A Selection from Isabel Allende Quiz

Answer:

Before looking at details of these books, it might be a good idea to clarify the term 'magical realism', which will be used several times. It refers to a literary genre which presents magical or supernatural events in an otherwise mundane setting, blurring the lines between reality and imagination. It is most commonly, but not exclusively, found in Latin American literature, with its roots coming from the mid-20th century impact of European art movements like surrealism on Latin American authors who travelled there. Jorge Luis Borges is often cited as one of the first to write in the genre, with his 1935 work 'A Universal History of Infamy', and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who cited Franz Kafka as a major influence) produced the archetypical 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' in 1967.

'The House of the Spirits' (La casa de los espíritus) was Isabel Allende's debut novel. She started writing it on 8 January 1981, setting out to write a letter to her dying grandfather which turned into a best-selling novel. Somewhat inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', she traced four generations of the Trueba family through the post-colonial times in an unnamed country which is obviously her native Chile. The characters only referred to as 'the Poet' and 'the Candidate/the President' are clearly intended to be the real-life characters of Pablo Neruda and Salvador Allende, her uncle who was elected as a Marxist, and died (said to be by suicide) following a CIA-inspired coup d'état. The immediate success of this novel, once it managed to get published in Spain (having been rejected by numerous Chilean publishers, due to its implicit criticism of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet), led Allende to decide that she would always start writing a new book on 8 January.

Isabel Allende's second novel, 'The Porcelain Fat Lady', was written for children. Her second novel for adults, 'Of Love and Shadows' (De amor y de sombra) was published in 1984. This time, she named names, setting her story in Chile and exploring the atrocities committed by the Pinochet dictatorship, drawing on her experiences before she entered exile in Venezuela as well as interviews with others still in Chile. The central story is that of Irene, an editor who is made aware of concealed acts by Francisco, a photographer with whom she has a passionate affair.

'Eva Luna', published in 1987, is set again in an anonymous South American country which seems to combine the political history of Chile and the social structure of Venezuela. Eva is an orphan whose life we follow, along with the events of the society in which she lives. The novel starts with the events leading up to her conception, her becoming an orphan at the age of six and subsequent relationships leading up to her decision to marry Rolf, a journalist whose life has been seen developing alongside hers. There are references to Eva's storytelling, and the magical realism in those stories. Allende published 'The Stories of Eva Luna' (Cuentos de Eva Luna) in 1989.

'The Infinite Plan' (El plan infinito) marked a major change of subject for Allende, being the life of an American named Greg Reeves, who grows up in LA and serves in Vietnam. With none of the magical realism and passion about her native country that had marked her earlier work, this book was not well received, either by critics or by the public.

'Paula', published in 1994, is the only non-fiction work in this list. It was started while the author was tending to her daughter Paula, who was in a coma caused by porphyria. She originally intended it to describe those events, as a record to which Paula could refer when she recovered (which, sadly, she never did). It evolved to also include autobiographical information that covered much of the same territory as was included in 'The House of the Spirits', and an exploration of her own sense of helplessness and failure as she watched her daughter dying.

'City of the Beasts' (La ciudad de las bestias) starts when 15-year-old Alex is sent to live with his grandmother Kate in New York City. She almost immediately takes him with her to the Amazon, on a quest to find a mythical Beast. The expedition involves encounters with animals, a lost tribe called the People of the Mist, and a plot to kill the natives with a poisonous vaccination. Also, lots of magical realism.

'Kingdom of the Golden Dragon' (El reino del dragón de oro) is a sequel to 'City of the Beasts', this time with Alex and Kate visiting The Forbidden Kingdom (high in the Himalayas) accompanied by Nadia, the girl who gave him the diamond eggs she discovered in the Amazon, asking him to use the money to help her people. Alex and Nadia have occasion to change into their alternate forms of jaguar and eagle as they enlist the help of yetis to free abducted indigenous girls. This novel was followed by 'Forest of the Pygmies' (El Bosque de los Pigmeos), set in Africa, which rounds off the trilogy by finishing with Kate writing three books about their adventures.

'Zorro' (El Zorro: Comienza la leyenda) is presented as a biography of the American pulp character Diego de la Vega, known as Zorro (the Fox). She uses characters from earlier Zorro works (the original stories from 1919 by Johnston McCulley, as well as assorted films and television shows) along with additional fictional characters of her own devising and sundry real-life characters such as Jean Lafitte and Marie Laveau. The Spanish subtitle translates to 'the legend begins'.

'In the Midst of Winter' (Más allá del invierno) takes its title from a poem by Albert Camus titled 'Invincible Summer', which contains the lines "In the midst of winter, I finally found there was within me an invincible summer." The novel starts in a Brooklyn winter with an automobile accident bringing together the three characters (Evelyn, Richard and Lucia) who together overcome their personal traumas, and find love. Although it is set in the USA, significant parts of each character's back story are set in Latin America: Evelyn is an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, Richard lost his wife in Brazil, and Lucia is an emigrant from Chile.

'Violeta' is written as the autobiography of Violeta Del Valle, an author who was born in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1920, and is dying in the COVID epidemic of 2020. She recounts what she has seen in an unnamed South America country over that century. While Allende continues her common theme of human rights violations, she also focuses on feminism and the power of women to survive.