The house of the spirits

Isabel Allende’s novel was first published in 1982 and few expected at the time that it would be such an overwhelming success. Readers from half the planet have followed with delight the adventures and misadventures of four generations of the Trueba family, protagonists of a plot that follows in parallel the social and political movements that accompanied the history of post-colonial Chile and that end dramatically with a coup d’état and the implementation of a fierce dictatorship.

A granddaughter who finds her grandmother’s diaries and begins to write the family’s history is the catalyst for the plot, starring a series of women.

They all have names related to light: from Nívea to Clara, through Blanca and Alba. The latter is responsible for pulling the thread of the story. She will do so, as Carme Portaceli points out, emphasizing reconciliation, applied to both a country and the protagonist’s family. Forgiveness and love go hand in hand with this reconciliation, all in a dreamlike setting, a display of magical realism that, despite this, does not spare references to political life to remind us that, often, it influences and conditions our lives even if we have nothing to do with it.