The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

I don’t entirely remember how this book got on my list, but I suspect it was off of a “Latinx Book List” of some sort. I make a concerted effort to read diversely, and that includes seeking out books outside the white, male, Anglo-American, and straight world. Not that there is anything specifically wrong with old dead white guys - and goodness knows, as a lover of classic literature, I read plenty of them as well - but a variety of voices is necessary, particularly if one reads to expand one’s universe. Part of this diversity involves reading books which were not originally written in English. If you count live theater and poetry, this is my 10th book this year that is in translation. 

Since I don’t remember exactly where I got the recommendation, I am also unsure exactly why this book, of Allende’s books. It is a collection of short stories told, Scheherazade style, by a character in one of her other books. That said, it stands alone just fine, as far as I can tell. Perhaps it would be enriched by knowledge of the title character, but the stories are enjoyable on their own.

There are a total of 23 stories, plus a brief prologue. For the most part, they are stories about women and sex. Well, that fails to cover it, somehow. Perhaps they are about the relationship between women, female desire, sexuality, power, violence, class, and society. All of the above, wrapped up together. The setting is an unnamed South American country (or countries - the settings seem pretty varied), likely based on Chile, where Allende was raised, or Peru, where she was born. Or both. The politics are unfortunately recognizable, although these too vary. The autocratic dictator, born out of a revolution, figures prominently. And also colonialist rulers, corrupt bureaucrats, bandit kings, and more. The time frames are rarely actually stated, but the specifics of life indicate that the stories may well span the entire 20th Century. 

The women certainly form the center of all the stories. Men may be main characters, but they turn out to orbit around the women. The men may have the power, but women find ways to survive, to assert their humanity even as it is being dismissed. 

The woman who “sells words” as talismans, essentially, who falls in love with the rebel leader, El Mulato, and draws him with “Two Words,” the title of the story. The woman, who, having given birth to two gravely disabled children with her husband, has two healthy children as the result of an affair she keeps secret until the very end of her life. The wife of a foreign diplomat who runs off with the dictator, then disappears from society (and him) in his abandoned vacation villa. The creative prostitute who saves a small fortune servicing (well, mostly manipulating) the workers on a remote plantation, then retires and abscondes with the first man who proves to be her equal. There are darker stories too, about a deaf child stolen from his parents by fraud - and their quest to find him. The women seduced and abandoned. The holocaust survivor who tries in vain to save a young girl trapped in a lahar. In all of these, Allende skillfully evokes the emotions of the characters, the time and place of the setting, and the visceral feel of the narrative. 

I was particularly struck by the way Allende writes female desire. Here in Western culture of the last few hundred years, we have this idea in our consciousness that females either don’t desire sex for its own sake, or only in the context of “committment” (meaning marriage), or that they trade it for “committment,” meaning a promise to financially support her. (Which is different from prostitution solely in the length of the contract…) This wasn’t always so. Previously, it was believed that females were sexually insatiable, and that men were the rational ones. Exactly why this changed is not entirely clear, although there are a few theories floating around which might be at least partial explanations. However it happened, the expectation currently is that women have the responsibility to preserve their “purity,” and police the boundaries of a romantic relationship. Males, meanwhile, are expected to push those boundaries. And if they succeed, it is generally considered the woman’s fault. (That’s your quick summary of the purity culture I was raised in, although my dad at least made it clear that women could and did enjoy sex - my sex ed was vastly better than average.) Oh, don’t forget that applied to white women. Women of color were assumed to be seductresses, sexually insatiable, which is why a white man could rape them with impunity…

Allende, on the other hand, treats female sexuality much the same as our culture treats that of men. Women are fully sexual in these stories, often from a young age. They make their choices (some good, others questionable), and live with the consequences. (The men often avoid the consequences for a while - just like in real life - but are often bitten in the butt later.) I would also say that this book is another point in favor of my belief that women, on average, tend to write better sex scenes than men. My theory on this is that because of the combination of toxic masculinity in our culture, and the fact that human reproduction doesn’t require female pleasure, men are not as observant of the details and emotions which make a scene actually sexy, rather than just...awkward. Just a theory. 

The messiness of life, love, and relationships is on full display in these stories. Whether tragic, humorous, poignant, or horrifying, Allende’s stories let their characters be complex, human, and unpredictable. 

I think this book was a good introduction to Isabel Allende, and I intend to read more of her books in the future.