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Zorro is a 2005 fictional biography and the first origin story of the pulp hero Zorro, written by Chilean author Isabel Allende. A prequel to the events of the original Zorro story, Johnston McCulley's 1919 novella The Curse of Capistrano, it contains numerous references to earlier Zorro-related works, especially the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro directed by Martin Campbell (who also directed The Legend of Zorro in 2005). The novel weaves famous historical figures into the story but also contains a few instances of magic, which has led some critics to place it in the realm of magical realism.
[edit] Fictional Characters Appearing in Earlier Zorro Works
- Bernado was Diego De La Vega's milk brother, because they were fed from the same breast. Bernado is a native of California. He is guided by a spirit horse. He appears to be mute to everyone, including Diego, after witnessing his mother raped and murdered; the only exception is that he is not mute with his wife.
- Lolita Pulido, whom Diego will later court in The Curse of Capistrano, appears as a young girl who falls in love with the disguised Zorro without realizing that he is her childhood friend Diego.
[edit] Fictional Characters Unique to Zorro
- Lechuza Blanca ("White Owl") is the maternal grandmother of Don Diego de la Vega (Zorro). She is a powerful healer and shaman, the spiritual leader of a Californian native tribe that has successfully resisted being incorporated into the Mission system or being dominated by the Spanish invaders. She is Diego's spiritual mentor and leads him into the vision quest through which he discovers that the fox (which in Spanish is "Zorro") acts as his totem or guardian spirit. Her daughter Toypurnia is Diego's mother.
- Toypurnia ("Daughter of Wolf") is the mother of Don Diego de la Vega. Her father was Diego Salazar, a Spanish renegade. Her name means "daughter of the wolf," because she was indeed fostered by wolves for a brief period in her childhood. She had other names, including Grey Wolf and Regina de la Vega.
[edit] Historical Characters
- George Sand: The famed French novelist makes an appearance as a young girl in love with Diego.
- Jean Lafitte: Diego and his companions are captured by the notorious French pirate of the Louisiana bayous.
- Marie Laveau : The voodoo queen of New Orleans makes a brief appearance, during the time Diego and his companions spend as "guests" of Jean Lafitte.
[edit] A Note on Continuity in Zorro
As mentioned above, Zorro contains numerous explicit references to Zorro works created before but taking place after Allende's tale. Although most of the novel seems to correlate with most of the "original" Zorro tales (as opposed to the number of films that displace the characters from California to further south in the Americas), even mentioning Esperanza, Diego's wife in The Mask of Zorro, the epilogue states that Diego lived a comfortable old age after Esperanza's death, which Mask clearly contradicts. While it is plausible that the novel's narrator lies about this detail in order to honor Diego's memory, this is not consistent with the tone and narrative remarks of the rest of the book. Also, Lolita Pulido meets Zorro well before their previously-established first encounter. Due to these and other discrepancies, it is possible that the entire portion of the book following Diego and Bernardo's return to California was fabricated. (Of course, readers may opt to accept Allende's version as the "real" one, and reject other versions as "noncanonical fiction.")
