3.5 estrellas
《Los recuerdos no se organizan cronológicamente, son como el humo, tan cambiantes y efimeros, que si no se escriben desaparecen en el olvido》
Mi país inventado es un libro donde la autora nos habla de Chile, sus raíces, su infancia desde la nostalgia.
Nos da un recorrido del clima, el paisaje, las costumbres y nos da detalle de situaciones que la hicieron ser la autora que es.
Siempre hay algo en como escribe Isabel Allende que me gusta y es que lo siento muy personal, como si ella estuviera platicando conmigo, es algo que siempre me a gustado de ella.
También algo que me gusta es que aprendo algo de historia de Chile, que creo que nunca sabría si no fuera por ella.

(em breve no blog) :)

Wonderfully written, My Invented Country is a tragic-comic memoir and and hymn to Chile. I absolutely fell in love with Isabel Allende and I'm planning to read all of her books. I'm glad that I started with this one.

Este libro es una cartografía de la sociedad chilena desde mediados del siglo veinte hasta el retorno a la democracia. En Mi país inventado, Isabel Allende--sobrina de Salvador--rememora sobre la vida social y política en Chile, aquel país tercermundista de Sudamérica. Allende describe de manera concisa y sin ambages la idiosincrasia de los chilenos. Los comentarios acerca del machismo y la timidez inherentes a nuestros compatriotas resultan desagradables en la medida en que son certeros.

Como es de esperar, gran parte del texto--que constituye una extraña mezcla entre narrativa y ensayo--se concentra en los aspectos políticos. Isabel Allende no escatima críticas a la devastadora dictadura que asoló al país durante 17 años. Su exilio, nos cuenta, fue un hito en su vida merced al cual principió su carrera literaria. No es de extrañar que su primera novela, La casa de los espíritus, relate, desde la vertiente del Realismo Mágico, los años aciagos del "gobierno militar".

Huelga decir que un escrito como este contiene interpretaciones subjetivas de la historia nacional. Allende lo admite: su libro no es imparcial. Aun así, me pareció que la autora, por lo general, se ciñe a los hechos. Asevera que el gobierno de la Unidad Popular cayó merced a la intervención de Estados Unidos y a los sabotajes de la Derecha; pero también menciona que el gobierno de su tío no fue perfecto.

Como revisión histórica, Mi país inventado posee muchas virtudes. Es un texto ameno que no puede encasillarse en tal o cual categoría, por cuanto las trasciende. Es parte ficción, parte ensayo, parte autobiografía. Y es maravilloso.

Un viaggio tra realtà e fantasia che, secondo me, tocca molti punti importanti. Dal dramma di chi abbandona forzatamente il proprio paese d'origine e si trova costretto a scegliere per forza a quale stato appartenere - quello d'origine o quello di accoglienza? - quando non dovremmo esserlo. Alla nostalgia di un paese che era e che adesso non è più perché tutte le società cambiano prima o poi, che lo si voglia oppure no, in bene o in peggio chissà, dipende. All'imparare, infine, a vivere in un'altra società, consapevoli che deve essere un "imparare" a doppia direzione, che non siamo costretti a dimenticare le vecchie tradizioni, ma bisogna anche mantenere viva la curiosità per il "nuovo", magari, alla fine, finisce per piacerci.

Isabel Allende is a natural born storyteller, and can spin just about any yarn with fluency and wit. Here she is at her best when she is discussing the Allende-Pinochet years and her personal experience of political upheaval and exile. I was expecting more insight on Salvador Allende, seeing as how Isabel was his niece, but unfortunately she has nothing of interest to say about the personality of the martyr-president. Maybe she didn't know him all that well?

She does make some pretty powerful points about the Chilean class system, which is now as bad as it ever was thanks to four decades of neoliberal experimentation under Pinochet and his successors. The dream of a more equitable Chile (see Andres Wood's magnificent film Machuca for more on this) died on September 11, 1973. Thanks to the wholesale application of Chicago economics, the country is now one of the most unequal in the world. Allende is even more acerbic and insightful on the subject of male chauvinism, which I suppose is a problem not just in Chile but across the length and breadth of South America.

Sadly, the writer's undoubted passion for her native land is not enough to disguise the fact that this is a fairly shallow book. The main problem lies in the fact that Allende is targeting the book squarely at her Western readers and thus immediately assumes the mantle of quirky tour guide. We, her gormless tour group, get a whirlwind survey of Chile's geography, history, society, culture and politics through the medium of her breezy patter. The besetting sin is that of cuteness. Even when she is aspiring for honest criticism (and heaven knows, there seems to be plenty to criticize!), she can't help piling on the whimsy. Sometimes, it is meant to sound like gentle irony, but ultimately the writer's aim is to charm and ingratiate her international audience. Mission well and truly accomplished.

Cutting through the fog of her nostalgia, Allende's descriptions of Chilean society paint the place as a fairly charmless affair. And that was before Pinochet and the Chicago Boys gave it a strong dose of bitter economic medicine. God knows what it's like now. The attractions of the land are beyond compare; it would be good to read a more nuanced, more hopeful view of the society.

I took a break from Pessoa's colossal biography (Pessoa: A Biography ) with a -guess what?- memoir.

Chile has always been a curious country for me ever since I studied the world map in elementary school. I knew about Pinochet's regime growing up. Interestingly, I haven't read anything from Chilean literature. I didn't know anything about Isabel Allende except her family connection to S.Allende. Apparently, I didn't know much about Chile either. I was very surprised to see the similarities between our cultures. I marked so many sentences!

I don't think I would be friends with Allende. Her personality (that is whatever I gleaned from her honest self-criticism in the book) is not appealing to me. However, her book flowed like water. She brialliantly incorporated her life with Chilean history and culture through her family. If you'd like to learn about Chile, read this book. Allende is brutally honest, both about her subjectivity and about flaws of her beloved country.

I think I may read The House of Spirits because she says it was read by most unexpected people and I want to be one of them. I may leave it there and not read another book of hers. We'll see.

Quizá el libro de Isabel Allende que más me ha gustado hasta la fecha. Un regreso a su Chile natal desde la mente de la exiliada/emigrante que es la autora durante más de treinta años. Manejo perfecto del lenguaje y los ritmos. Se lee casi de una sentada.

I don’t think I could recommend Allende more <3 a love letter to her home country, an investigation into what physically is home and what stories we tell to invoke that notion. wouldn’t recommend this as an introduction into her writing, but after reading a couple of her book this one gives much appreciated insight into her inspiration & writing process.
Xxx

Muy acertada la descripción de Chile que hace la autora me devuelve a todos sus rincones y sus peculiaridades. Sin embargo, me parece una observación muy ‘condescendiente?’. Allende no deja de pertenecer a una élite chilena que critica tanto en su relato y ese aspecto quizá me chirría un poco. En pocas palabras se desvincula de la clase alta mientras describe su vida llena de privilegios y eso me parece contradictorio e hipócrita. Por mucho q seas sobrina de allende, eso no te hace comunista, sorry. Aunque Isa sea mi autora favorita ever, prefiero sus novelas.

Nostalgia is something that I don't particularly like getting caught up in, especially someone else's since what we each treasure from our pasts is so personal. But whether I tell my nostalgia or not, they still exist and may become more prominent as I grow older. Isabella Allende has plenty of reason to to feel nostalgia for chile, having grown up either side of the coup and amidst some of the characters involved. She left after the coup, exiled, with all the more reason to reflect on what she had left behind. No doubt the forced departure also creates a greater drive to remember selectively, but the greatest distortion comes from her desire to entertain, and to exaggerate her compatriots characteristics so we don't forget them. Not that this is necessarily beyond belief. Bureaucracy and paternalism, for example, have descriptions which ring true, in feel if not in substance, to my experience of Chile. However, I'm not sure how comfortable many Chilean residents would feel about the descriptions given to them, possibly disputing some of the claims made I imagine. As always, generalizations of cultures will cover some but not all of those that are stereotyped, so whether these descriptions are close to the mean/median, or otherwise, it's entertaining.

بعد رحلتي الأولى مع إزابيل الليندي في روايتها (إنيس.. حبيبة روحي) قررت قراءة المزيد من مؤلفاتها وبالطبع توجهت أولًا الى الكتب الموجودة في مكتبة البيت

والتقطت بلدي المخترع بدون أن يكون لي فكرة مسبقة عن انها مذكرات الكاتبة كنت مترددة بين قراءة كتبها أولاً لأن مصادر الهامها للكتابة مذكورة في هذا الكتاب وان التجربة ستكون اجمل اذا كنت متعلقة بمؤلفات الكاتبة من قبل

ولكن عندما بدأت وكتجربتي السابقة مع ايزابيل شدني اسلوبها ولم استطع تأجيلها، مذكرات لطيفة مليئة بالحميمية عشقت إيزابيل من الصفحات الأولى وقررت أني لن افوت شيئا من كتاباتها

اغبطها على تجاربها ورحلاتها وعائلتها الغريبة وقصصهم التي ليس من الضروري أن تكون صادقة وكما تقول إيزابيل: "أنا كاتبة لأنني ولدت بسمع جيد لالتقاط القصص وحالفني الحظ بأسرة غريبة الأطوار وقدرِ حاجَّةٍ تائهة "

احببت حديثها عن بلدها الأم تشيلي والتشيليون أيضًا وصفتهم بقدر كبير من الصدق والحب مع عدم اكتراثي ببعض التفاصيل التاريخية المفصلة عن السياسة في تشيلي ولكن كان وجودها ضروريًا لفهم السياق

4 نجوم وبكل حب سأعود دومًا الى روايات إيزابيل كاتبتي اللاتينية المفضلة