A LONG PETAL OF THE SEA

A Long Petal of the Sea, Isabel Allende, Ballantine Books, 2020, 314 pp

 

For the third time this year I was once again immersed in the effects of the Spanish Civil War. The first was Serge Pey's The Treasure of the Spanish Civil War. The second was The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. And now Isabel Allende has told another branch of the story. 

 

Through these novels I have finally gotten a better understanding of the causes of that war. I think the first time I read about it was in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. When I read that in 2002, I did not understand why so many Left Wing people from the Americas and Europe became so passionate about the struggle. I am finally getting the picture.

A Long Petal of the Sea is quite simply a wonderful story. I think Allende is always at her best when writing historical fiction. Victor Dalmau was a young medic in the war. He and his brother's pregnant lover Roser, a gifted pianist, along with his mother are finally driven to escape from Spain. How many stories have I read about desperate journeys across the Pyrenees Mountains? Certainly a few. That border between Spain and France has hosted many refugees going in both directions, not to mention advancing and returning armies.

Victor Dalmau's mother does not make it, but Victor, Roser, and her baby do. They end up in Chile, thanks to Pablo Neruda who chartered a ship to bring 2000 refugees to his country. Though these people were not wanted there, Neruda was so beloved in Chile that he pulled it off.

Each chapter of the book begins with some lines from Neruda's poetry. In fact, Victor and Neruda become friends. The lives of Victor and Roser in Chile span decades, with numerous developments and adventures where politics and art are always intertwined, where the opposing forces of freedom and fascist tendencies battle.

Though it is such a long and involved tale I was never lost. Allende's sure hand with history and her deep but somehow lighthearted fascination with the power of love are the anchors. Definitely one of her most wonderful novels.