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Portrait In Sepia by: Isabel Allende List Price: CDN$ 16.96 Price: CDN$ 3.99 You Save: CDN$12.97 (76%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 863.64 EAN: 9780060936365 ISBN: 0060936363 Label: Harper Perennial US Manufacturer: Harper Perennial US Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: 2002-11 Publisher: Harper Perennial US Release Date: October 21, 2002 Studio: Harper Perennial US Sales Rank: 187267 Related Items:
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Editorial Review: From Amazon.com: Isabel Allende has established herself as one of the most consummate of all modern storytellers, a reputation that is confirmed in her novel Portrait in Sepia. Allende offers a compelling saga of the turbulent history, lives, and loves of late 19th-century Chile, drawing on characters from her earlier novels, The House of Spirits and Daughter of Fortune. In typical Allende fashion, Portrait in Sepia is crammed with love, desire, tragedy, and dark family secrets, all played out against the dramatic backdrop of revolutionary Chile. Our heroine Aurora del Valle's mother is a Chilean-Chinese beauty, while her father is a dissolute scion of the wealthy and powerful del Valle family. At the heart of Aurora's slow, painful re-creation of her childhood towers one of Allende's greatest fictional creations, the heroine's grandmother, Paulina del Valle. An "astute, bewigged Amazon with a gluttonous appetite," Paulina holds both the del Valle family and Allende's novel together as she presides over Aurora's adolescence in a haze of pastries, taffeta, and overweening love. One of the most interesting aspects of the novel is Allende's decision to turn her heroine into a photographer: "through photography and the written word I try desperately to conquer the transitory nature of my existence, to trap moments before they evanesce, to untangle the confusion of my past." There is little confusion in Allende's elegantly crafted and hugely enjoyable novel. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating: - Well-written taleThe story of Aurora and her ancestors is a great one. Isabel Allende divides the story between USA and South America, and there are great characters all the way through the book. Specially the female characters are strong, and it soon becomes clear, that Paulina del Valle in some ways is the true herion of this story. Portrait in Sepia is a story about love, hate, life, death, passion and all the other great emotions of life. Rating:  - Liked the Story, but Not the Way in Which It Was WrittenI loved the story in this book but I didn't care for the writing style. Isabel Allende is a former journalist and, like most journalists, she tells her stories rather than dramatizing them in scenes. There is very little dialogue in the book because of this, just Allende "telling" us the story of the del Valle family through the "voice" of her narrator, Aurora del Valle. The book takes place in San Francisco's Chinatown, in Peru and mostly, in Chile, something I really enjoyed. The book actually begins before Aurora's birth, though it is Aurora who tells the story, many years later, from Chile. As in most of Allende's books, women dominate. Women are the strong figures, the ones who matter, the ones who take center stage. The ... Read More: Rating: - My First Introduction To Ms. Allende!This is the first time that I've read Ms. Allende and maybe due to the fact that I've not read any of her previous titles I did not have any expectations when beginning this story and as a result found this a pleasent read. Although there were some slow parts I enjoyed the history of these two families but in the same breath found it at times difficult to follow the many different characters that were introduced. Still it was nice to be given a chance to know the various characters that make up this story and as a result given a chance to know the families. I look forward to reading Ms. Allende again in the future and recommend this book as a nice way to pass the weekend. Rating: - Good and easy readI found this book very enjoyable, it was an easy read and even if there are facts that aren't totally accurate (as another reviewer points out) this is a novel, not a history book, so you should just relax and enjoy it! I recommend you read "Daughter of Fortune" first!! Even though you can read them independently, Daughter of Fortune precedes Portrait in Sepia. Rating:  - Just great!I loved this book because the plot takes place both in Latin America and the USA. Isabel Allende uses a great plot to tell San Francisco's history, and its relation to so many immigrants. She makes a great description of the old times in San Francisco, and the old times in Chile. You will learn about how San Francisco became what it is now. It talks about a specific family, but that is the story of thousands of families that migrated to the USA. Allende's description corresponds to that of a Latin American who loves the USA. She makes a perfect link between these two world. |
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