Book Review: ‘A Long Petal of the Sea’ by Isabelle Allende
Of lust and love, poets and politics
Chilean writer Isabelle Allende is best known for her first novel The House of the Spirits. Released in 1982, the book may be familiar to some due to a 1993 film adaptation starring Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep. Like that book, A Long Petal of the Sea (Ballantine Books, 2020) spans multiple generations and situates the personal within the political.
A Long Petal of the Sea begins with the Dalmau family in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. When the fascist Generalísimo Francisco Franco seizes power, the talented surgeon Victor Dalmau and Roser, the wife of Victor’s missing leftist brother, book passage with other refugees on the SS Winnipeg bound for Chile. The whole thing is, in a bit of real history, organized by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. His poetry described the world’s southernmost nation with the phrase that lends the novel its name: in Spanish, “largo pétalo de mar.” Victor and Roser pose as man and wife and begin new lives in a new land, a land that will within their lifetime experience its own political upheaval.
In A Long Petal of the Sea, Allende weaves a rich tapestry. Above all, readers will find themselves caring about the private fortunes of Victor and Roser, their relatives, acquaintances and paramours, but Allende also deftly handles the broader political milieux. Allende may be related to Salvador Allende, the socialist president of Chile from 1970 to 1973, but instead of preaching ideology, she tells human stories. Whether the characters’ fortunes are influenced by the left or the right, readers will suffer with them through hardship and rejoice when they overcome it to fluorish. Thus, Allende has dedicated A Long Petal of the Sea to, among others, “navigators of hope.”
At 417 pages, A Long Petal of the Sea isn’t long, so apparently Allende didn’t get the memo that multigenerational epics are supposed to be massive tomes. Be glad she didn’t, because this novel says all it needs to and no more. Having debuted with an instant classic, Allende is now one of the last greats still writing.
Rating: 3/5 bookmark tassles
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