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In the early 1500s a young woman named Inés Suarez decided to leave Spain for the New World. She did not go to look for fortune and gold, like so many, or to conquer new lands. She went seeking freedom. Inés had been left behind by her husband, Juan, while he traveled to Peru, lured by the promise of riches. According to custom, she lived like a widow until it became too stifling and she asked for passage to Peru in order to join Juan. Truthfully, Inés didn't want to be reunited with her husband, but the pretense granted her the opportunity to depart.
Isabel Allende's latest novel, INÉS OF MY SOUL, is the story of this adventure. Inés Suarez was in fact an actual person, a Spanish woman who was influential (at least behind the scenes) in the conquest and colonialization of Chile. Allende's historical fiction imagines Inés's motivations, goals and especially her relationships with three very different men. It is because of these associations (although sometimes despite them) that she is able to garner uncommon power for a woman of her time and place.
Upon arriving in Peru, Inés learns that her husband is dead. While his ghost haunts her (literally, in true Allende fashion), she is liberated by his death and begins to create a life for herself in the New World. She is soon partnered with the dashing and powerful Pedro de Valdivia, and the two of them share the same objective: to successfully settle Chile for Spain. Together they begin to make this dream a reality. This is the story of the birth of the modern nation of Chile. Inés is unable to separate her own story (as she tells it to her stepdaughter) from that of the early days of Spanish settlement.
While her tale is deeply personal, Inés recounts battles with the indigenous people, how the towns were constructed and what the Spanish ate and wore --- all in as much, if not more, detail than how she felt or reacted to the events around her. And therein lies both the appeal of and problem with INÉS OF MY SOUL. Allende has skillfully written a character totally enmeshed in her environment and circumstance, who understands herself most clearly in relation to the events around her and the context in which she lives. However, that does not necessarily make for the most engaging or compelling reading. Inés's accounts of battles and transactions for which she wasn't even present illustrate the bloody history of colonialization, but they distance Inés from the action and thus the reader from Inés.
As she tells the story, Inés is 70 years old and feels that her death is near. She wants to leave a record of her life but instead gives mostly an account of the brutal (yet often romantic, in this telling) conquest of Chile and the attempted subjugation of the native peoples.
Allende is an accomplished storyteller and her talent and unique voice are apparent in this latest work. While perhaps not as successful as her previous novels, INÉS OF MY SOUL is still appealing --- full of romance and violence, magic and history, and strong female characters who are in control of their own destinies.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
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