Isabel Allende's "The Sum of Our Days"

I really enjoyed this book. It is witty and serious. It is sentimental and it is brutally honest. It reads like fiction but it is a memoir. It has the ups and downs of a Perils of Pauline, but it drives to a point of conclusion with a grand philosophical acceptance of life's vicissitudes. It's just plain a good read. She has a delightful personality that shines through in this book. She can be searingly candid and hopelessly lost in reveries of magical realism.

This book is a memoir that picks up her story after the death of her daughter documented in the book Paula.

Here's my favourite part of the book. It isn't the story part. It isn't even representative of the book except for her honesty. It is just her cry of passion about he adopted country:

There was a sense of frustration in the country that had dragged on for a long time. The future of the world looked as dark and impenetrable as tar. The escalation of violoence in the Middle East was terrifying and international condemnation of America was unanimous, but President Bush paid no attention; he wandered like a madman, detached from reality and surrounded by sycophants. He could no longer obscure the calamity of the war in Iraq, even though the press showed only aseptic images of what was happening: tanks, green lights on the horizon, soldiers running through deserted villages, and occasionally an explosion in a market where supposedly the victims were Iraqis. No blood, no dismemebered children. Correspondents were embedded in units of the troops and information was filtered through a military apparatus; however, on the Internet anyone who wanted to be informed could consult the media of the rest of the world, including Arab television. Some courageous reporters -- and all the comedians and cartoonists -- denounced the government's incompetence. Images of the prison at Abu Ghraib flew round the world, and in Guantanamo prisoners indefintely detained without being charged died mysteriously, committed suicide, or agonized in hunger strikes, force-fed through large stomach tubes. Things were happening that could not have been imagined a short time before in the United States, which thinks of itself as a beaconof democracy and justice: the writ of habeas corpus was suspended for prisoner, and torture was legalized. I expected the public to react with one voice, but almost no one gave those matters the importance they deserved. I come from Chile, where for sixteen years torture was institutionalized: I know the irreparable harm that leaves in the souls of victims and victimizers -- indeed the entire population, which becomes an accomplice.

I enjoyed the bit in The Sum of Our Days where she explained how she got involved in writing her book, Zorro, and struggled to come up with something novel in interpreting the Zorro legend. She explains how she decided to take an approach connecting Diego de la Vega with the democratic ideals of the French Revolution by adding to his legend by talking about his youthful trip to Europe.


I'm always amazed at coincidences. Reading Allende's book brought back memories of Chile and the military revolt that forced her to leave. Just as I finished this book I watched a CBC program Our World that interviewed Ariel Dorfman about his experience making the documentary film "A Promise to the Dead". Here's a Salon article about the documentary film. Here's an audio file of an interview with Ariel Dorfman.