Thursday, April 28, 2011
Allende
The book The House Of The Spirits is unlike any that I have ever read. I think this is because of its genre of magical realism and the was that it is narrated with more than one person. I am not sure what to think of the magical realism. On one hand it adds magical things to a very down to earth plot which makes seems to create a feeling of "so could this really happen or not..." On the other hand it does help to give the book a sense of mystery. In most books it is easy to place the book in a set of similar story lines, such as the maiden in distress or the journey overcoming obstacles just to name two. Isabel Allende's book is able to be unlike the generic story because of the way that it includes magical and very ordinary happenings side by side throughout the entire story.
One of my favorite characters form the book is Clara. I liked her from the beginning when she spoke up in church and it was obvious that she was unlike anyone else. I think she is able to draw readers in with her supernatural powers. It is always neat when we are told by Clara what is going to happen and then we are able to read how it does happen just that way on the next page. I also admire her ability to do exactly what she wants to do, no matter what others have to say. She showed this when she went silent for years. I was very impressed with the way that she was able to keep silent even when the doctors and her mother tried so hard to get her to talk, and then one day years later she just decides to talk again.
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I also was unsure of what to think about this book when I first began reading it. I wasn't sure if I liked it or didn't like it based on the first few chapters. But as I've read one the book has pulled me in and Clara is one of the characters that has also kept me interested. There are so many different events that happen around her that it makes her the perfect person to narrate some of the book. Her powers also bring another aspect that I found very interesting. I am very curious though to see how this book is going to end.
ReplyDeleteAs you said, Allende's novel was a hard one to place. The magical realism made the book bizarre; however, it instilled enough curious for me to read the novel all the way through (Alas, some of the sections I wish I hadn't read). Regarding Clara, truthfully I could not stand her character. She had a skewed view of reality where at times she would attempt to change the future, or at other times she would just heed to fate. Either pick one or the other not both!
ReplyDeleteI think that the beginning of the book is pretty deceptive about how Clara's life is going to turn out. As a young woman, she is independent and self confident, but after her marriage to Trueba, she begins to personify the normal submissive woman of the time period in the fact that she gives in to Trueba's demands and doesn't fulfill all of the dreams that she would like to.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with you that the magic realism is one of the book's strong points. The oddities and contradictions that it creates with reality are definitely what has kept my attention this long throughout the novel. I think that it adds necessary flavor to a rather dull subject.
Clara and the magical realism have also helped to keep me interested in reading the story. I think the way Allende uses magical realism helps to keep the book unpredictable. The reader never knows what's coming next, and because there's an element of the supernatural in the book, it could be anything. I agree with the above comment about the book being somewhat misleading as to what will happen in Clara's life. She does seem to become more submissive once she gets married, but I don't think she really cares. She lives her life in a world of her own, and the things going on around her don't seem to affect her that much.
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