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115th out of 237 books
—
292 voters
Saving the World
Alma, the narrator of "Saving the World," discovers a small historical footnote while doing research for a novel: In 1803, a Spanish doctor crossed the Atlantic with twenty-two orphan boys--live carriers of the smallpox vaccine--to inoculate the population of Spain's American colonies. Accompanying them on the two-year voyage was a mysterious woman, Isabel Sendales y Gomez...more
Paperback, 376 pages
Published
April 27th 2007
by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
(first published January 1st 2006)
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Aug 21, 2007
Lee
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Fans of either historical fiction and contemporary female authors
Shelves:
historical-fiction
Two stories alternately told are separated by time but linked thematically. Excellent story (ies), beautifully written. I thought it "worked" overall and was fascinated by the true story of the Spanish Royal Philanthropic Expedition which I had never heard of until I read this book. Although some critics have disliked Alma, the contemporary protagonist, I thought Alvarez really captured the self absorption (and attendant consequences of this modern malaise) so rampant today.
Aug 02, 2007
Abigail
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people who can take this kind of emotional drivel seriously
Shelves:
recentlyread
AWFUL. I can't believe I even picked this book back up after I motored through HP7. What a waste of time. Extremely redundant, which actually hurt my writerly soul.
Previously I had said:
I've only just begun this book, so it's hard to say how good it will end up being.
The novel follows Alma, a 49-year-old woman attempting to pull herself out of a depressive funk who is attempting to write another novel. However she keeps finding herself sidetracked with a the novel's side research--a sea voyage...more
Previously I had said:
I've only just begun this book, so it's hard to say how good it will end up being.
The novel follows Alma, a 49-year-old woman attempting to pull herself out of a depressive funk who is attempting to write another novel. However she keeps finding herself sidetracked with a the novel's side research--a sea voyage...more
Sep 21, 2007
Hawley
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
someone who's bored and likes to be told more than shown
I am almost done with this book and have discovered something. There are two female characters and each chapter alternates between the two. The challenge is that one, Alma, seems like a much more lively and realistic character - however, in THESE chapters, Julia Alvarez chooses to make very obvious statements to relate Alma's situation to that of the other character, Isabel. It's a bit like show-and-tell in kindergarten or something. It's just a bit over the top in trying to force teh connection...more
This book nearly received a 1-star rating so happy was I to be finally finished with it. It always seem that when a book flip-flops between 2 different story lines (in this book one is the present-day story of a depressed writer whose husband is off on an ecological mission and the other is the story of a nun in the 1800s who takes off on the only potential adventure of her lifetime to spread the small pox vaccination) you always want more of one and less of another... That feeling that when you...more
The latest in novels about the New World by the Dominican Republic woman -- now a professor in Vermont -- who burst into the landscape in 1991 with "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" (made into a popular motion picture. She has written several novels since, and I'm going to read every one!
This one is a novel within a novel: a Vermont author of Dominican birth refuses to go to the land of her birth with her husband when he is assigned by his non-governmental organization to build a clini...more
This one is a novel within a novel: a Vermont author of Dominican birth refuses to go to the land of her birth with her husband when he is assigned by his non-governmental organization to build a clini...more
This book wasn't an easy read for me, but my Mom gave it to me, so I soldered on until the end because she liked it. What I didn't like: the pace of the book was very leisurely, but the path taken was that of depression and self-absorption to the point of obliviousness to the people surrounding one of the main characters, Alma, who sorta snaps out of it too late. Not sure what the author was going for in the ending since it was bleak, but I guess it's a bleak ending for a bleak story. The plot t...more
Dit is het derde boek van Alvarez dat ik las. Lang, lang geleden las ik 'In de tijd van de vlinders', later 'In de naam van Salomé' en nu dan 'Een betere wereld'.
Alvarez schrijft over sterke vrouwen, die het nodige meemaken in onder druk staande maatschappijen. Verder komt regelmatig het letterlijk leven tussen twee culturen in naar voren. Zo ook in dit boek.
Hier draait het om twee vrouwen. Ten eerste een schrijfster, Alma, die op jonge leeftijd de Dominicaanse Republiek ontvluchtte en nu, op 50...more
Alvarez schrijft over sterke vrouwen, die het nodige meemaken in onder druk staande maatschappijen. Verder komt regelmatig het letterlijk leven tussen twee culturen in naar voren. Zo ook in dit boek.
Hier draait het om twee vrouwen. Ten eerste een schrijfster, Alma, die op jonge leeftijd de Dominicaanse Republiek ontvluchtte en nu, op 50...more
Very similar to HENDERSON THE RAIN KING in that I completely was unable to judge where the plot might be heading. Recommended, worth reading, if only for that. But Julia Alvarez is capable and it's important
Before I review, I like to see what other people have said, their likes and dislikes with the book. Did I like Alma? Not particularly. Doesn't mean I didnt appreciate following her. I feel like its easy to point to the dual narratives being didactic, and maybe it was, and I found myself skim...more
Before I review, I like to see what other people have said, their likes and dislikes with the book. Did I like Alma? Not particularly. Doesn't mean I didnt appreciate following her. I feel like its easy to point to the dual narratives being didactic, and maybe it was, and I found myself skim...more
This was the book I read after The Last Town on Earth and I wasn't nearly as impressed with it. It was a story about two women--one from current time and the other centuries before--and it skipped back and forth from one story to the other. One story was about the discovery of smallpox vaccine and it's dissemination to nations around the world using a small group of orphan boys who were vaccinated serialy (is that a word?) as they crossed the ocean. This kept the vaccine fresh so that when they...more
This belongs that hit or miss category of novel that attempts to connect a contemporary story rooted in the modern woes of a writer/journalist with the subject of her historical research. The novel becomes the story of two women from vastly different circumstances and eras whose stories begin to merge. The great risk in writing a novel with distinct story lines is that one will be far more compelling than the other. Such is the case with Saving the World. The story involving an expedition of twe...more
A novel within a novel, with one story being way more compelling than the other. Alvarez makes Alma a sort of mirror of herself: a writer who wrote a story about Latin American women, which makes it onto school reading lists, who decides that she wants to write about something more. She becomes obsessed with the story of Isabel, an orphanage keeper, who travels with her orphans a Spanish doctor to the New World to help prevent the spread of smallpox. Alma's story, which involves her husband goin...more
May 02, 2009
Jenny Maloney
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical,
lit-ladies
I really loved the parallels that Alvarez created in this book:
Smallpox-AIDS
Alma (woman touched by idealistic man in today's world)-Isabel (woman touched by idealistic man in yesterday's world)
Richard (idealistic man today)-Francisco Balmis (idealistic man yesterday)
Basically Alma's husband is trying to develop a vaccine for AIDS in the Dominican Republic and Isabel is in charge of a group of orphans who are carrying the small pox vaccine to the New World. This story is about the casualties that...more
Smallpox-AIDS
Alma (woman touched by idealistic man in today's world)-Isabel (woman touched by idealistic man in yesterday's world)
Richard (idealistic man today)-Francisco Balmis (idealistic man yesterday)
Basically Alma's husband is trying to develop a vaccine for AIDS in the Dominican Republic and Isabel is in charge of a group of orphans who are carrying the small pox vaccine to the New World. This story is about the casualties that...more
Alma knows she's fully reached mid-life crisis when she begins questioning the relevancy of her life. Sure, she's a beloved wife and published author, but something feels missing. Her book's deadline has passed, and she still has no book to show for it. While she loves her husband, she receives a disturbing call from an anonymous woman, stating that the woman had slept with Alma's husband and transmitted AIDS to him. In the midst of all of this, Alma begins learning about a woman, Isabel, who vo...more
This is a book that has two stories in one. The first one is of Alma living in modern times as a novelist who can no longer continue writing a story she doesn't believe in. Instead she concentrates on the story of Isabel, a rectoress in charge of leading several orphan boys for the small pox vaccine in the Spanish provinces as commissioned by the Spanish king. Both are on a mission as Alma's husband works on setting up a clinic in the Dominican Republic. Isabel is after saving the world through...more
This one was my least favorite Alvarez, but it was still worth reading. I felt like the historical portions were unfocused, and the parts set in the present were predictable and a little dull. I think that perhaps the common link between the past and present (men driven to altruistic acts to the point of deserting their families and putting themselves in danger) was almost too obvious, but then also underdeveloped. I'm only being this critical because I know Alvarez is capable of a more fully im...more
A new favorite of mine.
This beautifully written novel weaves together the stories of two women. One is a present-day novelist (Alma) grappling with writer's block and life changes, while the other women (Isabel) left her life as a nun in an orphanage in the early 1800s to voyage around the world to help eradicate small pox, using her young orphan boys as human vessels to carry the precious vaccine (which was made by infecting the child with cowpox, a disease harmless to humans which imparted imm...more
This beautifully written novel weaves together the stories of two women. One is a present-day novelist (Alma) grappling with writer's block and life changes, while the other women (Isabel) left her life as a nun in an orphanage in the early 1800s to voyage around the world to help eradicate small pox, using her young orphan boys as human vessels to carry the precious vaccine (which was made by infecting the child with cowpox, a disease harmless to humans which imparted imm...more
A warm, if not quite glowing, reception greets Julia Alvarez's fifth novel. Moving away from her accomplished family sagas like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Alvarez takes up the humanitarian mantle to explore the enduring chasm between the first and third worlds. Critics love her characters, particularly the spirited Isabel, and they respect the novel's ambition, even if some believe she hasn't quite pulled it off. The warmth of her vision provides
...more
A fascinating book so far...alternating chapters of a present-day writer and her husband, with chapters of a book that she's writing about a Spanish scientist who sailed into The New World with a ship full of orphans and the rectoress to help stop the spread of smallpox.
Very interesting!
This one definitely grew on me, though I'm still not sure that I liked Alma, the protagonist of the story taking place in Vermont...
It was unusual and interesting to have a book that was two novels in one. I enjo...more
Very interesting!
This one definitely grew on me, though I'm still not sure that I liked Alma, the protagonist of the story taking place in Vermont...
It was unusual and interesting to have a book that was two novels in one. I enjo...more
A Latina writer suffering depression & failure to complete a contracted novel stays behind in Vermont as her husband goes to the Dominican Republic, her home country, to manage an environmental project. The writer's interest shifts from the multigenerational Latina saga she's supposed to be writing to the story of a woman, a preceptress of an orphanage in Spain, who participates in an expedition in 1803-5 to carry a smallpox vaccination around the world. In both cases, the principal actors m...more
I loved In the Time of the Butterflies, so when my brand-new library card and I came upon a Julia Alvarez book I'd never heard of, we decided to give it a try.
Well...In the Time of the Butterflies this book ain't. There's very little action, and it switches back and forth between its two stories without really doing a good enough job of unifying the two. We start out reading the story of Alma, a modern-day Dominican woman living in Vermont, trying and failing to finish the novel she's been promi...more
Well...In the Time of the Butterflies this book ain't. There's very little action, and it switches back and forth between its two stories without really doing a good enough job of unifying the two. We start out reading the story of Alma, a modern-day Dominican woman living in Vermont, trying and failing to finish the novel she's been promi...more
There are two stories intertwined in the novel: one of Alma, a self-centered depressive author and the other of Isabel, a no-centered Spanish rectoress who, in 1803, with her 23 orphan boys, joins Dr. Balmis on a ship bound for the new world destined to save the world from smallpox. The boys are to be carriers; each of them vaccinated with cowpox and then, when the vesicles fill with fluid, it will be harvested to vaccinate others. This part is, basically, a true story. In a nut shell, the book...more
This is an interesting concept; a "novel-within a- novel" and although you think it will be complicated sometimes to keep the stories separate , the author has done a great job.
The stars are two remarkable women, both in their own time.
I was more intrigued with the "Isabel" story in this novel, maybe because it was such a big undertaking what she did in those early 1800's days,accompany 22 boys, vaccine carriers , to "the new world" as the only woman aboard a ship as with Alma's problems in thi...more
The stars are two remarkable women, both in their own time.
I was more intrigued with the "Isabel" story in this novel, maybe because it was such a big undertaking what she did in those early 1800's days,accompany 22 boys, vaccine carriers , to "the new world" as the only woman aboard a ship as with Alma's problems in thi...more
I preferred the smallpox storyline and to find out about the royal expedition as a real event was fascinating. I think the book went too long, for both stories and the contemporary one felt really..off. But it was still a quick read and touched on a lot of themes I thought were interesting. However, one huge pet peeve was the discussion of AIDS. It seemed the author did a lot of research for the novel but she could have done more on this aspect. It drives me crazy that people don't understand th...more
I am not sure what made me hesitate with this book. It took me a while to finish reading. The author uses a different technique to get her message across though I am not sure what the message is. Like a two person narrative, you read about the main character (an author herself) alternately with a book brewing in the main character's head. While both parts of the story are interesting enough, I kept wanting more info on the part I had just left and was made to wait for another chapter for resolut...more
Story within a story. Alma Huebner writes at a medical do-gooder, Spaniard Francisco Xavier Balmis, who in 1803 unertook to vaccinate the populations of Spain's American colonies against smallpox. To do this, he required live "carriers" of the vaccine, orphan boys who are the charges of Isabel Sendales y Gomez, herself scarred with smallpox. Alma decides to not go with her husband Richard when he travels to her native land, The Dominican Republic, on an extended AIDS assignment. Alvarez exposes...more
A fictionalized story about a true event is intertwined with a story set in the present day. Alma is a writer who is researching the history of Dona Isabel, a little-known woman who played an important role in history. As the director of an orphanage, she agrees to allow some of her boys to be vaccinated with cowpox in order to sail around the world and distribute it as a vaccine to smallpox. I preferred the actual historical story to that of the present day story. It was amazing to read about t...more
Hmmm. Well, the book kept me going, but it became a bit ridiculous at some point. There are really two stories in the book and one of them is far more interesting than the other. I thought the historical research Alvarez did and presented in the book about the first smallpox vaccine was intriguing and amazing, but about 3/4 of the way through, it's as though she wanted to wrap up the book but had too much to tell still so she skipped a lot and lost some of the rapport the reader built with Isabe...more
I thought this book had its good moments, especially during the siege at Richard's clinic. I also thought Alma was too self-absorbed. I got confused by the proliferation of characters surrounding Isabel and the many locations she ended up at. However, I did learn something about the history of the late Spanish empire as it was collapsing in the early 19th century. The Balmis expedition was a fascinating concept, and apparently quite successful.
This book was narrated by Blanca Camacho, who was ex...more
This book was narrated by Blanca Camacho, who was ex...more
A historical fiction novel that tells the story of Don Francisco Balmis, the courageous Spainaid who embarked on a two year voyage across the world to rid the world of smallpox. He left Spain with 22 orphan boys who were live-carriers of the disease in order to vaccinate people in an attempt to rid the future populations of this deadly disease. Along with him,Isabel,an orphanage director accompanies and acts as a caregiver and 'mother' to these boys. Along the way, they were met with hostility a...more
I found this book frustrating and unsatisfying. While I understand the comparisons the author was trying to make, those comparisons were not strong enough to justify the "ping-ponging" of the reader between the two stories.
Alma's story, the best told of the two tales might have interested me if it had been told in isolation. (In fact, either story might have interested me in isolation.) But, all of my investment in the story line was lost when when suddenly jolted into the second plot. Apparent...more
Alma's story, the best told of the two tales might have interested me if it had been told in isolation. (In fact, either story might have interested me in isolation.) But, all of my investment in the story line was lost when when suddenly jolted into the second plot. Apparent...more
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Julia Alvarez was born in New York City. Her parents moved back to the Dominican Republic when Alvarez was 3 months old and she was raised there until she was 10, when the family moved back to NYC.
She is currently writer-in-residence at Middlebury College and the owner of a coffee farm named Alta Gracia, near Jarabacoa in the mountains of the Dominican Republic. The farm hosts a school to teach l...more
More about Julia Alvarez...
She is currently writer-in-residence at Middlebury College and the owner of a coffee farm named Alta Gracia, near Jarabacoa in the mountains of the Dominican Republic. The farm hosts a school to teach l...more
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Feb 22, 2008 07:43pm