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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9788401342684 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | PLAZA & JANÉS |
| Publication date: | 01/03/2014 |
| Sold by: | PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE GRUPO EDITORIAL |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 432 |
| Sales rank: | 463,407 |
| File size: | 741 KB |
| Age Range: | 14 Years |
| Language: | Spanish |
About the Author
Isabel Allende nació en 1942, en Perú, pasó la primera infancia en Chile y vivió en varios lugares en su adolescencia y juventud. Después del golpe militar de 1973 en Chile se exilió en Venezuela y a partir de 1987 vive como inmigrante en California. Se define como «eterna extranjera».
Inició su carrera literaria en el periodismo, en Chile y en Venezuela. En 1982 su primera novela, La casa de los espíritus, se convirtió en uno de los títulos míticos de la literatura latinoamericana. A ella le siguieron otros muchos, todos los cuales han sido éxitos internacionales. Su obra ha sido traducida a cuarenta idiomas y ha vendido más de setenta millones de ejemplares, siendo la escritora más vendida en lengua española. Ha recibido más de sesenta premios internacionales, entre ellos el Premio Nacional de Literatura de Chile en 2010, el Premio Hans Christian Andersen en Dinamarca, en 2012, por su trilogía «Memorias del Águila y del Jaguar» y la Medalla de la Libertad en los Estados Unidos, la más alta distinción civil, en 2014. En 2018, Isabel Allende se convirtió en la primera escritora en lengua española premiada con la medalla de honor del National Book Award, en los Estados Unidos por su gran aporte al mundo de las letras.
Isabel Allende nació en 1942, en Perú, pasó la primera infancia en Chile y vivió en varios lugares en su adolescencia y juventud. Después del golpe militar de 1973 en Chile se exilió en Venezuela y a partir de 1987 vive como inmigrante en California. Se define como «eterna extranjera».
Inició su carrera literaria en el periodismo, en Chile y en Venezuela. En 1982 su primera novela, La casa de los espíritus, se convirtió en uno de los títulos míticos de la literatura latinoamericana. A ella le siguieron otros muchos, todos los cuales han sido éxitos internacionales. Su obra ha sido traducida a cuarenta idiomas y ha vendido más de setenta millones de ejemplares, siendo la escritora más vendida en lengua española. Ha recibido más de sesenta premios internacionales, entre ellos el Premio Nacional de Literatura de Chile en 2010, el Premio Hans Christian Andersen en Dinamarca, en 2012, por su trilogía «Memorias del Águila y del Jaguar» y la Medalla de la Libertad en los Estados Unidos, la más alta distinción civil, en 2014. En 2018, Isabel Allende se convirtió en la primera escritora en lengua española premiada con la medalla de honor del National Book Award, en los Estados Unidos por su gran aporte al mundo de las letras.
Hometown:
San Rafael, CaliforniaDate of Birth:
August 2, 1942Place of Birth:
Lima, PeruWebsite:
http://www.isabelallende.comRead an Excerpt
Listen, Paula. I am going to tell you a story, so that when you wake up you will not feel so lost.
The legend of our family begins at the end of the last century, when a robust Basque sailor disembarked on the coast of Chile with his mother's reliquary strung around his neck and his head swimming with plans for greatness. But why start so far back? It is enough to say that those who came after him were a breed of impetuous women and men with sentimental hearts and strong arms fit for hard work. Some few irascible types died frothing at the mouth, although the cause may not have been rage, as evil tongues had it, but, rather, some local pestilence. The Basque's descendants bought fertile land on the outskirts of the capital, which with time increased in value; they became more refined and constructed lordly mansions with great parks and groves; they wed their daughters to rich young men from established families; they educated their children in rigorous religious schools; and thus over the course of the years they were integrated into a proud aristocracy of landowners that prevailed for more than a century--until the whirlwind of modern times replaced them with technocrats and businessmen. My grandfather was one of the former, the good old families, but his father died young of an unexplained shotgun wound. The details of what happened that fateful night were never revealed, but it could have been a duel, or revenge, or some accident of love. In any case, his family was left without means and, because he was the oldest, my grandfather had to drop out of school and look for work to support his mother and educate his younger brothers.Much later, when he had become a wealthy man to whom others doffed their hats, he confessed to me that genteel poverty is the worst of all because it must be concealed. He was always well turned out--in his father's clothes, altered to fit, the collars starched stiff and suits well pressed to disguise the threadbare cloth. Those years of penury tempered his character; in his credo, life was strife and hard work, and an honorable man should not pass through this world without helping his neighbor. Still young, he already exhibited the concentration and integrity that were his characteristics; he was made of the same hard stone as his ancestors and, like many of them, had his feet firmly on the ground. Even so, some small part of his soul drifted toward the abyss of dreams. Which was what allowed him to fall in love with my grandmother, the youngest of a family of twelve, all eccentrically and deliciously bizarre--like Teresa, who at the end of her life began to sprout the wings of a saint and at whose death all the roses in the Parque Japones withered overnight. Or Ambrosio, a dedicated carouser and fornicator, who was known at moments of rare generosity to remove all his clothing in the street and hand it to the poor. I grew up listening to stories about my grandmother's ability to foretell the future, read minds, converse with animals, and move objects with her gaze. Everyone says that once she moved a billiard table across a room, but the only thing I ever saw move in her presence was an insignificant sugar bowl that used to skitter erratically across the table at tea time. These gifts aroused certain misgivings, and many eligible suitors were intimidated by her, despite her charms. My grandfather, however, regarded telepathy and telekinesis as innocent diversions and in no way a serious obstacle to marriage. The only thing that concerned him was the difference in their ages. My grandmother was much younger than he, and when he first met her she was still playing with dolls and walking around clutching a grimy little pillow. Because he was so used to seeing her as a young girl, he was unaware of his passion for her until one day she appeared in a long dress and with her hair up, and then the revelation of a love that had been gestating for years threw him into such a fit of shyness that he stopped calling. My grandmother divined his state of mind before he himself was able to undo the tangle of his own feelings and sent him a letter, the first of many she was to write him at decisive moments in their lives. This was not a perfumed billet-doux testing the waters of their relationship, but a brief note penciled on lined paper asking him straight out whether he wanted to marry her and, if so, when. Several months later they were wed. Standing before the altar, the bride was a vision from another era, adorned in ivory lace and a riot of wax orange blossoms threaded through her chignon. When my grandfather saw her, he knew he would love her obstinately till the end of his days.
To me, they were always Tata and Meme. Of their children, only my mother will figure in this story, because if I begin to tell you about all the rest of the tribe we shall never be finished, and besides, the ones who are still living are very far away. That's what happens to exiles; they are scattered to the four winds and then find it extremely difficult to get back together again. My mother was born between the two world wars, on a fine spring day in the 1920s. She was a sensitive girl, temperamentally unsuited to joining her brothers in their sweeps through the attic to catch mice they preserved in bottles of Formol. She led a sheltered life within the walls of her home and her school; she amused herself with charitable works and romantic novels, and had the reputation of being the most beautiful girl ever seen in this family of enigmatic women. From the time of puberty, she had lovesick admirers buzzing around like flies, young men her father held at bay and her mother analyzed with her tarot cards; these innocent flirtations were cut short when a talented and equivocal young man appeared and effortlessly dislodged his rivals, fulfilling his destiny and filling my mother's heart with uneasy emotions. That was your grandfather Tom s, who disappeared in a fog, and the only reason I mention him, Paula, is because some of his blood flows in your veins. This clever man with a quick mind and merciless tongue was too intelligent and free of prejudice for that provincial society, a rara avis in the Santiago of his time. It was said that he had a murky past; rumors flew that he belonged to the Masonic sect, and so was an enemy of the Church, and that he had a bastard son hidden away somewhere, but Tata could not put forward any of these arguments to dissuade his daughter because he lacked proof, and my grandfather was not a man to stain another's reputation without good reason. In those days Chile was like a mille-feuille pastry. It had more castes than India, and there was a pejorative term to set every person in his or her rightful place: roto, pije, arribista, si£tico, and many more, working upward toward the comfortable plateau of "people like ourselves." Birth determined status. It was easy to descend in the social hierarchy, but money, fame, or talent was not sufficient to allow one to rise, that required the sustained effort of several generations. Tomas's honorable lineage was in his favor, even though in Tata's eyes he had questionable political ties. By then the name Salvador Allende, the founder of Chile's Socialist Party, was being bruited about; he preached against private property, conservative morality, and the power of the large landowners. Tomas was the cousin of that young deputy. Paula. Copyright © by Isabel Allende. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
What People are Saying About This
. . .[Allende] piles on episode and anecdote in a brilliant flood of autobiographical reminiscence spanning three generations on four continents. . . . [her] fiction often deals in flat folkloric archetypes. . .Here we meet their complex, unpredictable sources. . . .. High-flown rhetoric obscures some of her introspective passages. And yet, in her reportorial mode she's unbeatable. -- The New York Times
Reading Group Guide
Introduction
When Isabel Allende's daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, the author began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. Paula seizes the reader like a novel of suspense, capturing the lives of Isabel's outrageous ancestors, both living and spiritual, while unabashedly accepting the magical world as both vital and real. The author writes of love and hate, peace and war, weaving together delightful and bitter childhood memories that represent amazing anecdotes of her youthful years and the most intimate secrets passed along in whispers.
Questions for Discussion
- Isabel speaks lovingly about all of her eccentric relatives and has special relationships with each one. What influence did each relative have on the author? How did each help to shape the author's life: Tata? Memé? Tió Ramon? Tió Pablo? Her mother? Granny? Mama Hilda? Paula?
- As a child, Isabel was molested by a fisherman near her beach house in Chile. The author says she was scarred by the experience but no longer feels repugnance to it (page 109). She feels something closer to tenderness for the fisherman for not raping her. Why is she so forgiving?
- Do you feel Tata had a role in the fisherman's death, or was his murder a bizarre coincidence, as are most episodes in the author's life?
- Tata asks Isabel to help him die with dignity, but she is unable to fulfill her grandfather's wishes. Years later, long after Paula slipped into the coma, Isabel also feels she should be able to help end her daughter's suffering, but cannot. She mentions the sleeping pills hidden away and says shemay use them, but her brother Juan tells her not to because she'd be forever burdened by the guilt. Do you feel Paula finally succumbed to her illness, or did Isabel or Nicolás help end Paula's suffering? Did Paula linger so long because Isabel was unwilling to let her go?
- Magara was a strict and callous caretaker who helped raise Isabel and her brothers. Isabel says that Magara hated her, but there does not seem to be any dramatic moment in the book that punctuates that sentiment. How did Magara make Isabel feel this way?
- Love is bountiful in Isabel's life, and in the lives of her family members. A mother's love plays a particularly prominent role in her story. How did maternal love help shield Isabel and her children from the pain and violence that permeated their lives?
- Early in the book, the author writes to her daughter, "Listen, Paula. I am going to tell you a story, so that when you wake up you will not feel so lost." Does Isabel really write with the hope that she will share this story with Paul when she awakens, or does the task of writing help Isabel come to terms with her daughter's terminal illness?
- Are the spirits in Isabel's life real, figurative, or a mix of the two? Do you feel that she believes the spirits dictate her stories to her, or by opening her mind to her spirits is she letting go of all barriers between her and her imagination?
- Isabel Allende's work has been described as sentimental. But in writing her memoir for Paula, Isabel had to respect Paula's strong aversion to sentimentality (page 760.) Did she succeed?
- Paula's adult life is spent in search of God, while Isabel is agnostic. Does Isabel ultimately embrace God in Paula's final moments?
About the Author
Born in Peru, Isabel Allende was raised in Chile. She is the author of the novels Portrait in Sepia, Daughters of Fortune, The Infinite Plan, Eva Luna, Of Love and Shadows and The House of Spirits, the short story collection The Stories of Eva Luna, and the memoirs Paula, Aphrodite, and My Invented Country. She is also the author of City of the Beasts and Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, the first two in what will be a trilogy of children's novels. She lives in California.
