Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my second Allende novel, the first one being Of Love and Shadows, which I enjoyed very much, in fact, so much that, when part of the author’s name peeked at me from beneath a pile of books at the local used-books store, I did not hesitate even a second before extracting it out despite all the dust and my notorious allergy.
The novel begins in Chile in the 1840s, where a young foundling Eliza is raised in a Victorian English household by siblings Rose Sommers, Jeremy Sommers and the mostly-absent sea-captain John Sommers, as well as by the native housekeeper Mama Fresia. This mixed upbringing means that she has been taught in the Victorian English morals and way of life by the Sommers as well as the native Chilean culinary arts by Mama Fresia. She falls deeply in love with Joaquin Andietta, and after a short, passionate affair, Andietta leaves for California, gripped by the Gold Fever that had gripped the entire continent at the time. Eliza discovers she is pregnant, and with the help of her Chinese friend Tao Ch’ien, she smuggles herself into a ship and sails to California, a land ruled by unruly men lured by the glitter of gold. Apart from Eliza, the only other women there are prostitutes. Shedding her corsets and gowns and adopting a man’s clothing, she embarks on an impossible journey in search of her lover, a quest that later turns out to be that of self-discovery and finding freedom.
The novel is quick paced and easy to read, and I must confess I have read better prose (perhaps the prose is better in the original Spanish). Yet the novel is special because of its characters and each of their stories that resonated with me. It is special because of Eliza, and how her character transformed during the course of the journey, from the innocent young girl who grew up amidst all the confinements of a typical 19th century ‘respectable’ household to a free woman: “I am free” she says to her dearest friend Tao as the novel concludes. Not only am I eager to read the sequel Portrait in Sepia as soon as I can lay my hands on it, but I would also love to revisit Daughter of Fortune when I am more at leisure, hopefully sometime in the near future.