Eva Luna

If you're a fan of magic realism, you can't go wrong with Allende.

"There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them," my mother explained shortly before she left me. "If you can remember me, I will be with you always." (p. 43)

Eva Luna was born in Chile to a young single woman named Consuela, who died when Eva was only six years old. Eva's

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godmother accepted responsibility for Eva's welfare, immediately placing her into service. She spent several years working in one home where she became close to another servant, Elvira, who was like a mother to her. Elvira taught Eva Luna an important lesson: "You have to fight back. No one tries anything with mad dogs, but tame dogs they kick. Life's a dogfight." (p. 69)

Eva Luna took this advice to heart, and grew up a strong and independent woman. She worked in a variety of situations, from a red light district to a remote mountain village. Throughout her life she had been an expert storyteller; as an adult she returned to the city and was able to use this talent to make a living. She reconnected with characters from her past, including a revolutionary named Huberto Naranjo. Huberto had helped her find shelter as a young girl, and through him she became embroiled in the country's tumultuous political environment.

There was a lot going on in this book, but it didn't quite work as well as I'd hoped. I love Isabel Allende's writing -- her prose is wonderfully descriptive, and brings her homeland to life. She creates fascinating characters, and situations bordering on magical realism (something I normally hate, but Allende remains safely on the edges). So I enjoyed reading this book, but at the same time I found the story preposterous, particularly as the once-illiterate Eva begins to make a living as a television screenwriter. And some of her romantic entanglements seemed far-fetched.

Allende fans will find this a good read, but those unfamiliar with her work should start with a different book, like The House of the Spirits.

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It started out beautifully, dripping with Allende's skill for storytelling, and evoking a rebellious, impassioned Latin spirit rarely seen in literature. Sadly, it runs out of steam towards the end. The last fifty pages were quite difficult to get through, because I had lost interest as the story

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reached its climax. The characters were intriguing, and the action was compelling through the majority of the book; the ending let the whole book down and I didn't enjoy this anywhere near as much as Allende's other work. A bit disappointing.

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Eva Luna tells stories which enchant people. This is the story of her improbable life beginning as the product of a red-haired housekeeper named Consuelo and an Indian dieing of a snakebite.

As we follow our narrator through her life, we meet colorful characters who provide fodder for Eva's stories,

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which eventually become scripts for telenovellas. There's Huberto Naranjo, street urchin grown to lead the revolution. Mimi, deeply unhappy man teaching Italian who becomes a beautiful and admired woman in all but genitalia. And so many more equally colorful, deeply human characters.

Isabel Allende was my entree into the world of magical-realism, a genre I have come to adore. And while Eva Luna is not as magical as The House of the Spirits, it still weaves a spell of improbabilities accepted as normal.

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I had been wanting to read some South american literature for awhile. Allende posed an excellent option.
Eva Luna is a modern day Scheherzade, her stories weave into her life and her people in beautiful moments. I love the part when the young Eva keeps looking at a picture of the sea all afternoon.

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The characters and their relations are beautiful, you can see the frailties of each of them easily, I don't see many authors who do this, expose every weakness of their characters. Political Power is also a theme well explored.

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Beautiful imagery.

A truly beautiful story of a woman who lives several lives ranging from near slave to the mistress of a military dictator. Beautifully written.

I enjoyed Eva Luna, but not as much as House of Spirits. It felt like a combination of House of Spirits and My Invented Country - Allende is rarely unique in her phrasing or plot.

For me, this was an impressive introduction to Allende’s flamboyant storytelling ability. For those who enjoy a colorful tale blended with a healthy dose of magical realism, this is a book to savor.

Interesting story of a girl and boy's roller-coaster rides through childhood. One curious element is that near the end the narrator brings her own reliability into question.

Eva Luna is a young girl in Chile who has grown up without many boundaries beyond survival. Her conception was by chance and her father was never in her life, her mother died young, and from then on Eva bounces among employers and whoever will give her shelter, learning life on the fly as a matter

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of necessity. But as she becomes caught in the machinations of guerrilla warfare, her personality and sense of self solidifies in response to the determination and purpose of the fighters.

Allende does better atmospheric writing than plot-driven, as there were points at which I felt closer to the setting of the town and its cadence than I did to Eva herself. This novel has been described as picaresque, but I think it is better understood as its inverse: rather than setting and situation being tools to showcase character development, Eva's development seems to showcase her settings and cultural situation - or at least, that is how I was engaged by the book. Interesting way to tell a story, but I felt it wasn't wholly successful with so little story to have been told.

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The plot of this book was so slow to come about. I was really disappointed in how slow the purpose of the book moved, but really enjoyed the poetic narration. This book was vivid and very inciting to the senses, but lacked in substantial plot until the very end. I was a love story and a political

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piece, but neither were apparent at all until the last 80 pages or so. In our book club, we talked about how each character didn't really have much depth. The character was what their personality flaws made them out to be, and nothing more. The Turk was a nice man who was constantly making up for his harelip by being overly generous and self-pardoning. The only character that seemed to be able to have any real personality despite their characteristic flaw was Mimi. The strings of the bits of life that Eva gathered through the first 150 pages of the book finally wove together for the finale, but a lot of the back story could have been shortened to heighten the depth and drama of the really center of the book. This being said I did really enjoy the book as beautiful words strung together in a very memoir-esque novel. I'd give it 2.5 stars. It picked up a lot very late in the book and I became very interested in Eva as a person, eager to see how these chance meetings and various characters would shape her life. Not what I was expecting, but still an interesting book.

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I tend to read books that are mainly realistic fiction, but this book just had a bit too much magical realism for me. Not to mention that I also dislike Hispanic literature. I'm not saying this is a poor book in the slightest; Allende's writing style is vivid and flowing. It just wasn't the book

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for me.

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This was the first book by Allende that I ever read and I feel in love with her style of writing. Eva Luna is beautifully told and takes you on an incredible journey.

The story of Eva Luna is a story about stories and storytelling. Allende is adept at weaving magic with words, making the most outrageous situations seem natural. I love her stuff.

Audible audiobook performed by Cynthia Farrell & Timothy Andrés Pabon.

From the book jacket: Meet Eva Luna – a lover, writer, revolutionary, and storyteller. Eva is born poor, orphaned at an early age, and works as a servant. Eva is a naturally gifted and imaginative storyteller who meets people

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from all stations and walks of life. Though she has no wealth, she trades her stories like currency with people who are kind to her.

My reactions
I’m already a huge fan of Allende’s magical realism, and this book did not disappoint. I loved the many characters – from the Lebanese merchant to the petty criminal/guerrilla leader to the transexual entertainer. As Eva tells the story of her life, she tells the story of this South American nation – of corruption, class struggle, peace, war, feast and famine. The story comes alive with saints and ghosts, servants and political leaders equally profile, skewered and cherished.

Both Allende and Eva Luna are great storytellers, and this a marvelous escape.

The audiobook was performed by Cynthia Farrell and Timothy Andrés Pabon. These are two talented voice artists, and having them both narrating, makes it easy to follow the shifts in perspective.

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What wonderful invention and marvellous writing. Simply delightful to read.
Read Samoa Aug 2003

The title, the name of the protagonist, belies the intricate web of various stories woven into one coherent piece. The style is known as magical realism. I can hear one of my favourite professors now: "You are too discursive, my son, you need to focus on one thing and unpack it sufficiently". Eva

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Luna covers religion, politics, gender-bender, sexuality, morality, revolution, spiritualism, the old and the new, multiculturalism, and "indigenous affairs", and so on, yet still manages to bring together a gripping story. Not what I expected but thoroughly enjoyable. And proof that one can be discursive if the weaver is skillful.

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A beautifully written celebration of the senses, this historical fiction is set in an unnamed South American country and recounts the life of Eva Luna. The story opens in the early twentieth century with Eva’s mother’s tragic life story, including Eva’s birth. It then follows Eva as she moves

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from place to place, encountering challenges and developing friendships. Eva is a strong female who must make her way in the world with little assistance. Orphaned at an early age, her life is full of sorrow, but she gradually learns she is a gifted storyteller and she uses this gift to barter for what she needs. She encounters an assortment of diverse and colorful characters from many socioeconomic and political backgrounds. One of these characters, Rolf, is the subject of a significant sub-plot, which details his childhood and emigration to South America.

The book is character driven. There is no predominant plotline that encompasses the entire novel; however, Eva’s life is eventful, full of drama, deprivation, political struggles, and personal challenges. Allende’s writing is lyrical, full of imagery and emotion. Eva suffers, and it is easy to empathize with her. Eva relates segments of her imaginative stories, showing the power of storytelling to both escape from suffering and inspire hope for the future. At times the storyline ventures into unlikely scenarios and coincidences, and it could have used a bit more information on Eva’s age at each major event during the timeline. Allende is known for employing magical realism, and uses it here, but not in an overpowering way. Recommended to those who enjoy tales of overcoming adversity or the power of storytelling.

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I keep trying to like Isabel Allende but I think maybe I just don’t

Allende is always a favorite. In this one storytelling plays a major role. She weaves so many extraordinary tales into the narration of Eva's life while incorporating social and political commentary focused on the inequities of a typical? South American country.

A gorgeous, devastating book that makes Marquez's *One Hundred Years of Solitude* feel lacking, somehow. I am falling deeply for Isabel Allende.

This was my Book Club's January pick, and I was delighted. I had read two other Isabel Allende novels before this, and I have been hoping to work my way through her canon. And this is an excellent choice. Eva Luna is a storyteller, though she won't realize this for many years. Her mother's origins

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are murky, and her own are seemingly impossible. But Eva uses her years of servitude as fodder for her fantasies and tales. And amidst civil unrest, she searches for love, only to find it in a remarkable man whose abilities mirror her own.

This novel is peopled by extraordinary characters. And there is a trans woman's storyline which is deftly handled, showing how ahead of the times Allende was when she wrote this in the 1980s. If you are an Allende fan, read this lovely book. And if you have never read her, this is a great place to start.

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Synopsis: Eva Luna is the daughter of a professor’s assistant and a snake-bitten gardener—born poor, orphaned at an early age, and working as a servant. Eva is a naturally gifted and imaginative storyteller who meets people from all stations and walks of life. Though she has no wealth, she

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trades her stories like currency with people who are kind to her. In this novel, she shares the story of her own life and introduces readers to a diverse and eccentric cast of characters including the Lebanese émigré who befriends her and takes her in; her unfortunate godmother, whose brain is addled by rum and who believes in all the Catholic saints and a few of her own invention; a street urchin who grows into a petty criminal and, later, a leader in the guerrilla struggle; a celebrated transsexual entertainer who instructs her in the ways of the adult world; and a young refugee whose flight from postwar Europe will prove crucial to Eva's fate.

I admit I'm not usually a fan of Isabel Allende but I did enjoy this novel more than I expected. Some chapters were very funny, but several were filled with the political machinations of the government and were very tedious. However, my goal was to learn more about Chile which I did accomplish, and I enjoyed learning about the country through Eva Luna's eyes.

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