I've read two of Allende's novels now (this, and The House of the Spirits) and I'm smitten. Her narratives are sprawling, ever-changing, slightly magical, and imaginative. Her characters undergo constant, whirlwind twists of fate and chance. Eva Luna is central in the universe (of the novel and at large) in part because she is constructing and shaping her own story as she lives it and then again as she writes it, but also because she is strong, imaginative, interesting; she's worthy of the novel's attention. This idea of rewriting reality comes up repeatedly in the novel (see the quotations below) and it fascinates me. First, because of the meta-fictional sense it gives to the novel - Allende is writing a story about Eva Luna writing a story about herself and her country. But I also find it fascinating to consider how this affects the novel's 'truth.' It's impossible to know what actually happens to Eva Luna and what she creates when she writes. This provides a basis for some of the magical instances in the story but, more than that, it imparts a refreshing sense of freedom. We all have the option to use our memories and experiences in new ways, explaining them away, building them up, even changing them. Of course, in real life, truth has its place, but Allende shows that truth isn't always clear, or helpful. And in most things, the small events and feelings of our lives, the truth of what actually happens to us matters far less than how we think about it, feel about it, and are changed by it. Rewriting reality is, for Eva Luna, the source of her resiliency. "I began to wonder whether anything truly existed, whether reality wasn't an unformed and gelatinous substance only half-captured by my senses. There was no proof that everyone perceived it in the same way." "In the motionless sands where my stories germinated, every birth, death, and happening depended on me. I could plant anything I wanted in those sands; I had only to speak the right word to give it life. At times I felt that the universe fabricated from the power of the imagination had stronger and more lasting contours than the blurred realm of the flesh-and-blood creatures around me." "I was writing a new episode each day, totally immersed in the world I was creating with the all-encompassing power of words, transformed into a multifaceted being, reproduced to infinity, seeing my own reflection in multiple mirrors, living countless lives, speaking with many voices." "Reality is a jumble we can't always measure or decipher, because everything is happening at the same time... I try to open a path through that maze, put a little order in that chaos, to make life more bearable. When I write, I describe life as I would like it to be." Allende also visits the subject of being a woman, mostly quietly, but occasionally overtly and politically: "For Naranjo, and others like him, "the people" seemed to be composed exclusively of men; we women should contribute to the struggle but were excluded from decision-making and power. His revolution would not change my fate in any fundamental way." "Look, Eva, men like Naranjo can't ever change. They may modify the rules, but they always operate on the same principle: authority, competitiveness, greed, repression -- it's always the same... What has to change in this world are attitudes." Both of these quotations attribute situations like that in Chile to patriarchy and traditionally 'male' characteristics (competition, authority, power, etc). This is a discussion the world hasn't been having for very long, and it's nice to see it here, in a 25-year-old novel. Allende gives her characters the freedom to speak their truth, as flawed or narrow or off-putting as it might seem to some readers. What I mean by that is that discussions like the patriarchy one I described above are not had in crystalized, bold, liberal, politically-correct statements. Instead they are seamless parts of who the characters are, stemming from the characters themselves and not an authorial agenda.Themes: magical realism, Chile, women, 60s, love, sex, storytelling, self-determination, stories as resilience, rewriting reality
هذه الرواية هي الرواية الثالثة التي كتبتها الروائية العظيمة إيزابيل وقد اختلف أسلوب إيزابيل في هذه الرواية عن رائعتها التاريخية أنيس حبيبة روحي حيث تشعر أنها أكثر نضجا في الأخيرة ربما لأن إيفا كانت من بواكير الروايات التي كتبتها الليندي الرواية تدور حول فتاة نشأت في ظروف غير طبيعية عاشت كخادمة تتنقل من بيت لآخر منذ صغرها وكانت قد اكتشفت مهارة قص الحكايات لديها وهي الوسيلة التي استخدمتها للتواصل مع الآخرين بعد أن فقدت والدتها وهي طفلة ولم يعد لها أقارب سوى عرابتها التي قدمتها كخادمة لإحدى العائلات كنت أرى كثيرا في بطلة الحكاية شخصية الليندي الماهرة في السرد تقول الليندي : "دائماً ما جذبني عالم سرد الحكايات. كانوا ينعتونني بالكاذبة، أما اليوم فإنني أربح من كذبي هذا، وفي النتيجة أصبحت كاتبة. الكذب، كما يذكر أغلب الكتّاب، أصبح متفوقاً على الحقيقة، والرواية الأدبية تتجاوز العالم الواقعي الذي يحيطنا"تماما كبطلة الرواية هناك أحداثا كثيرة بالرواية ماضي الفتاة والدتها عرابتها علاقاتها صداقاتها المشبوهة وحرب العصابات ضد السلطة التي أقحمت نفسها فيها في هذه الرواية تطرقت الليندي للأجواء الديكتاتورية التي كانت تعم البلاد والتمرد الذي كان تعيشه مختلف الطبقات من خلال حرب العصابات الخطيرة التي تورطت فيها إيفا لاشيء يشبه سرد الليندي الممتع ولا قدرتها البارعة على جلب البهجة لعينيك وأنت تقفز معها من سطر لآخر هذه الروائية بارعة تستطيع أن تقدم لك المعلومة والمتعة في آن واحد
What do You think about Eva Luna (1989)?
This is the first book by Isabel Allende that I've read and I can totally see myself getting addicted to her writing...That, and my mother has sent me about 10 of her books to read here in Malaysia. But I stayed up all night last night just to finish the last half of the book, and that usually means that I really like it. The story is about two people who fall in love, but the story is about thier lives before they meet. The story is also about the social and political situation in the annoymous South American country Allende is writing about. I believe its Chile, but if anybody knows for certain tell me! Beautifully written. I just picked up some of her short stories in Spanish, so I'm pretty excited to keep reading this author!
—Zoë
If I could I would give this book a 3.5, but I don't think it was good enough to get 4 stars. I did enjoy Eva Luna, once again we see how Allende manages to weave her words together to create a tale of mystical characters, exotic locations and voluptuous sex scenes. She seems to paint everything with the hazy brush of memory, thus giving everything in her book an ethereal quality. The plot of this book is fairly standard (guerilla army fighting for freedom) but it's quite enjoyable. One of the major issues I had with this book is that the first 100 pages seemed to do nothing but develop the characters and tell their histories, and that had the feeling of being done purely for the sake of it. I'd rather learn about my characters during the actual happenings of the novel, rather than having a couple of chapters which brushes past their history just to paint the picture.The second issue I had was that politics wasn't a *major* theme at the beginning of the book, and then when the plot gets going we're suddenly plunged into the world of guerilla movements and corrupt political leaders and student riots etc. I'd rather she had taken the first 100 pages, and dedicated them to filling out the story she uses in the last 200.All in all though, a good book and I will read her next book "The Stories of Eva Luna". This book has also given me a desire to read 'One Thousand and One Nights', which I'm about to order off amazon.
—Stuart
Perhaps it is merely a reflection of my feebleness as a reader that I assume the basic conceit of any first person novel is for the author to be the narrator, more or less. In my defense, this book is dedicated to Allende's mother. And the story itself is about a girl who loses her mother and loves her mother deeply and has all kinds of wooooonderful adventures, only to discover writing and have even more maaaaaaagical adventures, and become highly successful, and be pursued by a general and also a communist rebel and a successful photographer. Everyone loves her. Something about it rubs me the wrong way. Maybe because I think the narrator is Allende and yet my main problem with the narrator is that she apparently has no flaws. She is never mean to anyone in the book, never angry, and, truth be told, never too interesting. People want a narrator who is riddled with doubt and self-loathing. Someone a little more like you and me. Instead we get heavy handed and self important:"I just do what I can. Reality is a jumble we can't always measure or decipher, because everything is happening at the same time....I try to open a path through that maze, to put a little order in that chaos, to make life more bearable. When I write, I describe life as I would like it to be."Barf. I will also say I disliked that the narrator had a quality of simply announcing the events of the book. One day she was just done with loving her communist rebel. Poof. One moment she just decided she was beautiful. Abracadabra. Always with little or no lead-up. I like to move with a narrator, not several steps behind her. There were still flashes of the mystical storyteller I recall so fondly from House of the Spirits. Maybe I was just younger then. I don't know. All I know is I'm glad I checked this book out of the library instead of buying it.
—Audrey
