[Allende] has deftly woven fact and fiction, history and memory, to create one of the most richly imagined portrayals of the Spanish Civil War to date, and one of the strongest and most affecting works in her long career ... The notions of love and belonging are satisfyingly complex in the novel, where intimate connections are challenged as countries tumble toward fratricidal conflict and upheaval ... [Allende] shows a deft hand and tremendous poise here, creating a story that feels true as well as consequential ... as in much of Allende’s fiction, there is the sense that every human life is an odyssey, and that how and where we connect creates the fabric of our existence: the source of our humanity. If what happens to us — the axis of our fate — is nearly always beyond our control, stubbornly unchangeable, we can still choose what we cleave to and fight for, refusing to be vanquished. This is true belonging, and how we build a world.
... sweeping, splendid ... This is [Allende's] best book in years, one she has poured all of her prodigious passion and talent into, perhaps because it tells a story so close to her heart ... Allende eloquently schools us in those terrible times, taking us deep into the history and heart of the country she grew up in. Here there is no magical realism, the hallmark of her first and most famous novel, The House of the Spirits This is bald, bloody realism ... Yet the novel is also powerfully romantic ... Allende’s occasional tendency to sentimentalize is entirely absent from this story. Absent, too is any romanticizing of war — she chronicles Republican as well as Nationalist atrocities — and love — betrayals and mistakes are rife even with good people ... Nor is there political proselytizing. But the story’s focus on the plight and resilience of refugees is not just historical, but a matter that endures, worldwide, to this day.
Isabel Allende’s latest novel marks a return to the time and setting of the book that jump-started her literary career, The House of the Spirits, but with far less supernatural elements and a more expansive engagement of revolution, exile and the determination of the human spirit ... Despite the prominence of historical events and that the protagonists are so intricately woven into them, the novel manages to develop the complicated bond between Victor and Roser ... A Long Petal of the Sea, a page-turning story rich with history and surprising subplots that keep the novel unpredictable to the end, serves as a counterpoint and companion to Allende’s first novel. This time, though, she focuses on the lives of the downtrodden but no less heroic figures of war.
The novel is strongest in its depictions of what innocent people endure when caught in the crosshairs of warring political parties ... Unfortunately, the book is weighed down by its flaws. To start, the dialogue is often stilted, with phrases and sentence structures divorced from how people actually speak. The novel also spans more than 50 years, and at times it feels like the author struggled with the longevity of the narrative arch. Near the end, time-jumping transitions jarringly appear in the middle of chapters. Finally, Allende’s writing is sprinkled with cringe-worthy ethnic tropes ... One could perhaps forgive her dated use of racist language, but one of her editors should have intercepted it. It is possible to evoke a time period without embracing its intolerance.
... full of the magic of storytelling. Sharply drawn, vibrant characters; a long-simmering, unlikely love story; ruthless plot twists, and a long waited, last-minute development — Allende deals the cards with a practiced hand and a narrative poker face. The specifics are rooted in events of the last century, but the theme could not be more timeless — and timely. This is a book about people tossed by fate into a country where they are not welcome, with their circumstances reduced and their gifts unappreciated, yet they replant themselves with open hearts, tenacity and optimism ... Allende imbues the experience of displaced people trying to find a new home with the dignity, idealism and even romance it has been stripped of in our cruel times.
Allende's narrative...delves into the swirl of grief, love, pride, guilt and longing. Like their love for Chile, Victor and Roser's relationship is neither conventional nor tidy, but their bond grows deep and strong over many years, and Allende brings them through joys and challenges with grit, grace and stubborn hope. A Long Petal of the Sea is sprawling, sometimes difficult but ultimately satisfying.
Devoted readers of Isabel Allende will likely be thrilled to see another novel from her poetic pen. Those who may have taken a break after loving The House of the Spirits and Eva Luna, along with Paula, will be glad to see that she has recaptured her unique and distinctive voice, sharing that gift which makes us love her characters for their human frailties and their quiet fortitude ... an amazing cast of characters, each lovable and courageous in their own unique ways ... Whether sharing a piece of history or capturing the theme of this fictional book through the words of a character, Allende beautifully reveals the mastery of her prose and the meaning of her tale.
Allende’s writing about war and its impact on civilians is harrowing. But among the most affecting parts of A Long Petal of the Sea are its latter chapters, about aging and the changing nature of love. Allende captures the heat of youthful love affairs, but she also brings to life the deep tenderness of taking care of someone when you know there is everything to lose.
3/4 stars ... Timely in terms of the debate surrounding immigrants and refugees, the novel is not so much subversive as it is subtle in its exploration of the debate. Allende does not sacrifice the story for the message ... Allende’s prose is both commanding and comforting. The author writes eloquently on the struggle of letting go of one culture to embrace a new one.
[A] sweeping saga ... Allende aims to explore something deeper about love than free and raw passion, though Petal has plenty of spicy pages and couples who yearn for each other ... At present, our culture seems to cherish stories that examine the cyclical rise of our darkest impulses ... Isabel Allende makes a similar point in a real-world way ... For while A Long Petal of the Sea is a historical love story penned in the lush and propulsive prose familiar to Allende’s millions of fans worldwide, it is also suffused with an additional noble and philosophical consciousness that feels excitingly new.
...no amount of summary — pages and pages of historical and political background in which every conclusion feels foregone — is enough to save the dialogue that follows from exposition. Less interested in scene than in sweep, Allende nonetheless describes her characters’ emotions with great detail, writing in third person with an omniscience that drains any wonder from their choices and interactions ... The attributions are laden with unnecessary and burdensome adjectives ... I like that Allende pays attention to the lives of women, but I didn’t, at any point, forget that these characters were fictional. Though she shared their thoughts constantly, their interiority felt forced, falsified into caricature sketches meant to add emotional heft to scenes quickly overwhelmed by summary ... A Long Petal of the Sea is a draft of the book it could have been if the corporations profiting from its publication had invested in a rigorous editorial process to support Allende’s noblesse oblige.
Allende sees that to embellish the violence of war is to create distance from it, which can be useful in the immediate aftermath of irreparable trauma but would feel oddly escapist after nearly eight decades of reflection ... In that vein, Allende allows her writing to breathe. It’s light and fast ... her work moves with the economy of a fairy tale, as she collapses the long lives of her characters into a quick 13 chapters. Her language is direct and compressed. There is no ornament to her description of Spain and Chile, but rather than feeling brutalist or cold it comes across as melancholic ... The question that interests Allende is to what extent love awakens the feelings that make us human even as war and exile work to destroy them. She alerts us to suffering only to investigate the alienation — or personal exile — that drips from the tap of a savage world ... Forever exiles to Chileans, Venezuelans, and Spaniards, Victor and Roser recover their agency by lovingly renewing their partnership. They suspend the suffering and crystallize their humanity. They open their hearts to the world ... In this way, Allende shows us that even the briefest moments of intimacy can venerate the soul’s beauty.
Given that Allende has set herself the task of covering half a century in a relatively short book, it isn’t surprising that dialogue is minimal. Most of the story is told in episodic narration, or even summary. An omniscient narrator sees into the minds not only of Victor and Roser, but of many people who brush past along the way, sometimes revisiting them, sometimes leaving them behind in the political riptides. This kind of narration is extraordinarily difficult. Characters are a lot like gym weights; it’s much easier to hug them close than it is to hold them further away. Allende’s style is impressively Olympian and the payoff is remarkable: a huge overview of generations, decades and countries ... Even in the hands of a titan like Allende, this approach isn’t always successful. The narratorial circumspection...sometimes flattens the story more than it enriches it. It numbs horrifying moments...and it deadens joyful moments, too. It also leads Allende into saccharine generalisations of a kind that would never have made it into a tighter story without irony ... Instead, A Long Petal of the Sea is structured as a series of waves, with tides of sudden catastrophe in which the characters have almost no agency, and ebbs of peace.
...the mysticism that defined her early work is less present here: in its gritty realism, this story is focused on attempting not just to survive but to live ... One of Allende’s gifts is the ability to create synapses between her characters, resting with the lightest touch on an event or reducing a life to mere sentences.
... draws readers into its imaginative story from the start. Isabel Allende has written a number of fascinating books telling stories about different parts of the world and varied types of characters; A Long Petal of the Sea is no exception ... rich in historical detail ... Allende paints a fascinating portrayal of what it was like to live in those times and to experience those historical events, and this portrayal of historical events is the book’s greatest strength ... Though there are a number of interesting characters populating this novel, there is some sense of distance between the reader and the characters; the focus of this book is more on the historical context of their lives ... The prose of this novel is soulful, wise, and richly atmospheric, as is often characteristic of Allende’s work. The language in scenes such as the one where the Spanish refugees land in Valparaiso is beautiful and will make readers imagine what it felt like to the refugees to arrive on Chilean shores. Allende’s description of her character’s feelings and stories is filled with wisdom ... Allende is a masterful storyteller, and there is much to like about this book. However, if you are new to Isabel Allende’s writing, you may prefer to begin with another book, such as The House of the Spirits. This book is heavier on historical detail and somewhat drier than some of her other works, though the story is interesting. If you already know and love Allende, you are likely to enjoy this book and its rich descriptions of life in Spain and Chile, and its fascinating and unusual cast of characters.
... an ambitious and epic novel spanning generations, continents and the full spectrum of human emotion ... gripping ... Allende is unflinching in her portrayal of the nightmare that was the Spanish Civil War ... Allende at her best --- not only is she masterful in her depictions of families and their generation-long bonds and resentments, she is also passionate about her country’s history. The historic facts she weaves into and throughout the book are difficult to read, but never more necessary than now. One cannot read about the Republican refugees arriving at France’s closed borders only to be placed into internment camps without thinking of America’s current refugee crisis at its Mexican border. As Allende shows us, when one country fails, it is up to others to step in and demand humanity in a world ripped apart by monsters ... Of course, it is easy to think of our own political climate when reading about the Spanish Civil War and the Chilean backlash against Communism, but the novel is far more personal to its author than that. To read about Chile’s storied and resolute people in Allende’s words is to be given a gift of culture, fortitude and wisdom. That her characters are as equally fleshed out and imagined as her setting is no surprise --- this is Isabel Allende, after all --- but that does not make them any less impressive, any less relatable or any less moving ... Combining the best of Allende’s many talents, A Long Petal of the Sea is a gorgeous work about hope, home and humanity. Possibly her best book since The House of the Spirits.
The scope is sweeping, the characters engaging and the storytelling a model of clarity infused with a ribbon of life-affirming romance, yet Isabel Allende’s A Long Petal of the Sea was at times a challenging experience for me. The discomfort arose because protagonist Victor Dalmau lives through not one but two historical instances, roughly 30 years and half a world apart, of deep societal division leading to armed conflict followed by years of repressive dictatorship ... Powering through the moments of familiarity-induced anxiety was well worth it: I got to experience a compelling and touching 60-year story of personal and political drama within the Spanish-speaking world ... The mix of foreshadowed and fully surprising events keeps the story compelling. The author’s sympathies lie with characters and policies that would broadly be called more progressive than conservative, but except for the few who are heartless or hopelessly corrupt, every character is a human with an array of character strengths and flaws ... Some contemporary historical novels at the literary end of the spectrum make a point of being cognitively challenging. A Long Petal of the Sea is distinctly not like that. The cast of characters is contained, everything you need to know about history to follow the plot is succinctly laid out, and when a character’s thoughts and motivations might be in doubt, the author explains them. For the hard-nosed realist, the limitations of human bodies and institutions are fully acknowledged. For the romantic, there are plenty of threads and episodes to enjoy. A Long Petal of the Sea is a substantial and rewarding book that isn’t hard reading.
A rich and compelling novel ... an ambitious and outstanding feat of literature, spanning multiple families, generations, and continents, taking the reader on a journey through key moments of recent history. Despite being set against the chaotic backdrop of work, the book is far from bleak. Rather, Allende showers her pages with love, compassion, and shows the reader that kindness and hope reach far beyond the perceived hatred of the times ... The novel is complex and heavy in its subject, so Allende’s prose is simple yet impactful, freeing the reader from the weight of description that may have otherwise jeopardised the narrative. Instead, focus is given to the characters – while the historical events are detailed and understood, the book is very much character-driven ... Allende’s characters do the work for her. Their layered personalities, deep emotional bonds with each other, and the way that they move through the novel, carry the prose right through to the end ... Allende writes of this passionate love affair between Ofelia and Victor, are perhaps some of the most beautiful in the novel. Each paragraph is charged with emotion, and despite the backdrop of war, something wonderful is imagined for these two characters – a strong, deep love that eventually transcends time and distant to form something much more complex and meaningful for the reader ... feels very much like a love letter to everyone who preserved and struggled through these times ... the novel itself is also an important form of art, as Allende teaches us just how passionate humanity can be, even during a time like this. It’s a deep, emotionally charged novel, where the simplicity of language manages to convey the complexity of human connections.
Allende is the kind of expert writer whose use of detail—an inside joke, a single anecdote—can capture the irony and heartbreak of generations in exile ... while the novel is about Roser and Victor’s half-century-long relationship, it’s far from a typical romance ... As Allende reminds us, each of our lives is not one journey, but many.
Storyteller par excellence Isabel Allende brings to life an epic saga ... Against a backdrop of violent political and social upheaval, the lives of Allende’s characters quietly unfold in unexpected ways that prove both riveting and satisfying ... subtle touches of magical realism add richness to the story. Although Allende writes of political events and personalities from distant lands and decades in the past, readers may feel a very real sense that these events have much to say about the world today. Some may find hope in Victor’s and Roser’s abilities not just to survive such dark times but also to eventually heal and thrive ... For those familiar with Allende’s earlier work, this novel will not disappoint. For those new to Allende’s writing, A Long Petal of the Sea will prove a captivating introduction.
Though this novel does not have the magical realism of some of Allende’s other work, it retains a romantic sweep ... stacked with historical detail, though it often feels like the research takes prominence, and characters take a back seat in their own story. Often, that means that stereotypes come into play, or the characters themselves become emblematic of certain archetypal figures ... The book is taut with desire, and the practicalities of marriage, births and familial relationships provide an effective network of restrictions against which Allende can explore the tug of lust and love. That said, Allende often succumbs to broad brushstrokes in defining her characters’ sexual relationships, which again become essentially emblematic of societal binaries ... descriptions are carefully done, but all serve the basic traditionalism of the plot, which is quite old-fashioned in its epic, romantic arc and can lapse into dullness ... Allende’s prose style in A Long Petal of the Sea can become tiring, which is disappointing considering the potential of the plot. There is a huge amount of surface detail, both historical and personal, and a reader can only admire the extent to which Allende must have researched some of the scenes here. However, we never fully see through the eyes of the characters, nor is the emotional resonance of the book really drawn out. Rather, Allende moves quickly, filling each page with detail ... Despite the violence of its historical focus, Allende’s book is ultimately optimistic, and dovetails purposefully though implicitly with our current political climate ... the world opened to the reader is rich and varied, though its potential is greater than the emotional voltage it carries.
... an agreeably old-fashioned novel. There is nothing clever or tricksy about it, and, though it is set mostly in Chile, there is no pretentious and tiresome magic realism. Instead we have an easy-flowing narrative and credible characters. It’s the kind of novel that used to be more common than it is now, reminding me of good, if for the most part forgotten, novelists of the mid-20th century such as RC Hutchinson and Thomas Armstrong ... All this is well done, but probably not new to many readers ... The picture of Chile in the 20 years after the war, with its division between the rich, conservative, devoutly Catholic upper class, a liberal or Communist intelligentsia and an impoverished peasantry and urban working-class, is fascinating, if at times sketchy and politically biased ... This is a novel of absorbing interest and reads very easily. It will please readers who delight in family sagas, but also those who are interested in the history and political divisions of the 20th century. For the most part these are fairly and judiciously represented, even though Allende’s leftist or liberal prejudices are evident. That said, she is generally fair. The excesses of the Left in both Spain and Chile are admitted, presented in such a way as to allow the reader to understand the reasons for the harsh and murderous reaction they provoked.
As the journey unfolds, the family of protagonists becomes so round and relatable that a reader is left with not only an increased knowledge of historical and political events but a genuine sense of loss when the book concludes ... Allende is the niece of Salvador Allende, president of Chile from 1970 to 1973. Her investment in the twentieth-century political landscape is evident in its razor-sharp depiction. A reader gets a genuine sense of the turmoil occurring around the globe in a time before transnational citizenship/identity was commonplace ... A couple points of critique: the wide scope of the novel creates some segments that tend to be less engaging than others. Also, the rich, smooth, flowing English prose of Allende’s earlier translated works is missing, replaced with flat, repetitive sentence patterns in places. Regardless, the work is certain to find its rightful place in the ever-growing collection of refugee literature as well as in Allende’s personal canon. It is well worth a read.
Allende’s fluidly written saga conveys her deep familiarity with the events she depicts, and her intent to illustrate their human impact in a moving way ... prompts readers to reflect on the timely themes of cultural adaptation and political refugees’ shared experiences across eras and continents ... Incidents from the Dalmaus’ lives are sometimes recited rather than shown, which can be distancing, but Allende’s storytelling abilities are undeniable.
Allende deftly addresses war, displacement, violence, and loss in a novel of survival and love under siege, a tale that is seductively intimate and strategically charming with valor, perseverance, transcendent romance, and wondrous reunions providing narrative sweeteners to lure readers into contemplation of past atrocities and, covertly, of the disturbingly similar outrages of the present, in which refugees and immigrants are treated with appalling cruelty and fascist threats escalate around the warming world.
The wealthy, conservative del Solar family provides a counterpoint to the idealistic Dalmaus; snobbish, right-wing patriarch Isidro and his hysterically religious wife, Laura, verge on caricature, but Allende paints more nuanced portraits of eldest son Felipe, who smooths the refugees’ early days in Chile, and daughter Ofelia, whose brief affair with Victor has lasting consequences. Allende tends to describe emotions and events rather than delve into them, and she paints the historical backdrop in very broad strokes, but she is an engaging storyteller. A touching close in 1994 brings one more surprise and unexpected hope for the future to 80-year-old Victor. A trifle facile, but this decades-spanning drama is readable and engrossing throughout.
... [a] majestic novel ... Allende’s assured prose vividly evokes her fictional characters, historical figures like Neruda, and decades of complex international history; her imagery makes the suffering of war and displacement palpable yet also does justice to human strength, hope and rebirth. Seamlessly juxtaposing exile with homecoming, otherness with belonging, and tyranny with freedom, the novel feels both timeless and perfectly timed for today.
