So I’ve finally read one of the greatest writers of our time, and I have to join the thousands that agree. My mom gifted me with her first, The House of Spirits, and latest books, Violeta respectively and they were beautiful.

Premise-wise they were similar as both novels dealt with a generational family drama through the decades. Violeta was more of a singular narrative, narrated by the titular character herself to her grandson. It was much more specific as well focusing on the decades between 1920 to 2020, highlighting historic events that most people know of in the US and in Cuba. It was also more introspective as Violeta recounts her regrets, failings, desires and more as she remisces on her marriages and her children and her actions during the revolution.

The House of Spirits is internationally famous so I won’t summarize what it’s about but it has a much broader scope than Violeta. It is also infused with magical realism that intrigues and sparkes throughout the novel. Normally I find the magical realism to be too surreal or takes me out of the story, but this case flowed so naturally. Or maybe it’s because I already believe in spirits and the supernatural so it’s easy to slip into the world of Clara the clairvoyant compared to the last magical realism novel I read where the matriarch turned into a tree.

The only thing was sometimes the descriptions were so vague that I misinterpreted the situation. Like Blanca discovering the count’s antechamber, I thought she was horrified because he was a necrophilic. Apparently he was homosexual but I really misinterpreted the situation, what with all the mummies. Same with the Garcia and Alba situation where he raped her a bunch of times. I thought he spared raping her because he had a twisted crush on her, and allowed the other guards to rape her, but apparently he joined in as well. So yeah, occasionally it was confusing.

Anyway The House of Spirits was amazing thematically in seeing how abuse and karma comes down the line to haunt the family. And yet despite it coming because of their own actions, I still felt sympathy for each of them. They were very human in their miscommunications, their obliviousness, their denial and their hurtful actions toward another.

I also enjoyed how Allende infuses some of her country’s history into the story, describing the original patriarchal structure, the rise of Communist and Socialist idealists, the toppling of the government via the miliatary and subsequent dictatorship. It is very much political novel alongside a family novel, depicting how closely the two are intertwined and how those beliefs can affect a family.

So I have to say, I join the scores who believe Allende is amazing in familial relationships and historical description infused with lush, natural yet magical imagery.