First Impressions Review: A Long Petal of the Sea, by Isabel Allende
I struggled to get a handle on this book in part because the blurb and my experience with previous books by the same author had set me up to expect a love story or a family drama set against the backdrop of history. But it turns out that’s probably the wrong way to approach this! Getting frustrated at the lack of a clear protagonist, or at the perfunctory way the relationship between the main pair is handled misses the point: HISTORY is the main character, everyone else is in supporting roles. Once I started thinking that I appreciated1 the book much more, because it seems like it actually answers a question I tried and failed to ask Ms. Allende directly. (Although then it kind of swings back around to being about the characters? – more on that later).
1. I was going to say “enjoyed”, but given the heart-breaking history in question that feels like entirely the wrong word!
You see, not long after I’d joined Goodreads, someone associated with the BBC-run “Around the world in 80 books” group saw my review of ‘The House of the Spirits’ and asked if I wanted to ask Isabel Allende a live question. I jumped on that, of course, but there was very little time allowed, so I had to abridge my original thought. As a result, I suppose I wasn’t clear, because the answer (just a list of what historical events went with which novel) didn’t match what I was trying to ask. Of course, it is possible that she didn’t want to answer, either because the question was expressly political or because the answer seemed too obvious. This is more or less what I originally wanted to ask:
“I notice your latest novel will span from the 1918 flu to the current pandemic. I’m wondering if it will include political ‘cycles’ as well. The reason I ask is that, in re-reading ‘House of the Spirits’ in 2020, the last third covering the rise of Pinochet hit harder than it had before, considering that my own Latin American family members were nervously speculating about the possibility of a coup well before January 6th, and that the sentiment, expressed by the characters in your book, of ‘where did all these fascists come from all of a sudden?’ seems to be an uncomfortably common one in multiple countries these days. Thoughts?”
Well, considering that this novel was published in 2020, and that it starts with the Spanish Civil war and victory of the fascists there, segueing to refugees heading to Chile in the hopes of freedom (as Allende herself had to flee from Chile to the US), only to have to deal with a brutal right-wing coup there 30 years later (despite confident assurances that “That’ll never happen here; our democracy is too strong!”)…yeah, it seems safe to assume that she was indeed worrying about the same political red flags for the same reasons!
Both events are described in a heart-rending manner - literally. “After thirty-eight hours without eating or sleeping, trying to give water to an adolescent dying in his arms, something gave way in Victor’s chest. ‘My heart is broken,’ he told himself. It was at that moment he understood the profound meaning of that common phrase: he thought he heard the sound of glass breaking and felt that the essence of his being was pouring out until he was empty.” One element that hit hard – again given recent events – is the description of how the Spanish refugees are treated by France: “Nobody wanted these foreigners – Reds, filthy fugitives, deserters, delinquents, as the French press labeled them. Repugnant beings who were going to spread epidemics, commit robberies and rape, and stir up a communist revolution.” Oof, some things never change, do they? Except…Chile did welcome some of these refugees (though the government took much persuading) and ended up the better for it! Turns out that people offered a fresh start after going through horrors tend to work hard and be grateful to the place that helped them regain their dignity – who knew?
The section on Pinochet’s takeover of Chile is similar to the last third of ‘The House of the Spirits’ but much more direct, with the real historical figures getting named and characterized as if to emphasize to the readers: “I didn’t make this up for a book. This really happened.” The Candidate is the author’s relative, Salvador Allende, The Poet Pablo Neruda…even Blanca’s musician boyfriend was probably inspired by Victor Jara, though the fictional version gets a happier ending. President Allende isn’t viewed in a starry-eyed way, mind you. He has expensive habits and tastes for a “man of the people” - something that could have eventually turned bad with time, if the history of other countries is any indication – but the flaw that brought him and the country down is depicted as an excessive trust in others’ nobility. I shivered when he said he wasn’t worried about being overthrown because the head of the army was an honorable man… because my response to the nervous conversations about a possible coup here was: “Well, I doubt a proper coup is likely, given that Trump seemed to spend as much time insulting the armed forces as praising them.” Happily, I was right, this time – the police and the armed forces didn’t support the January 6th attack on the capitol – but there were more current and former members of those institutions who were slow to respond, took selfies with the rioters, or took part than one might wish!
There’s a lot of hope here too, though. In the way people find meaning even in the camps and prisons, and the way they rebuild their lives in new lands. In the way countries and people can be broken but – given the slightest opportunity – can put themselves back together, however slowly and painfully, into new forms. They’ll always have the scars, and they can’t be what they were, yet can go on and find joy and beauty. But oh, the lost innocence and opportunities! People so want to get back to normal that the idea of truly transformative change may be lost – at least for a while. Though that last bit is me talking, not Allende, I think. Her main characters often seem to insist they aren’t political – despite their strong beliefs that can lead them to resist social pressures or outright tyranny – to a degree that can be somewhat frustrating, because even if they prefer not to frame their choices as political, they are! Likewise, so is the author’s choice to tell this story and point out things like how clearing a slum and dumping people in new housing may seem nice...but when it happens suddenly and without consultation can have the intent and effect of breaking up established working-class communities so they can’t organize.
However, while the "it's about history" interpretation makes sense for most of the book, the last 60-80 pages or so are very heavily about Victor Dalmau, the person the blub claims is the main character but who disappeared from the narrative entirely for quite long stretches of time. And that section is really good but feels almost like a separate book, even though it does build on the snippets we got about him earlier. The romance between Victor and Roser doesn’t feel very effective because the bit where it actually develops into a romance is kind of scrunched up and rushed. The fact that it lingers more on their respective infidelities doesn’t help either!
I think I would have preferred if the book had leaned more historical – giving us more about Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda and other real people – OR if it had more definitively established a main character or two through whom we view the history. Victor is probably the most well-developed character, but we get some of the key events in his life out of order or not at all. And, honestly, I would rather have seen the story through the eyes of his wife, Roser! From the pieces we get of her, she is clearly a very resilient, determined woman. But we don’t get to see what makes her that way, or how she comes to love Victor but also to love someone else, for example. His mother Carme is also clearly an interesting woman. Left behind in Europe, she was a spy in WWII and a smuggler – but we never actually get to hear that story. In a way, that is understandable; that’s a different historical tale than this book is trying to tell! But it is frustrating given that we spend so much time with the wealthy del Solar family who are (to me, anyway) just dull. Well, kind of abhorrent, frankly – I really don’t know how Victor doesn’t come to hate them, and I don’t know that including them was worth it for the little twist at the end.
Despite its imperfections, I appreciate the timely messages of this book. Especially in the US, not everyone grew up, as I did, with the idea that any country can go bad with surprising speed (whether that manifests in people wondering “Where did all these fascists come from all of a sudden?” or “Wait, why are these guys we trusted because they overthrew a tyrant now acting kind of tyrannical?”). And that, therefore, while you can absolutely love your country for its good points, you mustn’t love it uncritically – or think that it is the only place in the whole world worth living in! If it does go bad, then you can choose to stay and fight trying to save the version of it you believe in (an effort that could be futile, or at least fatal to you or your loved ones), or you can leave and try to rebuild your life somewhere else. The refugees who end up in your currently-mostly-functional country, therefore, should be treated with compassion – they could easily be you…or you might be them in thirty years time! But we aren’t only helpless victims of history:
[Victor]: “Listen Ingrid, the most important events, the ones that determine our fate, are almost always completely beyond our control. In my case, when I take stock, I see my life was marked by the Spanish Civil War in my youth, and later on by the military coup, by the concentration camps and my exiles. I didn’t choose any of that: it simply happened to me.”
[Ingrid]: “But there must be things you did choose…like medicine, for example.”
[Victor]: “That’s true, and it’s given me a great deal of satisfaction. But do you know what I’m most grateful for? Love. That has marked me more than anything else.”
