It is a remarkable feat to create a cohesive story out of the fragmentation and historical fracturing and inconsistency of the time period that Allende chooses to write about. This is not to say that the work isn’t beautiful - it most certainly is. Despite the beauty of Allende’s writing and the emotional impact of the characters’ lives and struggles, the lingering impact of this book is not a reaction at the content, but an unbearable exhaustion at having to wade through 314 pages of unimportant banalities to arrive at the important thematic conclusion of the novel. The book itself feels like one massive list. Unfortunately, the resulting mosaic of historical fact and narrative embellishment is an overwhelming wave of information: Pages on pages inundate the reader with irrelevant historical details and lists of events. “A Long Petal of the Sea” is rich with historical details that must have taken an enormous effort to unearth. Throughout all of this chaos, one thing holds steady - the quiet dedication and love Victor and Roser have for each other and the other members of their fractured family, sundered and scattered across the globe. Married to facilitate their emigration from Spain as refugees and to ensure that they will be allowed to stay together, Victor and Roser’s lives undergo tremendous trials and momentous upheaval as a result of the political turmoil of Franco’s regime, France’s hostility towards Spanish refugees, and Augusto Pinochet’s military coup in Chile. The novel follows the adventure and romance of Victor Dalmau and his wife, Roser, who carries the child of Victor’s dead brother. The same type of storytelling happens in “A Long Petal of the Sea”: Allende, once again, writes in her typical style - as a narrator, recording a long string of continuous events, and as a historian, gathering scattered details to form a long-winded and tiresome story.
It is a protracted endeavor to read a novel that encompasses as much content and seeks to cover as much ground as Allende’s “A Long Petal of the Sea.” Readers of “The House of the Spirits” may remember a novel that tracked generations of women and their countless happenings with a tireless and seemingly never-ending narrative. The novel itself is undeniably brilliant and rich - it is, however, just like “The House of the Spirits,” a war of attrition to read. “A Long Petal of the Sea” follows the Dalmau family and their friends as they travel across the globe, first as refugees departing Spain under Francisco Franco’s regime, then as exiles to Chile and Venezuela. Well-known for her critically acclaimed novel “The House of the Spirits,” Isabel Allende is back with another novel spanning an impressively large geography and time.
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