The House of the Spirits, a novel by Isabel Allende is an inspiring story told in a conversational tenor. The story is about the history of the Trueba family headed by Esteban Trueba and through the lives of three generations of women. Clara, the wife of Esteban Trueba, Blanca their daughter and Alba the granddaughter. The opening and ending line in the novel, Barrabas came to us by sea; prompts a paranormal world in which The House of the Spirits come about.
The story is set in an anonymous South American country that expresses the trueban loves, their dream, their spiritual expeditions, the relationship within one selves in the family and their contribution in the Latin American politics of their times.
The novel is focused on Clara Del Valle who will be the mother and the grandmother as the story passes by. Clara is a warm hearted hypersensitive girl and has distinguished herself from an early age as she can see fortunes, make objects move and predict the future using her telepathic abilities. After the death of Clara’s sister Rosa (Esteban Trueba’s lover), she become quiet until past nine years she revealed to be wedded to Esteban Treuba despite the fact that she does not love him.
As the story continues, Esteban conceives an obsession for Clara, the birth of their daughter Blanca, a practical, modest girl who will, to the rage of her father, create an enduring relationship with the child of his foreman and her two brothers Jaime who becomes a doctor to the poor and unfortunate & Nicolas, a playboy and later an amateur in Eastern faiths and mystical disciplines. Blanca’s daughter Alba, a child who is pampered and directed by the entire family is dearest to her grand father Esteban Trueba. It is Alba who puts the story of her grandmother, mother and herself to make this inspiring novel.
I recommend each and everyone to read this novel. It’s a story that can grab your emotions.