The House of the Spirits
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- This article is about the novel. For the 1993 film, see The House of the Spirits (film).
| The House of the Spirits | |
 Cover of the 1993 Bantam 1st English paperback |
|
| Author | Isabel Allende |
|---|---|
| Original title | La Casa de los Espiritus |
| Translator | Magda Bogin |
| Cover artist | Neue Constantine Film |
| Country | Chile |
| Language | Spanish |
| Genre(s) | Autobiographical novel, Magical realism |
| Publisher | Plaza & Janés, S.A. (Spain) Alfred A. Knopf (U.S.) Bantam (US) |
| Publication date | 1982 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 433 pp (1993 Bantam first English edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-27391-4 (1993 Bantam first English edition, paperback) |
The House of the Spirits (La Casa de los Espíritus, 1982) is a debut novel by Isabel Allende. Initially, the novel was rejected by several Spanish-language publishers, but became an instant best seller when published in Barcelona in 1982. The novel was critically acclaimed around the world[1], and catapulted Allende to literary stardom. That same year, the novel was named Best Novel of the Year in Chile, and she received the country's Panorama Literario award.[2] The novel has been translated to over 20 languages worldwide.[3]
The book was first conceived by Isabel Allende when she received news that her grandfather was dying, and she began to write him a letter that ultimately became the starting manuscript of The House of the Spirits. [4]
The story details the life of the Trueba family, spanning four generations, and tracing the post-colonial social and political upheavals of the Latin American country they live in. The story is told mainly from the perspective of two protagonists (Esteban and Alba) and incorporates elements of magic realism. Some readers claim that the novel is a roman à clef. According to them, The Poet in the novel is probably Pablo Neruda, and Allende's cousin, once removed Salvador Allende, is both The Candidate and The President.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The story begins with the Del Valle family, including a young Clara, who has paranormal powers and keeps a detailed diary of her life.
Esteban Trueba attempts to mend his broken heart (from the death of the oldest Del Valle daughter, Rosa) by devoting his life to uplifting his family hacienda, Las Tres Marías. He quickly earns/forces respect from the fearful peasants and turns Tres Marías into a model for every other hacienda in the region. Meanwhile, he also captures and rapes many peasant girls, spreading bastard children through the world.
After his mother's death, Esteban decides to fulfill his mother's dying wish: to marry and have legitimate children. He goes to the del Valle family to ask for Clara's hand. Clara and her parents accept Esteban's proposal and Clara's sister-in-law Férula comes to live with the newly weds in their mansion. Férula develops a strong dedication to Clara which fulfills her need to serve others.
Keep in mind that the book is about the four women, not Esteban.
Clara gives birth to a daughter named Blanca and the family frequently visits Tres Marías. It is here that Blanca meets her future lover Pedro Tercero. Clara spends most of her time on charitable and supernatural work.
During Clara's second pregnancy, both of her parents die in a car accident. The family desperately tries to prevent Clara from learning this in an effort to keep her pregnancy stable, but Clara's supernatural abilities alert her. However, she still gives birth to two boys- Jaime and Nicolás.
While Clara lives in the capital house, it fills with spirits, artists, and spiritualists. It is during this time that Pedro Tercero and Blanca become lovers. Pedro Tercero is banished from the hacienda by Esteban, because of his revolutionary ideas of equality for the peasants, and Blanca's meetings with him become more sporadic.
A visiting French count to the hacienda, Jean de Satigny, reveals Blanca's nightly romps with Pedro Tercero to her father Esteban. Esteban furiously goes after his daughter and brutally whips her. When Clara expresses horror at his actions, Esteban slaps her, knocking out her front teeth. Clara decides to never speak to him again, reclaims her maiden name and moves out of Tres Marías, taking Blanca with her. Esteban, furious and lonely, blames Pedro Tercero for the whole matter; he tracks him down with a mindset to kill him. He only succeeds in cutting-off Pedro's three fingers, and is filled with regret for his uncontrollable furies.
Blanca finds out she is pregnant with Pedro Tercero's child and ultimately ends up raising her daughter, Alba, at the capital home. Blanca's brother Jaime becomes a self-righteous doctor while Nicolás concocts money-making schemes. Esteban Trueba runs as a senator for the Conservative Party and Clara speaks to him, informing him that those who have won will always win again.
When Blanca's daughter, Alba, is born, she eventually becomes the main character of the rest of the book. Ironically, Clara predicts Alba will have a very happy future since the stars are on her side. Alba attends a local college where she meets Miguel. Miguel is a revolutionary, and because of her love for him rather than her own political feelings, Alba involves herself in revolutionary protests. After the victory of the People's Party (a socialist movement), Alba celebrates with Miguel while her Conservative grandfather mourns.
Fearing a Communist dictator, Esteban Trueba and his fellow politicians plan a military coup of the socialist government. However, when the military golpe is set in action, the military men relish their power and grow out of control. Esteban's son Jaime is viciously and pointlessly killed by power-driven soldiers along with many others. The government goes being Neoliberal (very conservative, the side Esteban is on) to liberal (with the majority rule, popular support, democratic election) to a full military dictator ship (mainly supported with U.S. weapons and military training). Many people start disappearing, apparently being killed or tortured. (this really did happen).
The novel takes a gruesome turn and documents the atrocities the wealthy try to ignore throughout the country. The fascist government attempts to eliminate all traces of opposition and eventually come for Alba. She is taken by the political police and tortured in horrifying ways. When Alba loses her will to live, she is visited by Clara's spirit who tells her to not wish for death since it can easily come, but to wish to live since that would be a miracle.
Esteban Trueba manages to free Alba with the help of Miguel and Transito Soto, an old friend/prostitute from his days as a young man. After helping Alba start the book, Esteban Trueba dies, accompanied by Clara's spirit; he is smiling, having finally found the love and peace he longed for throughout his life, but this is really irrelevant. Alba explains she will not seek vengeance on those who have injured her, suggesting a hope that one day the human cycle of hate and revenge can be broken. Alba writes the book to pass time while she waits for Miguel and advances in pregnancy.
[edit] Main Characters
Some of the novel's characters' names are significant, particularly the women's names, which often indicate the personalities about the character. In addition, the names Nívea, Clara, Blanca and Alba are all more or less synonyms, and this is mentioned as a family tradition. (Nívea means snow-white, and can be translated as "white" as can all the others, though they have specific meanings. In addition, Férula's name is of note, as this word, meaning "rod" in Latin, when used in Spanish refers to an object used to immobilize a limb, such as a splint or cast.)
[edit] Clara del Valle Trueba
Clara (in English, "Clear") is the key female figure in the novel. She is a clairvoyant and telekinetic who is rarely attentive to domestic tasks, but she holds her family together with her love for them and her uncanny predictions. She is the youngest daughter of Severo and Nivea del Valle, wife of Esteban Trueba, and mother of Blanca, Jaime, and Nicolás. As a child, she and her uncle Marcos used her powers to run a fortune-telling centre and realize many other paranormal activities. Her uncle eventually leaves in a primitive airplane he built himself, disappearing for many months, and later dies as the result of a 'mysterious African plague' contracted during his travels. Clara practices divining and moving inanimate objects, most notably a three-legged table, and she is surrounded by friends such as the psychic Mora sisters and The Poet. Severo and Nivea del Valle are main characters in another Allende novel, Retrato in Sepia.
[edit] Esteban Trueba
Esteban Trueba is the central male character of the novel and the only principal character to survive the course of the novel. In his youth, he seeks the unattainable Rosa the Beautiful, daughter of Severo and Nivea del Valle, and so he slaves in the mines to earn a suitable fortune with which to marry her. However, while he is working in the mines she dies by accidental poisoning; a cruel stroke of fate which changes Esteban's life and hardens his heart. Eventually marrying Clara and raising a large family, Esteban's stubborn and violent ways eventually alienate all those around him. Esteban has a tense relationship with much of his family, but shows genuine love and devotion to his granddaughter Alba. Despite his often violent behaviour, he is also devoted to his wife Clara, going into a state of constant mourning following her death. Being a self-made man, having built his wealth from scratch as the patron of Tres Marias, Esteban turns to politics, within the Conservative Party, where he spends his money and efforts trying to prevent the rising Socialist movements within the society- an ideology he condemns. However, he dramatically loses all power and suddenly has to face the fact that he has become an old and weak man. His realisation that he desires the love of his family and peace in his country lead to a pivotal change in his character. In his last days, he slowly loses the rage that has been driving him all his life, and dies in Alba's arms, knowing that he has achieved Clara's posthumous forgiveness.
[edit] Blanca Trueba
Blanca (in English, "White") is Clara and Esteban's first born daughter. She spends her childhood between their house in the capital and Tres Marías, where she forms a friendship with a boy named Pedro Tercero Garcia. Their friendship endures, despite Blanca's attendance of boarding school meaning that they are only able to see each other in the summer, and they eventually become lovers. Their love persists even after Pedro is run out of the hacienda by Esteban, because he is putting communist ideas in the other workers' heads. Following Blanca's marriage to the Count, she sees Pedro sporadically, resisting his attempts to persuade her to marry, but their relationship continues. Blanca's reconciliation with her father eventually allows her to flee to Canada with Pedro, where she finally achieves happiness with Pedro Tercero, and is able to earn large amounts of money for the first time by selling her clay figurines, which are seen as folk art by Canadians.
[edit] Pedro Tercero Garcia
Pedro is the son of the tenant/foreman of Tres Marías, Pedro Segundo. At a young age, he falls in love with Blanca and is the father of her only child, Alba. In his youth, he spreads socialist ideals to the workers on the hacienda, and later he becomes a revolutionary and a songwriter (his character may be modeled after revolutionary songwriter Victor Jara). It is mentioned that he resumes his political crusade during his exile in Canada where his music is embraced in translation even if "chickens and foxes are underdeveloped creatures" in comparison with the "eagles and wolves" of the North.
[edit] Alba Trueba
Alba (in English, "Dawn") is the daughter of Blanca and Pedro Tercero Garcia, although for many years of her life she was led to believe that Count de Satigny was her father. From before her birth, her grandmother Clara decreed that she was blessed by the stars. Because of this, Clara said she needed not to go to school, and was raised at home until she was seven. The novel ends with Esteban's death, and Alba sits alone in the vast Trueba mansion beside his body. The last paragraph reveals that she is pregnant, although she does not know (or care) whether the child is Miguel's, or the product of the rapes that she endured at the hands of security police, during her imprisonment.
[edit] School Curricula
The novel has been used in a wide number of school curricula around the world, notably for its use of magical realism, as well as a translated Latin American novel. Educational organizations such as the International Baccalaureate Organization recognize it as a world literature study book.[5][6][7]
[edit] Author's Traditions
After the debut of The House of the Spirits, Allende began to follow a rule of starting to write all her books on January 8th. She is quoted as saying:
| “ | In January 8, 1981, I was living in Venezuela and I received a phone call that my beloved grandfather was dying. I began a letter for him that later became my first novel, The House of The Spirits. It was such a lucky book from the very beginning, that I kept that lucky date to start.[8] | ” |
[edit] Film and Theatrical Adaptations
In 1993 the book was adapted into a film (The House of the Spirits) by Danish director Bille August. The movie starred Jeremy Irons as Esteban Trueba, Meryl Streep as Clara del Valle Trueba, Winona Ryder as Blanca Trueba, Glenn Close as Férula Trueba and Antonio Banderas as Pedro Tercero García. The movie achieved mild success and won awards at the Bavarian Film Awards, German Film Awards, Golden Screen (Germany), Havana Film Festival, and Robert Festival (Denmark), as well as from the German Phono Academy and the Guild of German Art House Cinemas.
The novel has also been made to theatrical adaptations in many theaters including Seattle's Book It Repertory Theatre.[9][10]
[edit] References
- ^ Isabel Allende
- ^ Fairfield University :: Award-winning author Isabel Allende to speak at Fairfield University
- ^ Isabel Allende
- ^ Isabel Allende
- ^ http://www.online.tusc.k12.al.us/cia/secondary/alignment/IB%20English%2011.doc
- ^ http://www.springfieldlibrary.org/reading/commerceib.html
- ^ http://www.hcps2.hanover.k12.va.us/hhs/Departments/English/SummerReading2005/IB_Advanced-11_SummerReading.doc
- ^ Isabel Allende
- ^ Arts & Entertainment | This old "House" opened a lot of doors for Isabel Allende | Seattle Times Newspaper
- ^ Book-It Repertory Theatre - The House of the Spirits
