Uma História de Vida que depressa se transforma na História do Chile, narrado por alguém detentor de uma imaginação prodigiosa, de um patriotismo moderado e romântico e, acima de tudo de um monumental amor pelo seu país.

4.5 *

Since I've been living in Chile nearly 9 years and I'm a fan of Isabel Allende, I was interested to read this book - what a disillusioning experience. To say that she as a skewed vision of many things is an understatement (although she more-or-less admits that she's writing her version of things, not history.) I find Chileans to be generally good people but I doubt that it was the dictatorship which made them even more egoistic than before. The food is rather bland and reflects the national character in this way - these are not a spicy people - and her attempts to pump them up fall flat. Her vision of what prompted the fall of Allende and relative popularity of Pinochet also leaves a lot to be desired and even though she answers her own questions about why it was so, she fails to recognize it. Nonetheless, she's charming and has an interesting family but as a memoir, it wasn't very memorable.

A warm, intimate memoir of Allende's Chile, both the invented country of her memory and imagination, and an attempt to make some historical and sociological observations. Her writing alternatives between the personal and the general tense, and neither is dry, rather always full of anecdotes, humor, and poignant insight. She covers themes from the light like humor and cuisine, to the serious like the Pinochet period and its aftermath. Mostly, the book is an attempt to understand nostalgia, and where writing and identity and memory fit in with it. Allende's answer to what nostalgia means is neither tragic nor melancholy, but an uplifting possibility of living away from home and creating one's own home deliberately through work and one's created family.

Yo siempre empiezo al revés con los clásicos o los autores más reconocidos. Es el primer libro que leo de Isabel Allende, en Rivadavia estaba baratísimo y lo compré.
Lo empecé sin entender mucho porque se refiere a todas sus novelas anteriores, pero mientras uno avanza la lectura se siente parte de todos los recuerdos con los que la autora va formando su país inventado en esta autobiografía. Problematiza, para mí muy bien (y sí obvio), lo objetivo y lo subjetivo, construye a Chile y a su propia identidad mediante muchos pedazos de recuerdos de su vida y de su numerosa familia, y asimismo de todo lo que significó y fue su exilio. El rol del escritor y la construcción de esa figura siendo mujer y en esa época; también la cuestión de cómo escribir y qué motiva a uno y qué no, qué tanta realidad uno vuelva en su escritura. Todo eso está en Mi país inventado y a mí me voló la cabeza.
Me gustó muchísimo y la descripciones de sus familiares y las anécdotas son espectaculares, y yo me reí muchísimo. También es inevitable no entender todo lo que está en este libro siendo latinoamericana, principalmente en los capítulos que le dedica a la dictadura en Chile y a la represión por parte de las fuerzas.
Sumamente recomendable y sirve mucho para seguir pensando el vínculo entre exilio y literatura. Estoy encantadísima con su escritura

Wonderful book!
No idea why I've waited so long to read it (oh, yes, it's in Spanish my copy!), but I love it.
MY FIRST book in Spanish! :)

Escoger un libro de Isabel es una opción confiable que nunca falla

بعض من سيرة الكاتبة في طفولتها و شبابها، و جزء من تاريخ بلدها الأم تشيلي بتنوع ثقافاته و أجناسه.



* إن الأزمة الأخلاقية تحدث عندما يذهب الكاثوليكيون أنفسهم الذين يعيشون الوفرة إلى القداس، بينما ينكرون على عمالهم الرواتب المستحقة...

Subtitled "a nostalgic journey through Chile", this book is part memoir, part description of Chile and the Chileans. While I learned much about the geography, history and customs of the country, many of the social generalizations I would take with a grain of salt (and she admits that they are subjective, "nostalgic" recreations of her memory, hence the title "My invented country"); the real interest is in the book's insights into the life of the author and her family.

In particular, the history of her grandparents and her uncles and aunts was interesting because many of their traits and actions appear under other names in her first novel, La casa de los espíritus, which originated from a letter to her grandfather about the history of the family. It also confirms that the setting of Eva Luna is Venezuela, which I had assumed but isn't actually stated in the novel.

While Allende is a wonderful novelist, this nonfiction work tends to reveal more of her limitations, her naive political ideas which seemed more purely liberal than those of the socialist-leaning characters in the novel, although that may be because the book was written in the United States in the year following the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, when many people who should have known better became super-patriots for a time. She doesn't go that far, and does of course include quite a bit of the history of the coup and the results of neoliberalism in Chile.

She points out the coincidence that Tuesday, September 11, was also the date of the coup in Chile 28 years earlier, which was a major turning point in her own life, beginning her exile in Venezuela and later the United States. I've learned to expect that authors who write good political novels aren't always consistent in their politics.

The book is worth reading if you are interested in the background of her fiction.

La memoria es un laberinto donde acechan minotauros.

Algo que no tiene vértebras se rompe?

Interesante saber y conocer sobre Chile,

A truly delightful read, it has brought me so much joy. One of my favorites in 2023. I am not very used to reading non-fiction, but I started last year and I fully intend to keep going!

ان كنت تود ان تقرأ كتابا غير تافه ممتعا وسلسا فهذا كتاب مناسب، ومناسب جدا. اسلوب ساخر في بعض اجزائه، جعلني اضحك كما هي ليست عادتي وانا اقرأ. ولكنه ايضا اشعرني بالغصة لدرجة ان اتحدي دموعي حين تحدثت عن وطنها وعن الانقلاب العسكري. التشابه مريع بين تشيلي ومصر ليس فقط في الانقلاب بل حتي في العادات.
كنت شبه سعيدة عندما وجدتها تجهد نفسها لكي تشرح ما الذي يعنيه ان تعيش في بلد تحت الانقلاب العسكري لانني اعلم ما الذي يعنيه. بؤس، صحيح؟..
جعلتني ادرك بشكل صادم انني لا أعرف ما معنى ان تولد في وطن لا تضطر ان تنفي منه او تهاجر لغيره لكي تعيش، وحتي ذلك ال"عيش" قد لا يكون كريما كما تظن، فبالنهاية انت "لاجئ"،"هارب"،"منفي."
انا حقا لا يمكن ان تجتمع في ذهني كلمات مثل: مصر، كرامة، إنسانية. كلمة مصر في ذهني تستجلب كلمات مثل:ظلم، فقر، خبث، طبقية.
الشبه غريب بين التجربتين حتي في التفاصيل التافهة، فقد ذكرت ان احداهن قالت لها مادحة الانقلاب وحظر التجول بأن "الأزواج أصبحوا يعودون باكرا إلي البيت"، وانا اذكر ان مذيعة احدي القنوات المصرية،التي لتطابقها ماعدت اذكر اي قناة، قالت ان "عدد النساء الحوامل قد زاد بسبب حظر التجول"، طبعا النسخة المصرية يجب ان تكون فاضحة أكثر..
190صفحة صنعت بي ما صنعت. شكرا ايزابيل.