Daughter of Fortune: A Novel (P.S.)
by Isabel Allende
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Book Summary Information
Author: Isabel AllendeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-02
ISBN: 0061120251
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Daughter of Fortune: A Novel (P.S.)
Book Review: I was robbed! The ending left me hanging.
Summary: 2 Stars
*SEMI-SPOILER ALERT*
Eliza Sommers grew up in Chile and was adopted into a family that is all about secrets... a LOT of secrets, btw. She ends up "falling in love" with a moody young fellow named Joaquin and ends up following him to California during the gold rush. (why is beyond me! i didn't buy into that part much).
I found the description of California during the gold rush to be quite fascinating, though. I really enjoyed that part of the book. I think that Ms. Allende has a gift in describing historical settings. I felt like I could really imagine what it was like during that time period. I also thought that her take on it was different than what I learned growing up and found that interesting as well. Ms. Allende weaved the plot together with great sights, sounds and smells.
I go back and forth about giving this 2-stars vs. 3-stars. But I'm so mad at the ending of this book that I'm only giving it 2 stars. It left me hanging with too many unanswered questions. I know some people really liked the ending, but for me - it irked. I keep thinking about the book, too, and wondering how the characters reacted to one another after the big surprise ending.
I also thought that Eliza's story living on the road was WAY too long. I really wanted to know more about her and Tao, her Chilean family and how that all ended. It made me mad that Eliza obsessed over Joaquin for so long and that a large part of the book was about her obsession. Yes, some girls really do obsess over their first love for unknown reasons... but to read that much of a book about it bugged.
What about her and Tao?? Why were we left hanging there with him? We never got to see them together in the present. Ugh. I'm still mad that I gave 3 nights away to read this and have it end the way it did. I thought for sure it wouldn't end right then. What happens with her aunt? Does Eliza find out about her true identity? How does she react?
I much prefer Ms. Allende's "Inez of My Soul."
Summary of Daughter of Fortune: A Novel (P.S.)
An orphan raised in Valparaíso, Chile, by a Victorian spinster and her rigid brother, young, vivacious Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. She enters a rough-and-tumble world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. With the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi'en, Eliza moves freely in a society of single men and prostitutes, creating an unconventional but independent life for herself. The young Chilean's search for her elusive lover gradually turns into another kind of journey, and by the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is.
Oprah Book Club® Selection, February 2000: Until Isabel Allende burst onto the scene with her 1985 debut, The House of the Spirits, Latin American fiction was, for the most part, a boys' club comprising such heavy hitters as Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Mario Vargas Llosa. But the Chilean Allende shouldered her way in with her magical realist multi-generational tale of the Trueba family, followed it up with four more novels and a spate of nonfiction, and has remained in a place of honor ever since. Her sixth work of fiction, Daughter of Fortune, shares some characteristics with her earlier works: the canvas is wide, the characters are multi-generational and multi-ethnic, and the protagonist is an unconventional woman who overcomes enormous obstacles to make her way in the world. Yet one cannot accuse Allende of telling the same story twice; set in the mid-1800s, this novel follows the fortunes of Eliza Sommers, Chilean by birth but adopted by a British spinster, Rose Sommers, and her bachelor brother, Jeremy, after she is abandoned on their doorstep.
"You have English blood, like us," Miss Rose assured Eliza when she was old enough to understand. "Only someone from the British colony would have thought to leave you in a basket on the doorstep of the British Import and Export Company, Limited. I am sure they knew how good-hearted my brother Jeremy is, and felt sure he would take you in. In those days I was longing to have a child, and you fell into my arms, sent by God to be brought up in the solid principles of the Protestant faith and the English language."The family servant, Mama Fresia, has a different point of view, however: "You, English? Don't get any ideas, child. You have Indian hair, like mine." And certainly Eliza's almost mystical ability to recall all the events of her life would seem to stem more from the Indian than the Protestant side.
As Eliza grows up, she becomes less tractable, and when she falls in love with Joachin Andieta, a clerk in Jeremy's firm, her adoptive family is horrified. They are even more so when a now-pregnant Eliza follows her lover to California where he has gone to make his fortune in the 1849 gold rush. Along the way Eliza meets Tao Chi'en, a Chinese doctor who saves her life and becomes her closest friend. What starts out as a search for a lost love becomes, over time, the discovery of self; and by the time Eliza finally catches up with the elusive Joachin, she is no longer sure she still wants what she once wished for. Allende peoples her novel with a host of colorful secondary characters. She even takes the narrative as far afield as China, providing an intimate portrait of Tao Chi'en's past before returning to 19th-century San Francisco, where he and Eliza eventually fetch up. Readers with a taste for the epic, the picaresque, and romance that is satisfyingly complex will find them all in Daughter of Fortune. --Margaret Prior
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