The House of the Spirits

Though not as circular as One Hundred Years of Solitude, The House of the Spirits does begin and end with almost the exact same sentence. It does however, reflect the cycle of social lives and how they repeat and occasionally change from generation to generation. Furthermore, I’ll repeat what I said about Marquez’s epic and apply it here: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende is not for the faint of heart, nor the short on imagination.

Published in 1982, it is a fairy’s tale of love, ambition, the mysticism of humanity, and the course of history in one Latin American country told from the perspective of someone who truly lived it. Allende is a master when it comes to creating magical realism that stays true to itself: what she writes is both magical and real. In The House of the Spirits she has delivered us a tale of the fictional Trueba and del Valle families and allowed us to share in their lives as they live them alongside the political clashes that marred South America’s history in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the divisive gulf that (still) exists between the indigenous and the criollos there, and the very real Poet and the Candidate/President.

In short, to understand social justice, liberation theology, or South America, one must have read this book. The clash that marks the beginning of the end of this text really happened, on September 11^th, 1973; a different kind of terrifying 9/11. The torture, the horror, the human rights violations are all true. A good follow-up to The House of the Spirits would be Allende’s Of Love and Shadows followed by My Invented Country.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I adore Allende’s books. I chose this book in April for our club to read because I want other people to read her and love her too. And if they don’t I can’t say I didn’t try. She opens up a world of literary possibility that is a bit more accessible than Marquez while giving the reader a glimpse of a culture, history, and people that we know so very little about in the United States, despite our government’s involvement there, despite our dependence on oil from there, despite our proximity, and despite our common history of invasion and colonization.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez is not for the faint of heart, nor for the short in imagination. Magical realism is a genre that requires the reader's full participation. One must be able to believe in flying carpets, bones in walls that go cloc-cloc, and assumptions into heaven of one so pure she shaved her head just to be rid of the nuisance. These outlandish ideas exist not as props of science fiction or fantasy, but as something that perhaps at one time existed, and therefore, aren't out of our realm of belief. I describe magical realism to people as the memory of a dream, you just know that it happened, even if it isn't physically possible.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is the tome of a family, the Buendías. They have a tendancy to repeat the names Aureliano, José, and Arcadio so if you undertake the challenge be sure your book has a family tree in the front and flag it. You'll be referring back to it a lot. And that's ok. Just because you lose track of a character here and there does not mean you aren't "getting it." Give yourself some credit. The first read only requires that you savor the story.

The opening sentence alone gives the reader an idea of the type of book they're in for: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." Márquez goes on to describe that distant afternoon, all the while you're wondering: ice? Give me a break! Go back to the firing squad! After such an expertly crafted opening line, one would be awfully beige to not want to know how this all works out. The book is full of rambling sentences like this; you have trouble tracing their origin but they draw you in. Stories about the Buendías bloom like begonias on each page and while it does become a bit troublesome linking them, soldier on. As I said before, the book is neither for the faint of heart, nor the uncommitted, but worth it every time.

By the end of the story (saga?), one should have an idea of Márquez's intent: addressing the cyclical nature with which our existence unfolds. Societies are doomed to repeated mistakes, wars, and destruction. He further declares this to be predestined. Meh. I don't buy into fate or destiny so I reject this analysis. Instead, I prefer to see the theme as the intertwining relationship of the past and future with the present.

A beach read this is not, though my copy has seen its fair share of sunscreen and sand. I highly recommend this book to those who can let go of caffeine and Facebook long enough to allow themselves to be told the tallest of tall tales.