The House Of The Spirits

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Despite the care Severo took to hush all speculation, Rosa’s death became a public scandal. To anyone who listened, Dr. Cuevas offered the most logical explanation of her death, which was due, he said, to galloping pneumonia. But rumor had it that she had mistakenly been poisoned in her father’s stead. In those days political assassinations were unknown in the country, and in any case poison was a method only whores and fishwives would resort to, a lowly technique that had not been seen since colonial times; even crimes of passion were nowadays resolved face to face. There was a great uproar over the attempt on his life, and before Severo could do anything to stop it, an announcement appeared in the opposition paper in which veiled accusations were made against the oligarchy and it was asserted that the conservatives were even capable of this act, because they could not forgive Severo del Valle for throwing his lot in with the liberals despite his social class. The police tried to pursue the clue of the brandy decanter, but all they were able to learn was that its source was not the same as that of the roast pig stuffed with partridges and plums and that the voters of the South had nothing to do with the whole matter. The mysterious decanter had been found outside the service door to the del Valle house on the same day and at the same time that the roast pig was delivered. The cook had simply assumed that it was part of the same gift. Neither the zeal of the police nor Severo’s own investigation, which was carried out with the help of a private detective he engaged, shed any light on the identity of the assassin, and the shadow of suspended vengeance has continued to hang over succeeding generations. It was the first of many acts of violence that marked the fate of the del Valle family. The film won multiple awards: Bavarian Film Awards, German Film Awards, the Golden Screen (Germany), Havana Film Festival, and Robert Awards (Denmark), the German Phono Academy, and the Guild of German Art House Cinemas. [12] The House of the Spirits is set in the capital of an unnamed Latin American country during the twentieth century, and that is where I first met the del Valles.

Although my edition was translated from the Spanish, the translator, Magda Bogin, did (in my opinion) an excellent job. Meanwhile, Blanca befriends one of the peasant children, Pedro Tercero, the young son of Esteban's foreman Segundo. Esteban disapproves of his daughter playing with a peasant boy and sends her to a boarding school. On that particular Holy Thursday, Severo was pacing up and down the drawing room worrying about the scandal his daughter had provoked at mass. He reasoned that only a fanatic like Father Restrepo could believe in satanic possession in the heart of the twentieth century, this century of light, science, and technology, a time in which the devil had finally lost his reputation. Nívea interrupted him to say that was not the point. The seriousness of what had happened was that if word of their daughter’s powers reached beyond the walls of the house and the priest began his own investigation, all their neighbors would find out. The book's weak spot, however, is characterization. For a genre that depends so much on having the reader care deeply about the characters, Allende does a pretty poor job accomplishing that. I think her main problem is that she hadn't quite yet mastered the "show, don't tell" rule of writing. Instead of revealing Esteban Trueba's stubbornness and pride through his actions, she'd just tell us, "Esteban Trueba was stubborn and proud." It was mostly unconvincing and made many of the characters seem flat and two-dimensional, and you never really got that important sense of who they were as people.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. Despite improving the social conditions of the peasants under his patronage, he becomes the most hated and feared scumbag in the entire region. The film premiered in Germany in October 1993 as a 145-minute theatrical cut that was also released in Switzerland, The Netherlands, and Scandinavia. [7] The film was released in the United States on April 1, 1994 in a 132-minute cut version. [7] Reception [ edit ] While they were at work on their terrible task, Nana, bored with weeping and prayer and sensing that something strange was going on in her domain, got up, wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, and set out through the house. She saw a light in the kitchen, but the door and wooden shutters were closed. She continued down the frozen, silent hallways, crossing the three wings of the house, until she came to the drawing room. Through the open door she could see her employer pacing up and down with a desolate air. The fire in the fireplace had long since gone out. She stepped into the room.

Then Roberto Bolano's 2666 blew everything up, but that's a different story. In the meantime we have House of the Spirits (Chile, 1982), which is the best magical realist novel ever written, and believe me because I've read, like...four or so of them. Jaime may be inspired by the personal doctor Arturo Jiron of the Chilean president Salvador Allende. a b c Foerstel, Herbert N. (2002). Banned in the U.S.A.: A Reference Guide to Book Censorship in Schools and Public Libraries. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.217. ISBN 978-0-313-31166-6.

Did we miss something on diversity?

Mayo, Mike (30 December 1994). "The Hits and Misses at the Movies in '94". The Roanoke Times (Metroed.). p.1. I wonder if the 1993 movie adaptation is any good. The casting is top notch: Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Vanessa Redgrave, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas… Havana Film Festival Coral Award for Best Work of a Non-Latin American Director on a Latin America Subject (Bille August) Won A very unapologetic feminist story which is daring for the extent to which the author is prepared to shine a light on the oppression of women. Superb for the themes, the timeframe over three decades which is difficult to accomplish, the writing is stunning and the messaging from the book which for me is highly’spirited’. Gabriel Garcia Marquez comparisons aside, it's hard to review this book without references to the magical realism and the narrative styles of Latin America.