Next Book Club Meeting:
Wed. April 15, 19:00
No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know about
Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
by Rachel Louise Snyder
A Long Petal of the Sea
Written by Isabel Allende
Reviewed by Michaela Anchran
Our February Book Club selec-
tion was A Long Petal of the Sea,
the latest release from acclaimed
Chilean author Isabel Allende.
The novel is an epic tale that fol-
lows two characters, Victor and
Roser, as they flee the Spanish
Civil War and travel as refugees
to Chile, to start a new life. Al-
lende based the story on histori-
cal events narrated to her by fam-
ily, and by a real-life Victor. The
novel is a move away from the
magical realism style she is more
known for, and sits firmly in the
realm of historical fiction, cov-
ering political events in Europe
and South America from 1939
till 1994. Within this context she
tells a story of love and commit-
ment, survival, war, and politics.
Our Book Club unanimously
liked the novel, though some
more than others. We all enjoyed
learning more about the Spanish
Civil War and refugee movement
across the French border, as well
as the depiction of the stratified so-
ciety and volatile politics of Chile.
Allende stutters at times with
her magnificent story telling — in
trying to tell such an epic saga
and cover so many years she is
forced to fast forward and sum-
marize at times. These parts can
feel frustrating to the reader, next
to the more finely detailed and
engrossing scenes, and left some
of us wanting a bigger book so
we could get more of the detail,
especially of the later decades.
There is a tidiness to Allende’s
story telling – all loose ends are
tucked away eventually – that
could be taken as too tidy, too trite
at the end. But this is Allende’s
style, she is a storyteller, and we
can feel her warmth towards her
characters all the way to the end.
The story felt particularly perti-
nent (and perhaps purposely so)
in the way it depicted the rich-
ness that immigration can add
to a country, and I think we all,
as expatriates, immi-
grants or part of cross-
cultural families, could
empathize with the char-
acters’
yearnings
for
‘home’, particularly well.
“I loved the homage to the
poetry of Pablo Neruda from
the title describing Chile to the
lines beautifully introducing
each chapter.”
- Carol Strametz
“The characters’ lives high-
lighted that we as humans have
an enormous capacity to adapt
and grow, depending on the sit-
uation that we find ourselves.”
- Christine Riney
Photo from Jordan W. and Michaela A.
www.awchamburg.org
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