"House of Spirits" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Did you foresee feeling the way you feel about this book?

A few questions to get us started:

1. What did you think of the format of the book?
2. What were your thoughts on the various characters and how they were written?
3. What spoke to you (or did not speak to you) in the book?
4. Overall thoughts on the story?

[J.W.]

I found myself skimming this pretty early on. I love the idea of a generational fantasy but this one had me feeling kind of gross and creeped out early on. The amount of brutality in it, implied or explicit, really did not sit right with me. Not a fan and pseudo DNF for me due to the amount of skimming I did.

[Holli]

I was ok with the format of the book and thought there was some beautiful writing in it. I liked seeing into the different generations. However, I did not care for the story and felt an absence of plot. I couldn’t connect or come to care about any of the characters. It was a bit of a depressing read and I felt that I was being manipulated to have sympathy with a rapist who was truly a disgusting person. The only thing I got out of it was that what you put out comes back around...or at least, the women will pay for it... in this story. I was SUPER disappointed in the lack of spirits in this “House of Spirits”. I could have used a bit more of the fantastical elements.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Holli, I think you captured most of my complaints as well. Gorgeous and so many neat elements but, like 20 degrees off from what I was actually hoping to get from this story.

[Eva]

Yes, those were my reasons why I didn't like it when I first read it and why I didn't reread it. Beautiful prose, but not the kind of story I like to read, and too much brutality especially sexualized violence against women, and too much sympathizing with the perpetrator. But now I'm sorry you guys felt the same, I was kind of hoping I had misremembered it.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I don't know why we spent so much time with him when there was someone who could play piano with the lid closed. That's the interesting part lol let's spend more time there.

[E.D.]

About half way through this book I remembered the comments I heard about the first GOT (the magic and dragons are more of an add on to the story then an integral part). I felt the same about the spirits in this story, their relevance has been exaggerated, the story would be the same without them.

As for the characters, I did not feel that Allende excuses or sympathises with the rapist in any way. Nor does she actually engender much sympathy for the other characters in her story (well she didn’t for me any way, perhaps it was lost in the translation). As I read her early description of Trueba’s relationship with his elderly mother, paying money instead of providing physical care and contact. I could certainly see the realism of such behaviour in my own life, as I'm sure some other sons could, leaving the hard bits to the females in the family, (although I must add that I was nowhere near as bad).

I get the feeling that the author has a deep insight in to the attitudes and feelings of a upper middle class Latin American family through the twentieth century but holds back, merely reporting it rather than taking us down an emotional rout; even in the violence and torture passages.

Overall I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed the book and it took more effort then my recent reading, (it reminds me a bit of the Russian classics, I never did finish Crime and Punishment) but I am glad that I have read it.

[Ben]

I'm really glad to find everyone else had the same response. When I initially looked it up there was a lot of praise online, so I was worried it was just me.

I have a really tough time with sexual violence in general in books, but I can often push past it as long as the description isn't too graphic. In this case, the casual nature actually made it worse. It was impossible to forget, and in fact continued to be brought up time and again.

I understand that this was a reality for a lot of people around this time period, but it kept being hammered in. There was also a lot of age-specific weirdness. Girls being described as "mature" a little to early for my comfort.

The entire book I kept waiting for something to happen. In a book where the main character is capable of moving things with her mind, I was really disappointed to have more "oops, here i go r*ping a gain" scenes than interesting supernatural scenes.

Overall just a bummer, and I would have absolutely DNF'd if it weren't for the group read. Even so, I skimmed the last half.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Yeah, I feel like we were all misled a bit about the focus of this book. I'm sorry it was tough for you, Ben! Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

ED yes--this felt like a report rather than a story, well said! I agree that I don't think the author is agreeing with Trueba, but the sheer amount of time he gets both in his heinous deeds and in giving us his justifications is enough to make me wonder why he was the focal point, really. We have all these women who do truly miraculous things, or who are obviously very complex, but they are essentially pushed to the side in favor of us seeing how this man ruined lives and then blamed them for it.

If there had been invective against him, I'd have thought this was a sort of cathartic "pen is mightier than the sword" sort of revenge but the sort of bland retelling of it all made it seem more like we were supposed to be in his head, supposed to see "both sides" so to speak. At least to me, anyways.

[Ben]

Allison wrote: "Yeah, I feel like we were all misled a bit about the focus of this book. I'm sorry it was tough for you, Ben! Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Honestly I don't regret reading it overall. I get a lot of value out of this group in that it pushes me to read books I would never have considered on my own. I think The Mere Wife was a great example of that.

I've never read any magic realism, and while I didn't enjoy this specifically, there were a lot of aspects of it that I did enjoy, and that I'll seek out more actively now. I specifically enjoyed the structure, swapping between perspectives and flowing through generations.

It's definitely not my cup of tea, but I'm not upset that it was chosen for this month!

[Mitch]

Wow! It looks like I might one of the few book club members that felt compelled to write because it was so amazing. At first, I thought this was so directly inspired by Garcia Marquez that I got irritated. I thought do we really need a female-centered family saga that looks a lot like 100 Years of Solitude? Turns out the answer is absolutely yes. I think Ms. Allende uses Mr. Garcia Marquez's method against him. This novel means to record the horrible history of Chile in stark detail. Beautiful sentences, ephemeral spirits and whimsical detail are part of the art here, but they will not save these characters from real horror of history and despotism. In the end, the only real weapon these woman have are their stories which remember the details in all their happiness, wistfulness or suffering. Five stars without reservation.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I love that insight, Mitch, thank you for sharing! I really think you're onto something with stories being what the women in this story get to keep.

[John]

"Allison wrote: "Yeah, I feel like we were all misled a bit about the focus of this book. Ben wrote: Honestly I don't regret reading it overall. I get a lot of value out of this group in that it pushes me to read books I would never have considered on my own. ..."

I just DNF'd at 50% but agree with Alison and Ben. Might have finished it with a different expectation. Will be traveling to Argentina with a dip into Chile in a bit and like to read books about where I am going so this was a difficult DNF. Although interesting and suspect I gave up just when it was going to get better, was expecting something different and because did not meet that, moving on to something else.

[Christopher]

I wasn’t really feeling this one so peeked in here to see if everyone loved it and I should continue. Seeing the posts here I think I’ll DNF (or at least set aside for now).

[Sheri]

I found this book to be very long-winded and uninteresting. It had no plot. It was more like a character study. I found it hard to read and sympathize with a rapist main character. I don’t see how the little bit of magic in this book made someone consider it to be part of the fantasy genre. The magic was more like a character trait that some characters possessed, but was not a major plot element in the book. I would not read this book again.

[Karen]

I can't really find much positive to say about what I did read. I managed 3 chapters and then said that was more than enough.

Allende has a way with description but the overall story was just not a compelling read.

One of my few DNF'd books.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Womp womp. Who'da thunk that an award winning author writing a book about a mystic would end up causing this much distaste!

Well, I thank you all for giving it a go, and I hope next month's book is better for you--I can guarantee fewer rapists and a much faster read.

[Catherine]

It's been a very long time since I read this one, but I know it didn't resonate with me. to be fair, I probably should re-read it in order to comment at length.

[Alexandra]

I finally finished this! I agree with most of the comments above about the content and writing. There were parts that really captured me, but most of it was a slow read. Not my type of book, but overall I’m glad I gave it a chance and finished it.

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

I just finished as well, just in time! I liked the Chilean aspect and that was about it. Too much brutatlity, not enough magic both figuratively and literally.

[Dixie]

Just finished this long, dense read. My main complaint isn't the violence, it's that I would never call this book "fantasy." In fact it's almost the opposite, in spite of the (very few) mystical elements. Does even the lightest touch of magical realism make a book fantasy? This was painfully, brutally, and even historically a realistic story. No more like this please, not in this group.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Haha I can't make any promises! We don't always read them before they're nominated, so all we have to go on is what others have said.

But! That said, we will try to take a break from magical realism for a bit ^^ (at least, on the mods' side of things!)

[Tom]

Mitch wrote: "Wow! It looks like I might one of the few book club members that felt compelled to write because it was so amazing. At first, I thought this was so directly inspired by Garcia Marquez that I got ir..."

You aren't the only one. I majored in Latin American studies and closely followed the events in Chile during the Allende years so I was immediately drawn to this story that used a family saga to tell the story of this country. The brutality was hard to swallow but to tell this story without it would would be a disservice to all who suffered through the events. Rape, especially in Latin American literature, is a metaphor referring to the powerful who, believing themselves entitled, seize what they want without regard for others.

Several times during the book the author mentions the people marching through the streets singing a song about how the people united would never be defeated. That almost brought tears to my eyes because I knew the song and had heard it often. I managed to find it on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhpSw...

Thanks to the mods for nominating this book. I, for one, loved it.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I don't think the rape/powerful man without regard or fear of consequence parallel was lost on others, but I am glad you both enjoyed it! And thank you so much for the YT link, I love adding to the context in discussion ^^

[Jen]

I recently heard Isabel Allende on Julia Louis-Dreyfus' podcast Wiser Than Me, and it inspired me to bump this book up my TBR. I don't think it was fantasy and doesn't really belong on this shelf, and I can see from the comments here and in the other thread that it wasn't terribly well-received here, and I can totally get why. It really wasn't fantasy, it was the (fictionalized?) story of her family. I was fascinated by the story of the historical events and I've done some reading about the political upheaval in Chile, the first Socialist president who was then taken out of power by a military dictatorship supported by the US. Fascinating and upsetting. Henry Kissinger's death has stirred all of that history back to life and I'll be reading more about it.

Trueba was a despicable man and did horrible things, but we also see from such a long story why he was like that and what motivated him. Not that it redeems him or lets him off the hook, but it feels true to life. It feels like an actual story about an actual person. He was a monster, yet he loved his granddaughter, and I can see how the story was spun between the two. It makes sense to me from a storytelling standpoint why we stayed with him so much.

To me, this was a story told from a place of love for a difficult man. I really enjoyed the story, the writing, and I'll definitely be reading more of the author's work.