Eva Luna

A quiet day today. In the morning my housemate and i were absorbed in the normal rhythm of weekend household work and by mid-day ensconced ourselves in the sofa to watch the regular Sunday TV shows. After dinner i went back to my reading and finished the remaining pages of Isabel Allende's novel "Eva Luna".

“My name is Eva, which means “life,” according to a book of names my mother consulted. I was born in the back room of a shadowy house, and grew up amidst ancient furniture, books in Latin, and human mummies, but none of these things made me melancholy, because I came into the world with a breath of the jungle in my memory..."

So goes the opening sentence of the book. This is the story of Eva Luna who triumphs over harsh realities of life and love and escapes oppression and melancholy through the creative power of her own imagination.

It was a good read. Maybe 7 in a scale of 1 to 10. Not a perfect score because Eva's character failed to really "engage" me the same way other female book characters did in my past readings. Maria moved me with her diary entries and daring adventures in Paulo Coelho's novel Eleven Minutes...Sayuri dazzled me with accounts of her mysterious world in Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha...and there's this group of 4 women who call themselves angry housewives eating bon-bons whose "company" i enjoyed so much. Long after i've devoured the last page of these novels, the thoughts and emotions of the heroines continue to echo in my mind as if they were my own. I guess this is what Eva Luna didn't do to me. I enjoyed her story, yes, but i didn't feel like i was part of it or i was "her."

Nevertheless Isabel Allende surprised me with her great talent. She's a master storyteller and her gift of language, her power with words and the rich imagery and adventure she creates seem to flow effortlessly in this extraordinary mystical tale.

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