The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Claire Reisberg, 10th Grade

I read Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits in one great burst, staying up late at night to read in the darkness of my bedroom, only to fall asleep holding the book and to wake up once the sun peeked through my window, immediately wide awake and ready to finish. This was partially because I had a deadline and had to finish the book, but mostly because that's how great books make you read: all at once until you forget what day it is, until all the characters and their motivations, their loves, and their hates are seared into your mind.

The House of the Spirits, written in 1982, was first conceived in a letter Allende wrote to her 100-year-old grandfather when she learned he was dying. The multigenerational story of the Trueba family is mostly recounted by an anonymous third person narrator, who occasionally breaks in with a first person comment, making it clear that the narrator is somehow part of the family. Allende begins the story focusing on the wealthy del Valle clan, their fifteen children, and their interactions with Esteban Trueba, a poor miner who later marries the youngest del Valle daughter, Clara. Clara and Esteban are the main protagonists of the novel.

The book opens: "Barrabás came to us by the sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy." Clara's voice, expressed through her journals and her conversations with other characters, permeates the novel. Esteban serves as a second narrator, but I found his chapters an unwelcome distraction from the rest of the story. Esteban is a bad person; his only redeeming qualities are his love for his wife and granddaughter, Alba, and he rains abuse down on both of them. His chapters feel limited compared to the close third person narration of the rest of the book, during which we get glimpses into the heads of nearly all the main characters and beautiful descriptions of the events that occur.

It is impossible to talk about The House of the Spirits without mentioning Gabriel García Márquez's ultimate classic, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Both books weave a tapestry of characters interconnected throughout generations and share the idea that history repeats itself, with characters going through the same struggles and making the same mistakes as their predecessors. In The House of the Spirits, this connection to the past is literally seen through Clara's telekinetic and clairvoyant powers, specifically her ability to speak to spirits, and through this the past is present in every aspect of the story. One difference between the books is that The House of the Spirits focuses more on female characters, like Clara, Alba, and Blanca (the daughter of Clara and Esteban) than does One Hundred Years of Solitude. I loved the way the female characters are given such dynamic roles - and it's really Allende's emphasis on character, and not gender, that carries the book. 

Allende does a masterful job of introducing characters, reintroducing them, and succinctly communicating their complexities. Introducing us to Nívea, Clara's mother, Allende writes: "She had a deep distrust of cassocks and was bored by descriptions of heaven, purgatory, and hell, but she shared her husband's parliamentary ambitions, hoping that if he won a seat in Congress she would finally secure the vote for women, for which she had fought for the past ten years, permitting none of her numerous pregnancies to get in her way." In these few sentences Allende introduces us to Nívea and her attitudes to life, religion, motherhood, and politics. And throughout the whole book Allende manages to perfectly capture what makes all of the characters human.

The story of the Trueba family and the various humans that exist within it is set on the backdrop of political upheaval in Chile, with the book ending in 1973, when "the Dictator" takes power. "The Dictator" refers to the real-life General Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile until 1990. As I read, I found myself having to look up some basic details of Chilean history, since the story is deeply intertwined with the politics of the country and the rise of socialism. Esteban is a wealthy landowner who worked his way up from being a poor miner, but he mistreats his workers and campaigns against the socialists gaining sway in the country. His daughter Blanca falls in love with Pedro Tercero García, a socialist songwriter and revolutionary who is the son of Estaban's foreman. Esteban's son Jaime is a doctor who works tirelessly to help the poor and believes in socialist ideals. However, he mostly keeps his convictions quiet in order to not upset his father and disrupt peace in the family. It's Esteban's granddaughter Alba-Blanca and Pedro's child, whom Esteban dotes upon as a child-who truly brings this political conflict to a head, as she works as a young adult first for the socialist revolution and then to help those persecuted by the dictatorship.

Alba is also the most cognizant of class and class conflict. She learns this awareness and desire to help the less fortunate from her grandmother, Clara. One of my favorite lines in the book is when Clara says to Blanca: "'This is to assuage our conscience, darling...But it doesn't help the poor. They don't need charity; they need justice.'" Many of Allende's poorer characters embark on quests for justice that sometimes become violent. (The House of the Spirits does contain graphic depictions of violence and sexual assault, which may be troubling for some readers.) Esteban is often the perpetrator of this violence, which is often enacted on those who can't afford to speak out, like his workers. Ultimately, his violence comes back to hurt him and those he loves. This cycle of violence is tied to the idea of history repeating itself; at the end of the book Allende refers to the family's story as "an unending tale of sorrow, blood, and love." And although the book is at times tragic, containing bloodshed and tears, love truly binds the Truebas together - from Esteban's love for Clara, to Clara's love for her children, to her children's various loves, and to Alba's love for the entire family. And so after finishing The House of the Spirits, I didn't feel upset or sad; I felt love for the characters and the story Allende so masterfully created.