Sample these lines: “Friends are fighting, families are split down the middle; it’s impossible to talk to anyone who doesn’t think as you do.” Or, “People grew accustomed to the sight of the police in riot gear, protest placards and banners, inflammatory posters, the threats and catastrophic warnings in the press…” Or, “…people lived in the midst of lies, omissions and euphemisms, in grotesque exaltation of the blessed fatherland, brave soldiers and traditional morality.”
Spanning continents
Just like that, Isabel Allende’s new novel puts us square in the middle of contemporary India. Except it isn’t, of course. A Long Petal of the Sea is set mostly in Chile, at the other end of the earth from where we are, in a different time. But these words from the novel describe the days just preceding the horrifying, repressive Pinochet regime, which lasted 17 years when many died and many others went missing. We know all too well that for many people displacement and homelessness in times of political upheaval is a lived reality, but never has it hit so close to home.
A Long Petal of the Sea spans continents and countries, takes you all the way from Spain to Chile, from Chile to Venezuela, and back to Spain and Chile again as we wander hopelessly with its protagonists, Victor and Roser, who escape from the brutal Spanish Civil War only to find themselves caught up, years later, in a similar situation in their adoptive South American country.
At the heart of the novel is a love story of two people thrown together because of circumstances not in their control, though beyond a point it fails to move, owing primarily to Allende’s narrative style that keeps the reader at arm’s length, protecting you from the worst, so that even when terrible events unfold you see them with the interested but detached gaze of a bystander.
It also makes things bearable that, despite their tribulations, Victor, a doctor, and Roser, a musician, do very well for themselves, landing on their feet every single time. Towards the end the book drags, seeming to repeat itself so that after a point you are just chewing gum.
Full circle
Chapters open with beautiful verse by Pablo Neruda — the title is taken from a Neruda quote too, and what a lyrical way to describe the long strip of a country that runs along South America’s south-west coastline.
The poet also makes a guest appearance in the book; he plays a small but significant role in the fate of Victor and Roser. Clearly Allende admires him deeply, but with his memoir now being read in a new context, some readers might feel conflicted. To rub salt into the wound there’s a blink and you’ll miss the mention of Picasso.
Allende’s novel has lessons for the world as we know it today, but it is also full of hope and optimism. The world carries on despite dictators and despots and eventually things come full circle. It might take a lifetime for that big churn to happen but there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
The writer is the author of Jobless Clueless Reckless , a novel about teenagers.
A Long Petal of the Sea;
