The House of the Spirits

When I was a kid, me and my brother used to spend most weekends at our grandparents house. And most of those weekends we would watch one of the same two movies on the good ol' VCR: Steel Magnolias and The House of the Spirits. No one seems to know the latter movie when I mention it, but it starred a bunch of impressive names: Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Antonio Banderas and Winona Ryder. My memory might be painting a better picture than the truth, but me and my brother LOVED the movie.

So it really kinda amazes me that it took so long for me to get my hands on the book and finally read it. It's everything I can't help but love. A rich family saga filled with drama, hardship, love, violence and a touch of magical realism. The characters that once fascinated me in the movie have reemerged in a far more complex and fleshed out depiction. It is such an interesting story, spanning multiple generations and looking at the intricate relationships between the characters whilst the background features the post-colonial political struggles of Chile.

I love the beautiful and wild South American setting. I love the subtly woven aspects of magical realism. I love (and sometimes hate) the characters. I am fascinated by even the politics of the novel and the huge disparities between the women who campaigned for gender equality and those who believed a husband ruled over his wife. This book has everything: family, politics, love, magic... I always enjoy it when a novel can bring in many different elements that we love and get the balance right.

My favourite character has always been Ferula (played by Glenn Close in the movie). I find her the most tragic character and the one most buried beneath layers of complexity, even though she isn't ever really the novel's main focus:

n  She was one of those people who are born for the greatness of a single love, for exaggerated hatred, for apocalyptic vengeance, and for the most sublime forms of heroism, but she was unable to shape her fate to the dimensions of her amorous vocation, so it was lived out as something flat and grey that was trapped between her mother's sickroom walls, wretched tenements, and the tortured confessions with which this large, opulent, hot-blooded woman - made for maternity, abundance, action, and ardor - was consuming herself.n

Ferula is my favourite, but she is one in a sea of very different and interesting individuals. There is, of course, Esteban Trueba. He is violent, selfish and earns very little sympathy from me over the course of the novel; that's not to say he isn't of interest, because he certainly is. And there's his wife - Clara - a woman prone to bouts of clairvoyance that have dictated the direction of her life; a direction she has accepted without complaint. Then there's Blanca, Esteban and Clara's daughter, who falls in love with Pedro Tercero against her father's wishes and constantly defies him by pursuing the relationship.

Despite the pretty cover, this book isn't without its graphic descriptions of violence and some rape scenes. It isn't a nice book, but I suppose many of the best books aren't "nice". It is, however, a wonderful portrait of a family, spread over several generations, and it is as moving and beautiful as I'd hoped.

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This is a book I’ve been meaning to read for years and is Allende’s first novel. It covers ninety years of Chilean history and is written in the form of a family saga with a strong element of magic realism. In part it charts the rise and fall of Salvador Allende, who was deposed in 1973. Although Allende prefers to see it as reflecting the history of Latin America. The novel covers three generations of the Trueba and Del Valle families. The character running through the whole is the family patriarch Esteban Trueba. Allende wrote it in reaction to the news that her grandfather was dying. There is a great deal about the passing of time and the nature of family:
“At times I feel as if I had lived all this before and that I have already written these very words, but I know it was not I: it was another woman, who kept her notebooks so that one day I could use them. I write, she wrote, that memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get the chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously.”
There is a substantial cast of characters, most of them well drawn and substantial. Esteban Trueba is someone you wouldn’t want to know in real life, a violent bully, prone to rages and a “self-made man” who eventually becomes a right wing senator. However Allende expertly weaves all the themes together so that they flow smoothly and the family and the political blend with all the clairvoyance, religion and revolution. The female voices in this are most interesting as is the way they navigate a particularly strong and overbearing patriarchal character. The women strive to maintain their own identities in a setting and context that rejects their agency and experience:
“Clara also brought the saving idea of writing in her mind, without paper or pencil, to keep her thoughts occupied and to escape from the doghouse and live. She suggested that she write a testimony that might one day call attention to the terrible secret she was living through, so that the world would know about this horror that was taking place parallel to the peaceful existence of those who did not want to know, who could afford the illusion of a normal life, and of those who could deny that they were on a raft adrift in a sea of sorrow, ignoring, despite all evidence, that only blocks away from their happy world there were others, these others who live or die on the dark side.”
This is a great novel and I enjoyed it more than One Hundred Years of Solitude. You don’t need me to outline the plot, but it is a reminder of what a tragedy the overthrow of Salvador Allende was and of the brutality of the Pinochet regime.

Wow! If you look up 'epic family dramas, sweeping sagas' you are sure to find the The House of the Spirits at the top of the list. It's hard to capture what this book covers as it covers so much. The story of the three generations of the Trueba family. How their lives have changed over many, many years. Their loves, grief, joy, family, politics, greed, desires, and more. I felt that there was so much heartbreak and tragedy in this story. But I kept thinking about this one....even when I was not reading it. It is beautiful. I wish that I could go back and start it all over again.

Esteban Trueba.....hmmm, he is a monster (I think). Though does he ultimately redeem himself? Clara....a wonderful character, who I wanted to hear more about and her talents. The book touches on magical realism and it was done perfectly, weaved into the lives of each of the Trueba family members. The love between Blanca and Pedro Tercero García....epic. Throw in a government political coup. Oh I want to hear more and more about these wonderful characters.

I listened to this one via audio. There were two narrators - one male, one female. It took me a bit of time to get into the flow of the narration on this one. But once I did, I was captivated. However, I did not care for the male narration as much, from the point of view of Esteban Trueba. To me, I had a picture in my mind of Esteban and how he would speak. And this voice narration was just not him. Esteban was rugged, violent, jealous,.....and the narration was timid and quiet and too laid back. Just a nit-pick on my end. I just found it too jarring when the narration would switch, taking me out of my dream-like trance that I was in listening to this magical book.

A beautiful book that I hope to revisit one day again and savor the details of the wonderful story.

It is a historical and fantastic novel; I admit that it left me perplexed and that I started reading this intrigued, not sure if I liked it. Well, I won! This mix of genres, coupled with Isabel Allende's talents as a storyteller, takes us to a South American country (Chile is never named) from the beginning of the 20th century to the dictatorship. We discussed many subjects, and the characters are very complex; the magic is present without heaviness. An interesting and pleasant reading!

3.5

Kitabın benim için en etkileyici taraflarından biri onlarca karakterin hiçbirinin hikayesi öne çıkmıyor. Herkesin hikayesini eşit olarak anlatmış. Kitabı okuyanlar olarak mutlaka favori karakterimiz ve onun başından geçenler oluyor, fakat Isabel hanım herkesi o kadar eşit anlatmış ki keşke şunu biraz daha anlatsaydı diyerek şikayet edemiyorsunuz.
Marquez gibi Isabel hanım da hikayeyi yoyo gibi en ileri sarıp başa çekerek anlatıyor. Olayların nasıl sonlandığını en başında öğreniyorsunuz. Olayın nasıl sonlandığıyla değil nasıl yaşandığıyla –genel- ilgilenmeniz gerektiğini usul usul öğreniyorsunuz kitap boyunca. (Spoilerdan nefret edenler için enteresan bir deneyim olacaktır klgldfkg)
14 bölümden oluşan kitabın ilk 12 bölümünü gerçeküstücülüğün ağır bastığı haliyle okurken geri kalan bölümlerde gerçeküstü olacak kadar gerçekdışı hikayeleri tüm gerçekliğiyle okuyorsunuz. Kitabın başında acaba bunlar olmuş mudur derken, benzer tarihi olan bir coğrafyada yaşayan biri olarak bunlar kesin olmuştur diyerek kitabı tamamlıyorsunuz. Hikayeye bir anda ortak oluyorsunuz, kendi tarihinizdeki benzerlikleri kıyaslıyorsunuz.
Son olarak çeviriden bahsedecek olursak, Nihal Yeğinobalı standartlarının üstünde olmakla birlikte Türkçe’de İspanyolca’dan ortalamanın üstünde çeviri yapan bir çevirmenin elinden çıkmış olsaydı sınıf atlayacak bir kitap olurdu. Nihal Hanım kitabı İngilizceden Türkçeye kendi uyduruk kelimeleriyle çevirmiş olmasına rağmen elimden bırakmadan okudum kitabı.
Pablo Neruda’yla yaptığı bir röportaj esnasında Neruda’nın çok renkli bir hayalgücün var, gazeteciliği bırak kitap yaz demesi üzerine bir şeyler yazmaya başlayan Isabel hanım iyi ki Neruda’yı dinlemiş de yazmış.
Çok şiddetli tavsiye ve özenme ile ani bir kararla başlamıştım kitaba. Son zamanlarda aldığım en isabetli kararlardan biriymiş, bilmiyordum.

4,5⭐

"La casa de los espíritus" es la historia de una saga familiar, llena de muerte, de amor y de magia, centrado en la figura del despótico y tiránico patriarca Esteban Trueba, y todas las personas que pasaron por su vida durante los noventa largos años que vivió. Muchos personajes se van a cruzar en esta historia, mientras el protagonismo va galopando de uno a otro conforme la trama va avanzando, pero siempre con la figura de Trueba como eje central.

Si os soy sincero, pese a que al final me ha encantando la obra y ha sido muy gratificante leerlo, me costó mucho meterme en la historia. Los dos o tres primeros capítulos me dejaron un poco desconcertado. Quizás tenía unas ideas preconcebidas sobra el libro y no me esperaba un protagonista tan detestable como Esteban Trueba. Es un villano hecho protagonista y a veces las barbaridades que hacía me costaba asimilarlas, sobre todo cuando las narraba en primera persona. Pero en cuanto empezaron a aparecer los personajes femeninos, que hay muchos y bastante interesantes, se relajo esto y ya solo fue disfrute.

Aunque el libro está narrado por una tercera persona que está contando la historia, a veces, había trocitos narrados en primera persona por Esteban Trueba que, como ya he dicho, al principio me sacaban un poco de mis casillas. Pero finalmente me parecieron un recurso bastante interesante, ya que mientras que cuando el narraba justifica sus acciones, cuando volvíamos a la tercera persona, eramos capaces de comprender la magnitud de su egoísmo y maldad. Un detallito que tampoco me gustó es que hay demasiadas escenas de maltratao animal. Demasiadas.

Hay muchos personajes en esta obra pero los que destacan mucho son el mismísimo trueba, Pedro Tercero, Miguel, y mis favoritas, el trío que representan Clara, Blanca y Alba, abuela, madre e hija. Quizás Clara ha sido mi favorita porque me ha parecido que dentro de su pacífica actitud, era la más justa con los demás y tanjante ante las acciones de Esteban, su marido. Alba también me ha gustado mucho, sobre todo en los últimos capítulos, que son una pasada. Un personaje maravilloso, que se ha quedado muy desaprovechado es Tránsito Soto, necesitamos una novela sobre ella.

Una de las cosas más disfrutables de la novela, es ese contexto histórico, la transformación que sufre Chile a lo largo de todos estos años. Esa derecha que creía tener el poder para siempre, como un derecho divino, que finalmente va perdiendo poco a poco cuando las personas más humildes empiezan a alzarse y reclamar sus derechos. Como la victoria de la izquierda, es ensombrecida por las estrategias de la derecha, con un golpe de estado como resultado. Flipante lo bien reflejado que está, como se va fraguando todo. De las cosas que más me han gustado.

Me ha sorprendido ver que la parte más mágica de este realismo mágico, llega un punto en la novela que prácticamente desaparece y se vuelve solo realista. Los últimos capítulos son durísimos, y rompen un poco con la tónica de la novela, y lo hacen en el buen sentido, porque son espectaculares. De hecho esta parte mágica es aportada, principalmente por Clara, mi personaje favorito de la historia. En difinitiva, me ha gustado mucho y aunque no ha sido todo lo que esperaba después de años de expectación, sí que me ha parecido una obra muy buena.