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- Esteban and Clara
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April
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I really would like to know if Transito Soto has any real importance in the novel or if she is just there when Esteban needs a little perking up. I know that Esteban loved Rosa before Clara, but why the urgent need to build the most exquisite mosoleum for the three of them? And why not just leave well enough alone? Why had Esteban insisted upon stealing Rosa's remains after the de Valle family refused them to him (p.304)? I also wonder why he would want the coffin opened up to see Rosa after she'd been dead for more than thirty years. There is so much that I don't like in this story, but that is honestly what completes it, so kudos to Allende on such amazing writing. I have to say, though, I can't wait to see what happens with Esteban Garcia, Pedro and Blanca, Alba, and the ending. I really hope that Esteban Trueba has some sort of miraculous breakthrough and realizes what a jerk he's been pretty much since Rosa died. He needs to make some over-due apalogies and reconciliations, but I doubt he will.
ReplyDeleteI had completely forgotten about Nivea's head being in the basement! It stuns me that Allende never thought to mention the smell of such a thing. For all those years it was kept in a simple hat box, surely the stench must have slipped through and filtered through the entire house. By the time they finally buried her the head was "....nothing more than a yellow toy with an expression of sheer terror...." (p.294)
ReplyDeleteI find it really hard to believe that everyone could walk in and out of the house on the corner, and never notice that the place was falling apart. Everyone was so wrapped up in their own little world once Clara died I think it would have taken a dead body lying on the floor just for them to notice their surroundings. "No one tended the garden, either to water it or to weed it, until it was swallowed up by oblivion, birds, and wild grasses." (p.296) So what? The gardeners and servants showed up to work everyday, sat around and did nothing, then collected their paychecks at the end of the week without ever lifting a finger to do any sort of work what so ever. With Esteban Trueba's temper, I'm surprised he put up with "....eating chick-peas and rice pudding almost every day, for no one had the courage to face the procession of wart-faced, ill-tempered, and despotic cooks...." (p.296)
I also think Blanca should tell Alba who her real father is, instead of her thinking it's some crazy who died in the desert. Alba has a father to be proud of, and she should know who he is.
Perhaps the whole head smell situation is an example of magical realism.
ReplyDeleteYes, Bethanie - good points about Blanca. How is she as mother? Did you expect more?
I think Blanca did the best she could when it came to raising Alba. Considering ther family history of nut cases, Blanca was pretty normal and she raised and even more normal child. Blanca believed in her daughter's education, and encouraged her to be herself. The two were always doing good deeds together when it came to helping the poor, which is a trait that all the House of the Spirits women had in commen.
ReplyDeleteOk, this chapter was fascinating, yet made me was to shut the book. Clara dies and the house just falls apart. Which is significant to the role she played as not only a mother and grandmother but of the stability of everything. Esteban makes me so angry because previously he blamed Perdro Tercero for all his misery. He should have told Clara how he felt instead of beating her. This chapter really made the "you don't want something until you can't have it" saying really into perspective. On page 317, the part where he is with Transito, he forgets all about Clara after being so upset about her death. I was astonished that someone could do taht. Although when he broke down into tears, "Clara..." (pg 317), I began to respect him a tad. I don't think this is the last time I will read about Transito. I don't know why but I have a feeling she will return just as she has before.
ReplyDeleteAllende does a great job of making the Trueba family a miniature version of the entire country. Somehow the leaders of both the liberals and conservatives are either part of or closely connected to the family. This leads to a much deeper insight into the events of the nation instead of some outsider's skewed perception.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter ten, I was outraged by how out of touch and insane Esteban Trueba's political opinions are.
He believes in a separation between weak and strong people. Anyone who is different from him is inferior. He thinks poor people are poor because they are too ignorant to do any better. On p.297 he even goes so far as to say that charity is an "invention of the weak" to bring down the strong, and that it is a "utopian value" that doesn't even exist.
Senator Trueba understands no points of view besides his own. He reminds me of America's current legislature who blindly vote against opposition bills simply out of spite. On p.307 Allende writes "to Senator Trueba, all political parties except his own were potentially Marxist, and he could not distinguish one ideology from another." He becomes a "caricature of the picturesque reactionary oligarch," the kind of politician who, instead of thinking about the greater good of their country, thinks only about the well being of his own kind.