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My Invented Country CD: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile by: Isabel Allende List Price: CDN$ 33.50 City Travel Guides Price: CDN$ 21.11 You Save: CDN$12.39 (37%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Audio CD Dewey Decimal Number: 863.64 EAN: 9780060559274 ISBN: 0060559276 Label: HarperCollins Canada / Harper Manufacturer: HarperCollins Canada / Harper Number Of Pages: 6 Publication Date: May 15, 2003 Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Harper Studio: HarperCollins Canada / Harper Sales Rank: 628301 Browse for similar items by category:
Editorial Review: From Amazon.co.uk: "Nostalgia is my vice," admits Isabel Allende in My Invented Country. A question about nostalgia propels an exploration of her past, including the complicated history and politics of Chile, where she spent the better part of her childhood. Despite her strong connection with Chile, Allende says she has been an outsider nearly all her life. Her stepfather was a diplomat, so her family moved quite frequently. However, in her travel diary Allende compares everything to Chile, her "one eternal reference" point. "From saying goodbye so often my roots have dried up," she notes. She successfully reclaims them, however, through two channels. Allende relays anecdotes about what she calls her untraditional family--whom she has based some of her novels upon, including The House of the Spirits. Like a few of her novels, though, her own story is lost in heavy policy analysis. Interspersed among her ancestors' tales is an all-too-exhaustive report of Chile: the terrain, its people, customs and language, its heroes and villains and its government. Allende fled Chile after the military coup on September 11, 1973. Twenty-eight years later and now living in the United States, she is haunted by this date when terrorists attack New York City and Washington, DC. Allende admits that the place she is homesick for may have never existed. In spite of that, Allende asserts that she can live and write anywhere: "I don't belong to one land, but to several, or perhaps only to the ambit of the fiction I write." The irony is that she steadfastly has "one foot in Chile and another here". --C.J. Carrillo, Amazon.com Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating: - almost FaulknerishAllende's original work must be beautifully and well written in Spanish or else the translator did an excellent job. Seems to me that her writing is almost Faulkner-ish... a kind of classical ranting while accounting for family history and characters through personal experience and skewed perspectives... almost what is called stream of consciousness with many threads off tangent. Her style comes across more like she is thinking out loud instead of just telling a story. Sometimes it seems as if she is singing. Her words boast of a personality stronger than cultural traditions and expectations. Allende displays a personality ready to face the world, yet unwilling to forgo a staccatto past. Rating:  - Not the best of AllendeThis book tells us the story of the author's life in a short version. I personally liked the way she portraits Chile, past and present. But I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who has already read "Paula". In "Paula" she writes the story of her life while she is taking care of her daughter, who has a fatal disease, in "My invented country" she tells us the story of her life (again), because of the nostalgia she feels when her grandson asks her a question about being old, only in a shorter way and contributing with facets about her country. So when I read this book a lot of times I thought "I remember this" or "I knew this already". As another reviewer said, "she is loosing her touch". ... Read More: Rating: - Introduction to Chile and Allende"My Invented Country" is an enjoyable, highly personal view of Chile, interesting for anyone (like me) wanting to find out more about that country, and I suppose for readers familiar with Isabel Allende's fiction. Not only does Allende try to explain her country and its people, she also tells how they both inspired her writing. Chile comes over as a diverse place; in topography, fauna, flora, climate and history. It seems to possess great beauty (even great food) yet it has violent colonial and recent pasts: although the brutality of treatment accorded to its indigenous inhabitants hardly makes it unique. According to Allende, Chileans are the most reticent and understated of South Americans, seeing themselves as being ... Read More: Rating: - Eva Luna is still hard to beatWhat can I say? I LOVED Eva Luna & I have a lot of respect for Isabel Allende & I wanted to really like this book - & I did. But part of my liking for the book was purely some kind of loyalist support. After finishing it, I remembered that I felt she was losing her touch when I read that book where they sit around playing cards. I forget the title but remember the cover. I guess this book would be a great read for Chileans. For a non-American, it reads kind of mediocre. But it does let you know something of her life & her country & that;s what she set out to do in a way. So in this respect she suceeded. Rating: - Another intriguing Isabel Allende memoirI wonder how many memoirs this woman can write and still keep the reader captivated? This book was a delightful read, the kind that you can easily get into on a 45-minute bus ride to work. I think what I'll take away from it is her metaphor of transplanted tree roots clinging to the clumps of dirt from their previous place of residence. Another thing that stuck with me is her distinction between an exhile and an immigrant. This book kept me interested more than "Aphrodite" but still doesn't inspire me to delve into more Allende works. |
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