The western dime novel becomes international literature

books:


	• Daughter of Fortune Isabel Allende, 2000 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 397 reviews view larger image
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Chick Book

A young girl who travels from Chile to California to found her boyfriend that got her pregnant. Can you say "chick book?" At times I found the culture of Chile interesting, but there was very little of the plot that I found interesting. Another good thing about the book is the many mentions of brothels and women of the night. It does make you wonder if prostitution was so prevalent in California during the gold rush.

Gold Rush

Eliza is just a tiny baby when she is left in an empty box on the doorstep of Rose and Jeremy Sommers, a Victorian brother and sister living in relative luxury in a British colony in Chile. Rose is a young spinster who plans never to marry. Jeremy also seems destined for bachelorhood, and the two of them compliment each other well, although Rose does long for a child, if not a husband. When the baby is left on their doorstep, Rose insists they keep it and raise it as her own daughter.

So Eliza's young life is pleasant. She has the doting attention of both Rose, who teaches her refinement and culture, and the family's Chilean cook and housekeeper Fresia, who teaches her superstition, herbal remedies and cooking. Eliza is sheltered and pampered and she never thinks to question her place or her future, until she is a teenager and catches sight of Joaquin, a poor worker. It is love at first sight for both young people, and they begin a scandalous and secret affair.

Eliza's first love affair may have burned itself out, but at the height of their passions, the California Gold Rush begins. Chile is closer to California than China and is even closer than much of the United States, so every poor dreamer in the country is sure they can get there first to pick up the gold nuggets everyone says are just lying on the ground. Much of the country's youth is taken with gold fever. Joaquin is no exception, and he soon ships out to find his fortune. Eliza simply cannot do without him, so she stows away on a ship also headed to California, determined to find her lover and intertwine their futures. Nobody seems to have calculated the risk involved in such a move, though, and the devastating losses that all will suffer.

I liked the way this book captured the frenzy of the rush to California, followed by the slower organization of the state into cities devoted to making a living and a life, instead of just mining. However, I thought Eliza's particular experience was very simple, with all sorts of lucky breaks and coincidences that allowed her to escape almost all of the hardship of the Gold Rush.

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Subtle presence of Native themes

I wouldn't call "Daughter of Fortune" a Native-themed book because the Native presence is muted. But Eliza's mother is Chilean, so she's part Native. More important, Eliza's upbringing is a tug-of-war between Rose, the Englishwoman who represents intellect, artificiality, and constraint, and Mama Fresia, the Indian woman who represents passion, genuineness, and freedom.

When Eliza escapes to America, the land of opportunity, her Indian side comes to the fore. Like the Californians around her, she learns to eschew antiquated concepts such as honor, propriety, and convention. In other words, she throws off the shackles of European civilization and becomes a "noble savage."

Rob's rating: 8.0 of 10. See the full review at [...]

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The western dime novel becomes international literature

Joaquin Murieta it seems is the inspiration for a novel about a young girl, young love and 19th century culture in England and
in Chile.
The novelist is a master of plot and characterization who blends understanding of three major cultures: Chinese, English and Spanish-Latin American.
I have read novels by major Americans written in English ( not translated from Spanish) that weren't as well documented or as factual as this one.
There is no doubt that Isabel Allende is probably one of the major popular novelists of our time.
It is a western...
This novel deserves a read!

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Muy bueno

Este es el primer libro que leo de Isabel Allende y me encanto. Me gusta mucho su forma de narrar, te lleva del presente al pasado y del pasado al futuro dentro de la historia de manera inperceptible. Impredecible e interesante manera de narrar.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.

So begins Isabel Allende's enchanting new novel, Daughter of Fortune, her most ambitious work of fiction yet. As we follow her spirited heroine on a perilous journey north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and northern California, we enter a world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. A society of single men and prostitutes among whom Eliza moves--with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chien--California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her search for the elusive Joaquín gradually turns into another kind of journey that transforms her over time, and what began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is.

Daughter of Fortune is a sweeping portrait of an era, a story rich in character, history, violence, and compassion. In Eliza, Allende has created one of her most appealing heroines, an adventurous, independent-minded, and highly unconventional young woman who has the courage to reinvent herself and to create her own destiny in a new country. A marvel of storytelling, Daughter of Fortune confirms once again Isabel Allende's extraordinary gift for fiction and her place as one of the world's leading writers.

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