"The point was not to die, since death came anyway, but to survive, which would be a miracle."

I was engrossed from the start. Even though it is 40 years old, it still seems relevant. Although the country is never mentioned, it is a thinly disguise d account of Chile in the 20th century., and the rise of the Pinochet regime. Politics division destroyed both families and the country. A lesson for our fraught political times. ( )

Once I picked this up, I could not put it down. A magical achievement for a book where the main character is SUCH A SMOKING TURD OF A HUMAN BEING. And tragedy is coming around every bend, directly foretold by the book, which is framed as the written reminiscing of members of the family, which explains all the LITTLE DID HE KNOWs dropped throughout the text.

I admit I was a little frustrated by the ending, which I won't spoil here. I don't always have the patience for inter-generational sagas, so the fact that this one kept me riveted is pretty impressive to me. ( )

The lush prose in this part historical fiction-part magic realism novel focuses on the likely-Chilean Trueba family. The patriarch during the generation at the center of this family tale is Esteban, a conservative, headstrong, piggish man who rapes his servants and mistreats the people who live on his estate and work for him. He becomes enchanted with a beautiful young girl, Rosa, in his youth and sets out to make his fortune to impress her, but she dies before he comes to claim her and he instead falls under the spell of and marries her mysterious sister, Clara, a seer, a telekinetic, an almost ethereal wife and mother. Ms. Allende introduces a number of parallel story lines that diverge after the birth of Esteban and Clara’s three children: their daughter, Blanca, and later twin sons, Jaime and Nicolas. Esteban and Clara’s relationship irreparably ruptures after Blanca’s affair with the lower-class folk musician Pedro Tercero Garcia, which leads Esteban to a violent confrontation with the boy and results in the birth Blanca’s daughter, Alba.

Like many family sagas, this novel has dramatic levels of betrayal and violence, but the characters are clearly drawn, the style is unpretentious and full of political commentary, not just about regime changes in Chile but in sexual and class violence and politics as well. The female characters are shown to be prisoners of patriarchal authority who find fantastic ways to break free, if not in reality, then through magic realism.
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Nota de ¿Esperanza? en 1ª pág.: Es un libro muy bonitiño, pero non coido que entendas nada (É unha pena que xa non che poida chamar *****. 29-V-89 ( )

I wanted to like this more, but despite some enjoyable or emotional or striking moments, in the end it felt somewhat superficial - sweeping in scope, but little depth. I never ended up getting to know or care about any of the many characters, who were all suitably odd as required by magical realism, but had no inner lives or genuine voices. ( )