Previously banned book is magical classic
Nathan Slinker
The American Library Association (ALA) celebrates challenging books during the last week of September every year. By protecting unpopular or unorthodox views, the ALA reminds Americans not to take freedom of expression for granted. In celebration of Banned Books Week, I took a trip down to the public library last Thursday with my girlfriend Aschley in the hopes of digging up a controversial and relevant book to review. As we walked through the library, I stopped to take a last look at the display of controversial books that had been set up. A big hardback stuck out at me and I reached for it: “The House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende.
Aschley’s eyes lit up as she told me that the Chilean author would be speaking on Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Joe Crowley Student Union as part of the celebrations for Hispanic Heritage Month. So I took the book from its arranged space, checked it out and feverishly read the weekend away.
“The House of the Spirits” is Allende’s debut novel, written while the author was in exile from Chile and published in Spain in 1982. The book made No. 67 on the list of books most frequently challenged from 1990-2001, according to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, of the ALA. Multiple schools have banned or tried to remove Allende’s novel from their shelves on the basis that they think it is immoral, defames the Catholic faith, contains pornographic passages and is ultimately sexually depraved. Which means it’s about people. And it’s sublime in its beauty and horror.
The novel focuses on the history of an aristocratic Chilean family in which “the madness was divided up equally, and there was nothing left over for [them] to have [their] own lunatic.” From the early 20th century up through the political disruption of the 1970s, the Trueba family is laid bare on the page. The central male figure, Esteban, is inclined to furious outbreaks, chronic hatred, depression, violence and rapist tendencies. In his youth, Esteban satisfies his lust by picking peasant women off their feet, throwing them onto his horse and riding into the hills to force himself into them. With bastard children spread across the Chilean countryside, Esteban finally marries Clara, a whimsical clairvoyant who is wrapped up in the spiritual realm. When Clara is a child, a Catholic priest declares her possessed by the devil. As she matures, her kind, gentle manner buries the church’s opinion.
“The House of the Spirits” is placed into the broad genre of magical realism. Two of the women of the family are born with green hair, Esteban starts shrinking and must gradually buy smaller shoes and have his clothes hemmed, and Clara plays Chopin on the piano without touching the keys. But the physical passion and psychological trials are as powerful as Allende’s imagination. The feminine strength exhibited by Clara, her daughter Blanca and the child Alba could only be called superhuman.
Between blood and flowers; between kisses and guns; between ninety names for God and the devil is Allende’s classic gem of Chile. If you miss her on Thursday, Allende’s modern classic will always wait on the library shelves, provided we continue to celebrate the human passion and free expression from which controversy commonly stems.
‘The House of the Spirits’
Author: Isabel Allende
Copyright: 1982 in Spain
Genre: Magical realism, Autobiographical
Pages: 368
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