None of them reach adulthood like that,” she explained. “Wait till she starts to ‘demonstrate.’ You’ll see how fast she loses interest in making furniture move across the room and predicting disasters!” More important, Esteban’s development—for he does not remain a static, misogynist, imperious aristocrat for the entirety of his life—mimics the country’s conservative attitude toward its own social change and sequential governments. At first glance, Esteban appears to be a typical landed aristocrat: He rules his peasants with unfl inching and sometimes brutal control and arrogance, to the point of raping the powerless women inhabiting his lands. This general abuse of the lower classes and more specific abuse of women are the result of generations of social strife and a cyclical pattern of hatred and violence. Esteban also fathers an illegitimate son, ironically named after him, and detests his daughter’s alliance with Pedro Tercero García, her lover and a singer of radical songs. Si os soy sincero, pese a que al final me ha encantando la obra y ha sido muy gratificante leerlo, me costó mucho meterme en la historia. Los dos o tres primeros capítulos me dejaron un poco desconcertado. Quizás tenía unas ideas preconcebidas sobra el libro y no me esperaba un protagonista tan detestable como Esteban Trueba. Es un villano hecho protagonista y a veces las barbaridades que hacía me costaba asimilarlas, sobre todo cuando las narraba en primera persona. Pero en cuanto empezaron a aparecer los personajes femeninos, que hay muchos y bastante interesantes, se relajo esto y ya solo fue disfrute. Severo (literally, "severe") and Nívea ("snowy") are the parents of Rosa, Clara, and several other children. Severo's candidacy for the Liberal Party of Chile promptly came to an end after someone tried to poison him, but killed his daughter Rosa instead. Nívea, however, would come to become a prominent social activist for women's liberation. The couple pass away in a gruesome car accident in which Nívea is decapitated and her head lost. The details of the accident were hidden from their daughter Clara, because she was pregnant at the time. However, her intuition brings her to the location of the lost head, which ends up being hidden in the basement since the body had already been buried.

Fairfield University: Award-winning author Isabel Allende to speak at Fairfield University". Fairfield.edu . Retrieved 11 November 2017. I truly believe that anyone not familiar with the above mentioned, would likely be a bit thrown, even put off by these influences. Still, this is a brilliantly written story, epic in its truest sense. Covering four generations of women (with a man as the common thread between them), it races through the simplicity of the old world into the complexity of an increasingly global existance and the insistance that this country enter into the morphing global economy and political stage. So skilful was Allende's writing that she turns Trueba's toxic Latino machismo on its head. Most surprisingly, you might even end up feeling sorry for the misogynistic bastard.Some of the characters' names are significant, particularly the women's names, which often indicate the personalities of the characters. The names Nívea, Clara, Blanca, and Alba are 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.) Férula's name means "rod" in Latin; when used in Spanish it refers to an object used to immobilize a limb, such as a splint or cast. It has all the right ingredients for a formidable tale. One of those that satisfies and at the same time you want more. Indeed, at every turn Esteban advocates the continuation of the traditional social strata that have given him his power and authority. Marxism, or communism, the movement overthrown by the military dictatorship, threatens his unquestioned power and his continued oppression of the lower classes. But despite his initial support of the dictatorship, Esteban does not thrive under its rule. He is unable to protect Alba from “disappearing” into its prisons and unable to save her from the torture, rape, and abuse inflicted by Esteban García, the product of her grandfather’s rape of a young peasant girl. Although Esteban does eventually secure Alba’s release by calling in a favor owed to him by a prostitute, all of his power and authority are ultimately proven worthless. Like everyone else, he and his loved ones are subject to the unreasoning tyranny of the dictatorship. Travers, Peter (29 December 1994). "The Best and Worst Movies of 1994". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021 . Retrieved 10 March 2021. The story details the life of the Trueba family, spanning four generations, between 1910 and 1970s, and tracing the post-colonial social and political upheavals of Chile

Ms. Allende's prose is both graceful and readily comprehensible, as she chronicles a captivating, concinnous tale chiseled in history and filled with passions inflamed by family, politics and power, love and lust, malevolence and mysticism.

Despite improving the social conditions of the peasants under his patronage, he becomes the most hated and feared scumbag in the entire region.

a b "The House of the Spirits (1994)". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 14 June 2021 . Retrieved 10 March 2021. A mainstay of magical realism is that characters are expected to be beautifully realised, and Allende doesn't disappoint. Not for one bit. Her lead goes to reluctant altruist, Esteban Trueba, whose expectations of grandeur befit his pedigree, but not his habitude. House of the Spirits started my love affair with Isabel Allende's writing twenty years ago. I remember how the first line "Barrabas came to us from the sea" left me captivated and eager to read on. In college, I was fortunate that La Casa de los Espiritus was required reading for one of my classes, so I read the prose a second time in Spanish. Allende's writing is exceptional in both languages.HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS is Isabel Allende's stunning saga of the Trueba family over 3 generations in Chile ending a few years after the government overthrow led by General Pinochet, the abhorrent right-wing dictator who, with the support of the US gov't, seized the chance opened by fears that the country would be taken over by Marxists.