House of the Spirits started my love affair with Isabel Allende's writing twenty years ago. I remember how the first line "Barrabas came to us from the sea" left me captivated and eager to read on. In college, I was fortunate that La Casa de los Espiritus was required reading for one of my classes, so I read the prose a second time in Spanish. Allende's writing is exceptional in both languages. Recently, I completed Allende's memoir The Sum of Our Days. She reveals that Clara represents her own [...]

جولة لا تُنسى في بيت الأرواح:::::::::::::::::::::::::هذه رواية تنطق بقداسة الأنثىتمجد السحر الأنثوي البراقتحكي تاريخ الدولة الأنثى أو الأنثى الدولةتشيــليأرض الجنيات والساحرات وعرائس البحرهذه رواية السنوات البحرية المحفوظة في ذاكرة وراثية لا تضيع أبدا‏ بل تنزلق بلطف عبر الأجيال ال [...]

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. I truly believe that anyone not familiar with the above mentioned, would likely be a bit thrown, even put off by these influences. Still, this is a brilliantly written story, epic in its truest sense. Covering four generations of women (with a man as the common thread between them), it races through the simplicity of the old world into the c [...]

When I was a kid, me and my brother used to spend most weekends at our grandparents house. And most of those weekends we would watch one of the same two movies on the good ol' VCR: Steel Magnolias and The House of the Spirits. No one seems to know the latter movie when I mention it, but it starred a bunch of impressive names: Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Antonio Banderas and Winona Ryder. My memory might be painting a better picture than the truth, but me and my brother LOVED the mov [...]

"If this world is going to be a better place for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it will be women who make it so."-Isabel Allende.Phewee!The House of the Spirits is a tumultuous epic which chronicles four generations of two extraordinary families.The eponymous house is large: it boasts three courtyards and a Chiléan version of the Addams Family.Imagine too, if you will, Barrabás the somewhat unnatural domesticated dog/horse, who was ill-advisedly fed olive oil until he covered the h [...]

4.5/5Esteban, Trueba,how does your childhood grow?With fear and guilt and such hard workand a love that leaves you low.In thoughts of grief and thoughts of rage,and a slump of of broken land,you will rape your heart out, Esteban,set life to your demand.Clara, Clara, clairvoyant,how does your marriage keep?With magic silent and so near,to where your children sleep.When tragedy has struck your home,and the bull is in the shop,reality will find you there,your disengagement stop.Humans, humans, high [...]

Wow! If you look up 'epic family dramas, sweeping sagas' you are sure to find the The House of the Spirits at the top of the list. It's hard to capture what this book covers as it covers so much. The story of the three generations of the Trueba family. How their lives have changed over many, many years. Their loves, grief, joy, family, politics, greed, desires, and more. I felt that there was so much heartbreak and tragedy in this story. But I kept thinking about this one.even when I was not rea [...]

I have never in my life read a book where SO MUCH HAPPENS. AY. Generation after generation of DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, AMIRITE? I seriously don't know how to rate this book. Personally it wasn't a favourite, I found myself overwhelmed and bombarded with so much tragedy and injustice and found no love in any of the characters, but I really appreciated so much of what happened and really enjoyed learning more about magical realism.Here's my video review of this! youtube/watch?v=awofw

رواية رائعة لعائلة على مدى ثلاثة اجيال وتصرفات وأعمال أفراد العائلة حسب تغير الظروف والتقدم الثقافي والاجتماعي في البلاد.لم تذكر إيزابيل الليندي اسم البلد او المدينة التي تدور فيها الأحداث ولكن هي تشيلي في أمريكا الجنوبية التي حدث بها الزلزال الذي دمر البلاد وحدث بها انقلا [...]

This took me some time to read as I wanted to savour it for as long as possible and not have it end. This is my first Allende novel which depicts an epic story of a Latin American family that spans 3 generations. Weaved throughout are hints of mysticism, history, political unrest, cultural richness along with vivid descriptions of a cast of characters in which some evoke ethereal auras and others violent furies.Allende’s masterful style of writing is lavish with foreshadowing and thematic cont [...]

2.5 stars, actually. (Still waiting for to give me that half-star option.) Let's be honest, Isabel Allende is chick lit that you're not embarrassed to read on the Metro. It's got just enough faux-Garcia-Marquez, magical-realism-lite charm to fool people into thinking it's moderately intellectual. I don't have a big problem with that (as long as people realize what's going on) because Allende is a fine storyteller. This novel, her first and most famous, is a fairly traditional family saga follow [...]

Onvan : The House of the Spirits - Nevisande : Isabel Allende - ISBN : 553383809 - ISBN13 : 9780553383805 - Dar 448 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 1982

Passions, Politics, Psychics in Three Generations of Chilean FamilyIsabel Allende's stunning saga, The House of the Spirits, spans three generations of the Chilean Trueba family ending a few years after the Sept. 11, 1973 government overthrow led by General Pinochet, the awful right-wing dictator who, with the U.S. govt's support, seized the chance opened upon fears that Marxists would take over Chile.Ms. Allende', who to my mind should soon be Chile's 3d Nobel Laureate in Literature, wrote the [...]

100 Years of Solitude except not boring, is what Isabel Allende's 1982 landmark of magical realism is. Like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's epic, it follows several cyclic generations of a family through the history of a country. But it has an immediacy that 100 Years, with its frustrating mist, lacks; the story is better. It's a better book; it's the best book in the magical realism genre I've read.South American literature is different from the rest - no, seriously, it is, I know that's a huge genera [...]

"Nana had the idea that a good fright might make the child speak, and spent nine years inventing all sorts of desperate strategies for frightening Clara, the end result of which was to immunize the girl forever against terror and surprise. Soon Clara was afraid of nothing. She was unmoved by the sudden appearance of the most livid and undernourished monsters in her room, or by the knock of devils and vampires at her bedroom window. Nana dressed up as a headless pirate, as the executioner of the [...]

haha, so my sophomore honors english teacher decided he wanted to read a book with us for the first time, so he asked our department head to recommend a book. we all died, because mr. wells could not deal with talking about sex, and mr. hackling knew this, and he assigned this book. i mean, a couple of pages in, there's all this graphic rape in the fields going on! and then there's the creepy ass count . . . i really loved the book though. it's layered, it's complex, it's beautiful. the imagery [...]

Αν και είναι το πρώτο δικό της βιβλίο που διαβάζω, στον κόσμο του βιβλίου και όχι μόνο, η Αλιέντε δεν χρειάζεται συστάσεις. Ήταν καιρός λοιπόν να την γνωρίσω κ εγώ και νομίζω ότι αυτή η έναρξη που έκανα ήταν ότι καλύτερο θα μπορούσα να επιλέξω.Δεν θα πω πολλά. Το βιβλίο αυτό εί [...]

Allende's first and best work of art. The story of three generations of Trueba women that tells the history of a nation. During the first 10 pages I was thinking to myself that there is way too much similarity on so many levels to One Hundred Years of Solitude, but why not, since it's the bible of Latin American magical realism? In addition to Clara, the second Del Valle daughter who forsaw the future, communicated with spirits, and moved objects without touching them, and Blanca, her daughter w [...]

El pasado y el futuro eran parte de la misma cosa y la realidad del presente era un caleidoscopio de espejos desordenados, donde todo podía ocurrirLa casa de los espíritus es la historia de varias generaciones de una familia, donde el pasado, el futuro y el presente se entrelazan, a veces volviéndose indistinguibles, es similar en muchos aspectos a “Cien años de soledad” aunque en mi pensar no es una copia, y tiene méritos por contar una historia diferente, aunque utilice el mismo recur [...]

The House of the Spirits has a lot of aspects I normally wouldn't even consider reading about, and I only started reading this book because it is a famous classic that's been recommended to me several times before. I usually don't like historical fiction set in a modern period, and I am very skeptical towards the concept of a 'family saga', which is the major theme here. Nevertheless, rating this anything lower than five stars would be a great injustice to one of the absolute best books ever wri [...]

I really wish I could say this is an amazing book, worthy of so much thoughtful praises, etc but that would just be a lie. Given how much I enjoy good writing—and this book definitely has it all, like a beautifully crafted essay that speaks with prominent characters and conflicts between generations of families—it’s kind of weird for me to say this book is just okay. I mean, the only thing I like from this entire book is the language: the metaphors, descriptions, the lines that sound so po [...]

One of the problems with a family saga is that people inevitably have to get old and die and sometimes when the best character goes the story loses its focus. I enjoyed a lot of this book but felt that when one main character left the scene she was not really replaced by any of the others and my interest waned. I read on to the end but did not really become involved in the final chapters at all. Still a good book and I can understand why it is a favorite for many people.

« Ogni tanto ho la sensazione che questo l’ho già vissuto e che ho già scritto queste stesse parole, ma capisco che non sono io, bensì un’altra donna, che aveva preso appunti sui quaderni affinché io me ne servissi. Scrivo, lei ha scritto, che la memoria è fragile e il corso di una vita è molto breve e tutto avviene così in fretta, che non riusciamo a vedere il rapporto tra gli eventi, non possiamo misurare le conseguenze delle azioni, crediamo nella finzione del tempo, nel presente, [...]

The House of the Spirits, a book we were advised one college professor by telling us simply: "It's a fun book."This advice I followed - While "few" years later - proves to be notified.Now that is my turn, I'll try to be more explicit than has been the teacher - That I thank!The House of the Spirits is a novel that has it all. It is a family saga with the right amount of love and tragedy, which mingles the upheavals experienced by the Chilean company in the second half of the twentieth century. T [...]

Clara aveva dieci anni quando decise che non valeva la pena di parlare e si chiuse nel mutismo.Bello, bello, bellissimo, bellissimissimo. La casa degli spiriti è uno di quei libri che non avrei mai voluto finire di leggere, uno di quelli che non riuscirò mai a togliere dai cassetti della memoria, uno dei pochi di cui mi ricordo infiniti dettagli a distanza di anni dalla lettura.All'inizio sono rimasta stregata da Clara, ma poi è arrivata Blanca poi era il turno di Alba. E poi, infine, mi sono [...]

"Porque mi venganza no sería más que otra parte del mismo rito inexorable".Mi reseña completa:descubretuhistoriaenunlibro.w¡Tremenda novela! Una historia muy bien escrita, desgarradora y maravillosa. Con sus tintes de amor, pasión, fidelidad, injusticia, machismo, violencia, muerte, vida El epílogo ha sido tan bonito y desolador a la vez."Comprendió que se estaba muriendo en vida porque para él la libertad era más importante que el amor"

Wow, what a remarkable novel. All over the book's jacket and in online reviews you'll find comparisons to Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude--rightfully so, I think. Both novels span decades and generations of families and are written in the magical realism style.I can't say that I loved 100 Years of Solitude, but The House of the Spirits is certainly the best book I've read this year, my favorite book I've read this year.I loved each character, particularly the women whose lives are the subject of [...]

Narra la historia de la vida de Esteban Trueba, su mujer, hijos y nietos, en la que los personajes siguen existiendo aún después de muertos.

Este libro siempre estuvo en mi casa e Isabel Allende es la escritora favorita de mi madre y no podía posponer más esta lectura. Desde pequeña me hice una idea de su trama solo por su título y nada tiene que ver con la historia que me he encontrado. Me ha fascinado esta historia y la he disfrutado conociendo la vida de cada uno de los personajes, todos con sus peculiaridades y narrado de forma impecable. 4 generaciones que nos muestran como los actos de uno pueden tener consecuencias muchos [...]

I've not read much in the area of magical realism (except for my aborted attempt to read Borges' Ficciones). This was a much more successful reading experience I believe because it was grounded in an historical time/experience that interests me: the coming to power of the Socialist government of Salvador Allende and it's eventual overthrow by coup.My experience of the book seems to have been opposite some others from what I have seen in some reviews. While I found the first half to be OK with so [...]