Yes, House of the Spirits is a key MR text, but that doesn't mean everything she writes is magic realism.
So if you're one of those people who avoids MR, don't shy away from her writing. None of the 4 Allende books I've read have had any magic realism. For some reason, Isabel Allende books always end up with "magic realism" tags on LT, which drives me nuts. Recommended for: readers who like straight-forward historical fiction and readers who want to learn about the Haitian Revolution. I'm with the critics on this one - it's a good book, but not great. Rating: Island Beneath the Sea is one of those books that readers rate much higher than the critics. This novel was an easy read, but it took me a whole month to get through it as I'd get bored and wander off to do something else or fall asleep. I would have liked to have seen a bit more about it in the book, rather than just these characters who are in the periphery and flee fairly early on. I studied the Haitian slave rebellion at university and it's a fascinating episode in history. The first half of the book is set in what is now Haiti, in the late 1700s and the time leading up to the Haitian Revolution and slave rebellion, and the second half is after they escape to New Orleans. Read moreĪ work of historical fiction that follows the life of Tete, a slave, and her owner Toulouse Valmorain. Isabel Allende crafts the riveting story of one woman's determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruelest of circumstances. There, Tété finally forges a new life, but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not easily severed. When the bloody revolution of Toussaint Louverture arrives, they flee the brutal conditions of the French colony that will become Haiti for the raucous, free-wheeling enterprise of New Orleans. Yet it is he who will become dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.Īgainst the merciless backdrop of sugar cane fields, the lives of Tété and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, he purchases young Tété for his bride. Born on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarité-known as Tété-is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage.
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