2.5 stars
Maybe it's the authors fault, maybe it's mine, who knows? I picked this book for my ABC One Word Title Challenge for 2 reasons. Obviously, the title, but secondly because I am old enough to remember watching Zorro on TV as a child. What child didn't pretend to be a "swashbuckler" singing about Zorro making the sign of the "Z"?
I was expecting this very long book to have great, descriptive fight scenes, and lots of them. What I got was a fantasized, lackluster, biography of sorts. Were there fight scenes? Yes, but not enough and certainly not extraordinary in description. I felt the author could have made those few much better to make up for the plodding story of Zorro's youth. (IMO)
The only good thing to come out of this for me was fulfilling my "Z" requirement for my challenge.

This book consists mostly of the backstory of Zorro, the swashbuckling Spanish legend/hero. It takes place partly in Spanish colonial California and partly in Spain, with a short but fascinating portion taking place in Louisiana.

I was a bit disappointed with the dispassionate relaying of Diego’s childhood and young adult years. I had really looked forward to a story filled with Latin passion and swashbuckling swordplay. I wanted my heart broken by the plight of the downtrodden peoples, followed by a soaring sense of victory when the hero showed up and saved the day. Instead, I felt more like I was watching from a distance, emotionally.

Juliana’s love story and the Pirate LaFitte’s fascinating community turned out to be the part of the story that gave me the desired thrill. I wish it had been more of the book!

The Perennial Saviour

An ancient people has been conquered by a foreign empire. Now subject to the arbitrary justice of the imperial representative, the locals are being pressured to abandon their religion and worship the god of the invaders. Among them a man of nobel lineage takes a wife. Together this man and woman produce a son who is devoted to truth and justice, a righter of wrongs, a saviour... a messiah. Sound familiar?

Well there are certainly many elements of the Christian myth. But Batman, his sidekick, and their cave is also in the picture. What child could resist? Add the background of the magical land of California when it was still Spanish and the romantic density is overwhelming. The Prisoner of Zenda, another favourite at age 10, fascinated for the same reasons - exotic location, noble heritage gone wrong, the possibility for justice in a fallen world.

So as a YA adventure novel, Allende’s Zorro is top notch. But if you’re already fully cooked emotionally speaking, and not into nostalgia, there’s not much there. Magnificent cover, however.

When Magical Realism Met Superheroes

Talk about an origin story.

If it were not for being Zorro’s story, this would be considered quite classy literature. Maybe it still is? I am not familiar with the critical reception.

It is finely detailed and expertly constructed, weaving history and legend seamlessly. Allende almost pulls it off, but the awareness of the ending seeps into the rest of the book, spoiling all the better moments. It might be an unavoidable thing and Allende deserves praise not blame for the attempt, but still… the awareness of a type of ‘non-literature’ keeps intruding into the reading experience, trivializing it in so many subtle ways.

It is interesting to note how a "humanization" process is increasingly present in the recent wave of blockbusters about super­ heroes (Spiderman, Batman, now the entire Marvel universe). Critics, as Zizek says, rave about how these films move beyond the original flat comic-book characters and dwell in detail over the uncertainties, weaknesses, doubts, fears and anxieties of the supernatural hero, his struggle with his inner demons, his confrontation with his own dark side, and so forth, as if all this makes the commercial super-production somehow more “artistic.’

In real life, this humanization process undoubtedly reached its apogee in a recent North Korean press release which reported that, at the opening game on the country's first golf course, the beloved president Kim Jong-II excelled, finishing the entire game of 18 holes in 19 strikes. One can well imagine the reasoning of the propaganda bureaucrat: nobody was going to believe that Kim had managed a hole­ in-one every time, so, to make things realistic, let us concede that, just once, he needed two strikes to succeed.

The thing with origin stories though, is that everything in it will be understood from a reference point of the future; and hence it cannot escape cliches - if not in the telling, then in the understanding. The ‘why’ of the origin makes this inescapable as all events have a tendency to be connected to one event - the classic ‘all roads leading to Rome’, a sort of prophesy-fulfillment type of plot. This becomes quickly the worst sort of genre-plotting, anathema to ‘literary readers’ who need greater subtlety.

Of course this applies to biographies too, but they have the saving grace of being at least true-by-assertion. But origin stories, or fictional biographies for that matter with a known end point become unavoidably contrived. Allende does her best, but cannot sidestep her readers in the end.

Anyway, to the finely tuned fan, this is a new sort of delightful Magical Realism - as applied to superheroes, for chrisssakes!

What I want next is a Batman written by Pynchon.

"Heroism is a badly remunerated occupation, and often it leads to an early end, which is why it appeals to fanatics or persons with an unhealthy fascination with death."

I found the early part of this book decidedly more fascinating than the last half or so. As I recall, the book sort of lost its way as it progressed, whereas the beginning was riveting. But as a whole it's another excellent piece of Isabel Allende's fiction. It was particularly interesting to me to read about early California and the interaction between the Spaniards and the native people. I had never read anything about Zorro before, so I enjoyed hearing one rendition of the origin of the Zorro legend. I know there are many others.

He maintained that the powerful invented laws to preserve their privileges and to control the poor discontented; therefore it would be stupid to obey them. For example, taxes, which in the end the poor paid while the rich found ways to avoid it. (PG 300)

Not very swashbuckling so I read it like a random fictional character. It was a fun read this way because I expected less from Isabel Allende. It was not at all boring but very light in the duels and fight scenes. I don't think this is a strong suit in Allende's writing. Her strong suit is to be very descriptive and informative on the background of her characters, she dominates in this area. So while I appreciated Zorro it was not my favorite read of hers.

I think I have become more judgmental and comparative of Allende rather than judge a single book. I would recommend it as a light read and it could have been shorter because the ending wasn't appealing.

Carina l'idea di raccontare la storia di Zorro, il racconto inizia prima della nascita di Diego de La Vega, con un dettagliato quadro politico e sociale dei luoghi dove è nato e vissuto, ti fa capire meglio le motivazioni della ideazione di tale personaggio. Nonostante la scrittura sia fluida, alcuni tratti sono prolissi e privi di emozioni, si arranca un pochino nella lettura. Mi aspettavo una lettura decisamente più scorrevole e avvincente, ma alla Allende meno delle tre stelle non posso dare.

We've all seen at least one episode of the famous Zorro TV series and laughed at the multiple face-to-face meetings between the masked vigilante and Sergeant Garcia. I've become grateful to Zorro because of that. In this novel, the author offers us the biography of Diego de la Vega, alias Zorro, who was born in California at the end of the 18th century. He fights corruption to bring about a just justice without any form of enslavement, thanks to his talent for wielding the sword and the support of his faithful Bernardo.

This is a tough review to write. Why? Because this was the first book I've read this year that I was disappointed with.
Zorro is written by Isabel Allende, who is apparently a successful writer from Latin America. But frankly, I just don't think this was all that good. I expected more of a swashbuckling, action-packed story. Instead, the story focuses a lot on Diego de la Vega, whose alter-ego is Zorro, growing up in California and Spain. Zorro doesn't make his first appearance until something like halfway through the book. In addition to focusing the early parts of the book on young Diego's rearing in California, the bulk of the rest of the book focuses on Diego pining for Juliana, a young girl he meets when studying in Spain. That portion of the book was tedious and overly sappy, and somewhat pointless in the grand scheme of the plot. Even the plot, which built up to a confrontation that was totally predictable, was skimpy, and difficult to follow. There were long periods of the book describing things that happened that I really just didn't care about.
Maybe it was the translation, or maybe Zorro as a subject wasn't a good fit for Isabel Allende, but I just couldn't see where all the praise for her writing comes from. It certainly didn't come from this novel, I'm sorry to say.

An alternative fun fable, about a not-so-common-hero, with a twist of drama, love and treachery, mixed with serious important problems like the exploitation and enslavement of its native people and land in the vast teritory of the Spanish colonies.

“Heroism is a badly remunerated occupation, and often it leads to an early end, which is why it appeals to fanatics or persons with an unhealthy fascination with death. ”

رواية تسحرك وتدخلك على عالم الأساطير وحياة الهود الحمر في كاليفورنيا عندما بدأ الأسبان وسكان أمريكا الجنوبية ينزحون إليها ، ويعمرونها ويغيرون وجهها ، ونظام الحياة فيها والنظام الاجتماعي والاقتصادي بها ، وتتنقل بك عبر عدة محطات لحياة البطل زورو ،
أشعر أني كي أكتب عنها لا بد وأن أعيد قرائتها مرة أخرى ، لأنها طويلة وضخمة وممتدة عبر حقبة زمنية أكثر من خمسين عاما حدثت خلالها تحولات تاريخية وأحداث سياسية وثورات أعادت تشكيل خريطة ليس أسبانيا وفرنسا فقط بل أوروبا كلها بسبب حملات نابوليون وانتصاراته وانتهاء بهزيمته النكراء في روسيا
ولكنها ممتعة ، كلما قرأت لايرابيل الليندي أشعر أني في عالم ساحر لا أريد أن أبرحه مهما واسعا أشبه بمتاهة، ومهما كان حجم الرواية

I have mixed feelings about this book. It started off slow, as books do when you are laying the groundwork for the story with backstory. The book is written in six parts. The first three parts are engrossing and enjoyable. Part four is tedious and tiresome. Part five tries to be climactic and heroic but it falls short in fulfillment. Part six could have been included in part five because it is barely long enough to call a chapter, let alone a complete part. This is strictly my opinion and others may read it and come to a different conclusion but that will be their review.