garcia's granddaughter and the cycle will perpetuate itself ... and my head might have exploded a little bit because THAT IS NOT OKAY, why would even thinking that be okay! and maybe teach your children that that violence not an acceptable means of dealing with anger??? And then I'm also mad because so much of her life was full of violence and so how can we expect people who only know violence to do any different, but RAWR.

My South American history is pretty much crap, so it shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did that there was political strife resulting in dictatorship and people being thrown in concentration camps and being killed for literally any association whatsoever with the rival government faction. If anyone has any other recommendations for reading about this history, I'm open to hearing about it!

This has been compared in other reviews to Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude, which I have not read, but I have read Marquez's other honker, Love in the Time of Cholera, and ... let's just say I wasn't impressed. So House of the Spirits doesn't exactly make me want to revisit Marquez's work. I'm glad I read this book, even if I didn't particularly enjoy it.

All the trigger warnings on this one.

Not sure what I expected but this was a lot more difficult to read than I thought it would be. There are a lot of uncomfortable things that happen in this book and unlikeable characters, which I have to say was intentional. But it didn't make it any easier to read. I did not want to follow what the characters were up to and doing to each other. It also addresses a lot of the country's history and politics which is important but since I was uncomfortable reading this, I couldn't really get myself to care. It's just not something I can really read for my own enjoyment.

Very, very, very good book. I'm a sucker for magical realist inter generational family dramas, and this didn't disappoint.

The section on the end of the Chilean coup was so heartbreaking.

Be warned of a lot of sexual violence. I ended up skipping the last chapter because it describes the torture and rape of one of the main characters. Important and realistic as it was, I couldn't stomach it.

Allende's first novel is the one that put her on the literary map, a semi-autobiographical tale of a Chilean family in turbulent historical times, written in a dreamy, fanicful style known as “magical realism”. I actually enjoyed her memoir My Invented Country more, as it revisits some of the same settings and people as the novel but with a personal (and non-fantastical) perspective.

Brutal and beautiful; heavy and dream-like.

what an epic

Reading Challenge category: a book in translation

At some point, I ought to re-read Isabel Allende's “The House of the Spirits” because it has received oodles of critical acclaim over the years. Yet, it simply ended up being a multi-generational saga like so many others I've read. It may also be that reading the novel in translation is the issue; I didn't research carefully which translation might be the best because I read this book through my Great Books Book Club (the library acquires all of our titles each month). I hope to be proven wrong in the future.

Here are the discussion questions a book club member used for discussion, which are all or in-part from Gradesaver and Sparknotes:

1
The narrator is unnamed at the beginning of the novel, but soon turns out to be Alba. The second narrator is Esteban Trueba. Why do we need two narrators in this book? How does it illustrate the ongoing conflicts between conservativism and socialism? Imagine that one of the following characters narrates the book instead of Alba: Clara, Pedro Tercero García, Jaime. How would the story be different in terms of structure, tone, and plot? Make sure you justify your assertions with specific evidence about the character you choose.

2
Allende wrote this novel as a long love letter to her dying Grandfather in Chile, while she was living in exile, partly to dramatize her family history. Sons and daughters elaborately populate the “family saga” of “House of the Spirits.” Explore the connection between mothers and daughters, and sons and fathers, in the novel. Why do you think these special bonds do not occur between mothers and sons, or between fathers and sons? Are there any exceptions to this tradition?

3
Pride, nationalism, socialism, women's rights, and, finally, human rights are a few of the themes in this book. Explore the issue of paternity and maternity in The House of the Spirits. What are the characters' attitudes toward paternity and maternity (motherhhod and fatherhhod) throughout the novel? Do they change or remain constant?

4
Describe the relationships in this novel between children and their parents. Do you side with any of these characters, or do you dislagree with their actions? Make a case for whether maternity or paternity is more important in The House of the Spirits.

5
This novel has been called a masterpiece of “Magical Realism,” which means it's a story filled with ghosts, supernatural events, psychic poeers, and other strange happenings. Explain the significance of the supernatural world in the novel. Does it have significance to all the characters, or only to those who can communicate with it and who believe in its power? Could the family's story survive if all instances of the supernatural were removed? If so, how would it be different?

6
Consider the way in which love and suffering connect in The House of the Spirits. What message does Allende send by highlighting the ways in which they are inseparable? Use specific instances from the text to support your opinion.

7
Explore the role of silence in the novel. In your analysis, you may want to consider Clara's bouts of silence, Esteban Trueba's refusal to allow radios in his house, and instances in which characters keep silent in one another's interest or in order to save one another.

8
How does the novel portray sex? In your analysis, consider instances of rape, prostitution, passionate consensual lovemaking, infidelity, and consensual “loveless” lovemaking without passion.

9
Explore the significance of the main characters and one of the following minor characters and make a case for why his or her subplot is essential to the story: Transito Soto, Pancha García, Old Pedro García, Amanda.

10
In The House of the Spirits, romantic love is essential but often forbidden. Why do you think Allende creates a story where love is taboo? In your analysis, make sure to examine the relationships between Clara and Esteban, Blanca and Pedro Tercero García, and Alba and Miguel. Additionally, consider the question: what types of love are expressly allowed in the novel?

11
What message does Allende send about the power of writing and the imagination? Is this novel an imaginative plea and personal allegory for peace, women's rights, class differences, human rights, and family respect/responsibility after so much discord, disagreement, exile, and persecution? What is the value of writing or other expressions of imagination for the characters? Why is Allemde putting so much emphasis on writing your/her personal history? Some characters you may want to explore in your analysis: Clara, Rosa, Blanca, Alba, Pedro Tercero García, and Esteban Trueba.

12
Examine the importance of destiny in The House of the Spirits. Does the novel as a whole favor the idea that the future is pre-planned, or does it suggest that events are up to chance? Use specific incidents in the Trueba family history to support your claim.

13
Clara, who is clairvoyant, has a vision of her mother's demembered head, lost after a fatal crash. Find instances of dismemberment in the novel. What does the act of dismemberment represent beyond its physical consequences? How is it a symbol of family strife, divisions, exiles, seperations, and sufferings.

14
Pablo Neruda was a Nobel Prize winning poet from Allende's Chile. Neruda's socialism endangered him with the Chilean Nationalists, and followers of Pinochet. Like Isabel Allende, who was related to Chilean socialist leader Salvador Allende, he left Chile at one point to escape persecution. Today, we see her novel as a record of those conflicts, and a plea to end the cycles of violence and human rights abuses, so families can live their lives out in peace, without fear. Should our poetry of universal human expression and humanism (of life and love) be important than the politics we keep? Allende includes the following quote by Pablo Neruda as the epigraph to the novel: “How much does a man live, after all? / Does he live a thousand days, or one only? / For a week, or for several centuries? / How long does a man spend dying? / What does it mean to say “for ever?” Using specific evidence, explain how the epigraph relates to the novel's greater message.

15
Evaluate the significance of names in The House of the Spirits. What do characters' names tell us about their personalities and destinies? Some to consider: Nívea (snow,) Clara (light, clear), Blanca (white,) Alba (dawn,) Pedro Segundo (second)/Pedro Tercero (The third,) Esteban Trueba/Esteban García, Transito Soto. How many symbols can you find in these characters, and do they represent any of their human traits?

Four generations
chained to a bull of a man
bound, even in death.

It was a slow build but I loved this book.

Seguramente lo que diga en esta revisión ya muchos lo han dicho: grandioso libro. Fue una montaña rusa de sentimientos a lo largo de todas las páginas y me llevaba del borde de la lágrima en una página a la risa y optimismo en la siguiente.

Debo confesar que al principio me hizo mucho ruido ver que se asemejaba en varios aspectos a Cien Años de Soledad. Sin embargo conforme la historia fue avanzando, descubrí que la riqueza de esta novela radicaba en otras cosas... Sí, mantuvo un parecido muy fuerte todo el tiempo, pero logra desprenderse de tan fuerte influencia lo suficiente como para que no te pese tanto.

Una historia obligada de la literatura latinoamericana.

I found this novel very satisfying and worthy of all the hype surrounding it. I love magical realism and delighted in the fact that one character can be born with green hair and another can commune with the dead. While I found Esteban to be mostly vulgar and offensive, I felt that he slightly redeemed himself at the end with Alba. It is a beautifully written and touching story.

Given that Allende's style is magical realism, I'll be cheesy and chalk my five stars I can't completely explain to the whimsical (magical, if you will, haha) style of her prose. Of course I love a book with strong female characters, and Allende provides that in spades, but it's also a pretty interesting reminder of Chile's troubled 20th century history (los deseparecidos of the CIA-backed junta, anyone?). Allende makes you feel deeply for all the family members we meet of this multi-generational saga, and is also someone who seems always capable of capturing a sense of wonder about even the more mundane aspects of life. Tore through this LONG book in two days on a Mexican vacation, and if you're looking to be transported, I highly recommend it.

I have to be honest...I didn't actually get through this....it started slow, picked up in the middle, and then we had book club. The ending was revealed and it left me with little desire to finish...

The writing is good and very unique. It just wasn't for me.