Title & author
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
Synopsis
Victor Dalmau, a doctor for the Nationalist army, and Roser Bruguera, an accomplished pianist, live in Spain during the bloody civil war between the Nationalists and the Republicans. The pair, desperate to begin again, travel onboard the SS Winnipeg to start a new life in Chile. Through her own poetic writing, Allende masterfully teaches her audience history, particularly a history lesson many were never taught, all while lyrically demonstrating how women across generations shape the men in their lives.
Who should read this book
Fans of The House of the Spirits and The Dutch House
What we’re thinking about
How it takes too long for many of us to become aware of certain histories
Trigger warning(s)
Physical violence, racism
“Foreigners, here it is/ This is my homeland/ Here I was born and here live my dreams.”
In Isabel Allende’s breakthrough novel The House of the Spirits, the characters often refer to “The Poet,” a man with wisdom and genius they can only wish to possess. In her newest novel, A Long Petal of the Sea (Ballantine Books, 2020), written almost four decades after that very first, The Poet makes a return, but this time, his identity is named: Pablo Neruda. Neruda’s poetry shapes the novel. The title of the tale is taken from how he once described Chile, excerpts from his poetry begin every chapter, and it is because of the poet and his role as a senator that the readers have a story to lose themselves within.
Victor Dalmau, a doctor for the Nationalist army, and Roser Bruguera, an accomplished pianist, live in Spain during the bloody civil war between the Nationalists and the Republicans, the latter who are supported by General Franco, Hitler, and Mussolini. As the war grows increasingly in favor of the Republicans, Victor, his mother Carme, and Roser, who is pregnant with Victor’s brother’s child, make the decision to flee to France, like countless other refugees. There, in desperation to begin again, Victor and Roser marry so that Senator Pablo Neruda will grant them voyage on the SS Winnipeg to start a new life in Chile.
Through her own poetic writing, Allende masterfully teaches her audience history, particularly a history lesson many were never taught, seamlessly integrating them in a way that doesn’t make readers realize they are even learning. “Nobody on board was expecting the welcome they received…The crowds crammed behind barriers with placards and flags of Spain, the Republic, Euskadi, and Catalonia, cheering them in a deafening roar of welcome” (126). Desperate to follow along with the life and love of Roser and Victor, the historical briefs feel like an accompanist, but really, they are the soloist, shaping the lives, happiness, and sorrows of the characters the reader quickly comes to love. The audience walks away not only with new friends, but a new understanding and knowledge of the opposite side of history—the one the winners didn’t write.
Before going on, it is very important to note that Allende does utilize outdated terminology and stereotypes at times, a choice her editors decided not to adjust. Allende herself is almost 80 years old and grew up in a different time. Yet why the choice on her publisher’s behalf to ignore these?
Although the reader mostly follows Victor’s narration, Allende does a force of a job at lyrically demonstrating how women across generations shape the men in their lives—from husbands, to sons, to grandsons—even if they don’t notice (or if it takes them a while to notice). “In her fifties, Roser was revealed to [Victor] as sensual, filled with enthusiasm, with an endless reserve of fearless energy… he knew she was stronger than he was whenever they suffered misfortune” (252-3). When Carme dies, “the only inconsolable member of the family was her grandson Marcel…[and] from then on, the only thing that went with Marcel wherever he happened to live was the shoe box tied up with a string that contained the three hundred and fifty-nine letters from his Àvia” (230-1). Just like Allende’s The House of the Spirits, A Long Petal of the Sea becomes a generational tale of female strength, depicted through romance, loss, independence, and perseverance. More importantly, it becomes a novel of strong women as the backbone of others’ happiness, proving that stereotypical gender norms are meant to be broken.
And then there is Ofelia, the woman Victor briefly falls in love with once in Chile, who wishes “she could be worthy, strong, and brave…[but] because she had the misfortunate of being a woman, a prisoner of her family and social convention,” knew she would not be able to do as she wishes with her life (138). Ofelia looks at Roser and wishes she could be her, but is convinced that her class keeps her from ever being able to. In fact, it is these exact concerns about family and social conventions that tragically shape her life, beyond the extent she is aware.
Near the end of the novel, once Ofelia briefly reunites with Victor again, he says she “smelled of withered gardenias” (266). Yet Ofelia “had freed herself of the chores that had kept her from her vocation” (264). Ofelia, finally having achieved happiness and freedom from the restraints she felt as a young woman, is critiqued by a man from her past for her fading traditional beauty and family role. Victor’s commentary just further demonstrates the way in which Allende’s male characters often take women for granted by not recognizing the women’s impact on their lives.
While this male perspective provides insightful commentary on global patriarchal structures, it also might leave readers craving more from these powerful women. The novel is built upon them, yet we rarely see any of them in action once the story moves to Chile. From that point on, the narration largely focuses on Victor. But where is Roser with her travelling orchestra? Where is Carme as she explores this new country? Where is Juana and her timeless aging? And why do we only come back to Ofelia in the final pages of the story? Why document the lives of women through the male lens if it only reduces the empowered stories?
We are taught that winners are the ones who write history, but Allende takes us into the minds and lives of those who we never learned about in our history classes, showing us with graceful writing and uninterrupted narration the way immigrants and refugees must start over and start over again, even if all they want is to desperately return to the place they call home. But it begs to question: What then does it say about rewriting history if the women are not the ones to tell it?
“She was facing exile now with the same courage as she had done then, without complaining, without looking back, her eyes fixed on the future. What kind of indestructible material was Roser made of?”
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Despite women being at the forefront of the novel, they have very limited narration. How does Victor’s depiction of women further or prohibit gender equality?
How does location influence these gender roles? As they change spaces, do the women in the text experience differing relationships with equality?
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