Isabel Allende

[Antonomasia, Admin only]

(1942- ) Originally Chilean; now a US citizen.

[will fill in bibliography later]

[Antonomasia, Admin only]

I've started reading Eva Luna (which was on my Women in Translation Month list last August). Enjoying it and would be glad to read more. (The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile).

I'm essentially reading her for the first time. I used to own a copy of Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses but I realised I didn't actually want to read it and eventually got rid of it.

Quite a few friends from this group have read several of Allende's books, I can see on the book pages. But I rarely hear anyone talking about her on GR, perhaps because a lot of people read her when they were younger, and before they joined the site. She can seem like an 80s-90s author as that's when she was getting most coverage and producing her most famous novels that are now on the 1001 list and study curriculums, although she is still going.

The few mentions of Isabel Allende I've seen in the last couple of years (not in this group) have been negative ones, giving her as an example of a middlebrow author. Sometimes middlebrow is exactly what I want to read though, and I think it's good the term is being reclaimed by people who enjoy these types of books.

- What have been your favourite and least favourite of her books?

- How would you characterise her work? And, especially if you've read quite a lot of Latin American / Spanish-language literature, how does she fit into it?

- It's clear that One Hundred Years of Solitude is a big influence on The House of the Spirits. Did you find you got more out of Allende's books from knowing GGM's work?

I don't really want to read more of him (that may belong in another thread). Though as I know he is so important in understanding Latin American lit, I will consider re-reading Solitude, and reading his autobiography.

Links to academic studies and in-depth articles welcome. I like the direction the Richard Powers thread has been taking in posting material like that,

[Hugh, Active moderator]

I read lots of her books in my 20s and 30s but to be honest I eventually got a bit bored by them, particularly once she started writing for children. My favourites were Eva Luna and House of the Spirits...

[Paul]

Perhaps unfairly she became associated with the more derivative side of magic realism, most notably by Roberto Bolano, the two of them not exactly being mutual fans.

He said in Between Parentheses:

“To call her a writer is to do her too much credit. I don’t even think Isabel Allende is a writer, she’s an escribidora.” (tr: scribbler)

although elsewhere he paid her a bizarrely backhanded compliment:

"Made to choose between the frying pan and the fire, I choose Isabel Allende. Her glamour of South American in California, her imitations of García Márquez, her unquestionable boldness, her practice of a literature that goes from kitsch to pathetic and that somehow resembles, in a creole and politically correct fashion, the work of the author of Valley of the Dolls, winds up being, although it seems difficult, much superior to the literature of born functionaries like [Antonio] Skármeta and [Volodia] Teitelboim."

She interviewed after his death in El Pais retaliated:

“He never had a good word for anyone. The fact that he’s dead doesn’t, in my opinion, make him a better writer. He was a very unpleasant person.”

[WndyJW]

I really liked The House of the Spirits and thought her Zorro was a fun light read, but I didn’t care for any others that I tried. I don’t recall if I tried to read Eva Luna by Isabel Allende Summary & Study Guide.

Isabel Allende is a charming person in interviews.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Hugh wrote: "I read lots of her books in my 20s and 30s but to be honest I eventually got a bit bored by them, particularly once she started writing for children. My favourites were Eva Luna and House of the Sp..."

Every word here applies to my views also.

[Antonomasia, Admin only]

A much longer excerpt here, in a comment, from the Bolaño essay Paul quoted: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
That, like this https://www.marcelavaldes.com/blog/20...
came up when I searched the quote.

I find this kind of battle-of-the-brows interesting and have quite a long comment half-drafted in my head; will come back later when I've time to write it all down.

[Paul]

I think though that there was a real problem for a period when the only LatAm literature getting translated into English was magic realism or derivatives thereof. Bit like Nordic noir, or Murakamiesque Japanese literature.

Whether it was fair (and difficult not to see an element of sexism/jealousy) to make Allende the poster child for that is another question.