(no subject)
Isabel Allende's Portrait in Sepia, the sequel to Daughter of Fortune (which I read and enjoyed at the end of last year, pre-booklogging days) has helped me to confirm a pattern in Isabel Allende: her protagonists are never the most interesting part of the book. Portrait in Sepia is technically the story of Aurora, the illegitimate daughter of a half-Chinese half-Chilean model growing up in the late 1800s. However, the real dominating figure of the book is Paulina del Valle, the grandmother who raises Aurora. I find it hard to describe in words how ridiculously awesome she is, but, just to provide a few examples, Paulina del Valle:
- eloped from a convent in her teens
- dominated the San Francisco business scene
- had a giant bed sent over from Europe and paraded around the streets of San Francisco and the house of her husband's mistress
- and slept in said bed for the next thirty years
- and then became complete and total BFF with the mistress when she ran into her twenty years later; "I can't imagine why we were never friends before!"
- meanwhile, widowed at age sixty, married the butler and convinced everyone she knew that he was a wealthy English lord
- and then started a whole new successful business
One of the things I really like about Isabel Allende's books is the variety of female characters, and the multitude of different ways in which they are awesome and interesting and relate to each other. Aside from (BADASS) Paulina del Valle, I also loved the hugely feminist constantly-pregnant aunt, the revolutionary tutor, and the prim English great-aunt who makes a side living writing pornography novels. And she doesn't have to erase male characters to give her strong female characters, either - the butler, especially, is kind of brilliant. Basically, at the very least, I know if I pick up an Allende I am going to read something that passes the Bechdel Test in spades, and that is a nice comfort zone to have.
- eloped from a convent in her teens
- dominated the San Francisco business scene
- had a giant bed sent over from Europe and paraded around the streets of San Francisco and the house of her husband's mistress
- and slept in said bed for the next thirty years
- and then became complete and total BFF with the mistress when she ran into her twenty years later; "I can't imagine why we were never friends before!"
- meanwhile, widowed at age sixty, married the butler and convinced everyone she knew that he was a wealthy English lord
- and then started a whole new successful business
One of the things I really like about Isabel Allende's books is the variety of female characters, and the multitude of different ways in which they are awesome and interesting and relate to each other. Aside from (BADASS) Paulina del Valle, I also loved the hugely feminist constantly-pregnant aunt, the revolutionary tutor, and the prim English great-aunt who makes a side living writing pornography novels. And she doesn't have to erase male characters to give her strong female characters, either - the butler, especially, is kind of brilliant. Basically, at the very least, I know if I pick up an Allende I am going to read something that passes the Bechdel Test in spades, and that is a nice comfort zone to have.