The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende, 1982
Fantasy Historical fictionContemporary fictionLiterary fiction
A sweeping generational saga where political turbulence, passionate love, and the supernatural blur the lines of reality and memory.
Feels like passion, melancholy and defiance. About family, time and memory.
A page from the book
How the human mind fights against the chaos of time and the weight of the past.
Escribo, ella escribió, que la memoria es frágil y el transcurso de una vida es muy breve y sucede todo tan deprisa, que no alcanzamos a ver la relación entre los acontecimientos, no podemos medir la consecuencia de los actos, creemos en la ficción del tiempo, en el presente, el pasado y el futuro, pero puede ser también que todo ocurre simultáneamente, como decían las tres hermanas Mora, que eran capaces de ver en el espacio los espíritus de todas las épocas. Por eso mi abuela Clara escribía en sus cuadernos, para ver las cosas en su dimensión real y para burlar a la mala memoria. Isabel Allende.Allende often drew inspiration from her Chilean heritage and the vibrant political and cultural history of South America during the 20th century.
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Questions readers ask
- What is The House of the Spirits like?
- Feels like passion, melancholy and defiance. About family, time and memory.
- What should I read after The House of the Spirits?
- If you liked The House of the Spirits, try One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez), Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel) and Voyager (Diana Gabaldon).
A taste of the feed
The moment you realise time isn’t passing but turning in circles.
—Qué quería —murmuró—, el tiempo pasa. —Así es,—dijo Úrsula—, pero no tanto. Al decirlo, tuvo conciencia de estar dando la misma réplica que recibió del coronel Aureliano Buendía en su celda de sentenciado, y una vez más se estremeció con la comprobación de que el tiempo no pasaba, como ella lo acababa de admitir, sino que daba vueltas en redondo.
One Hundred Years of Solitude · Gabriel García Márquez
The water you step into is never only yours.
The water she first stepped into minutes ago is long gone and yet it is here, past and present and future inexorably coupled, like time made incarnate. This is the covenant of water: that they’re all linked inescapably by their acts of commission and omission, and no one stands alone.
The Covenant of Water · Abraham Verghese
A stranger’s grip can feel like a message you haven’t learned to read.
Someone touches my hand and wrist, fingers encircling me so unexpectedly that I jerk away, then stop myself, so as not to cause a scene. The grip is cold and bony and trembling, but surprisingly strong. I turn to see the woman from the garden. She straightens her humped back and gazes up at me through eyes the color of the hydrangeas back home at Drayden Hill—a soft, clear blue with a lighter mist around the edges. Her pleated lips tremble.
Before We Were Yours · Lisa Wingate
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