Of Love and Shadows | 
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Product Description
Isabel Allende transports us to a Latin American country in the grip of a military dictatorship, where Irene Beltran, an upperclass journalist, and Francisco Leal, a photographer son of a Marxist professor together discover a hideous crime. They also discover how far they dare go in search of the truth in a nation of terror . . . and how very much they risk.
From the Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews:
• A Chilling Tale With Moral Warmth 13 December, 2007
This fine novel can be read on many levels. It contains a love story and a story of adventure. I think of it as a story of disillusion, of coming to recognize unpleasant truths.
It is set in an unnamed South American country whose elected government was recently overthrown by a right-wing coup. The story's background would be consistent with several dictatorships, but is most reminiscent of Chile after the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by General Pinochet in 1973. (Isabel Allende is a Chilean and a distant relative of Salvador Allende.)
The main character is a young woman, Irene, of the country's middle class. She is apolitical until she offers to help an acquaintance find out what happened to a daughter who was taken for questioning by the military. The military claimed to have released the daughter, but she was never seen again.
Irene works for a magazine and is accompanied in some of her inquiries
by a photographer, Francisco, with whom she gradually falls in love. Their search for the missing girl leads them to the discovery of her body in an abandoned mine, along with other bodies. This puts Irene and Francisco in danger, forcing them to flee the country through the Andean cordillera.
The book is very well written, and the English translation is fluent.
The sadness of living in a society in which there is a facade of decency, freedom, and justice without the substance is conveyed indirectly, but poignantly. Irene has a good life in the material sense, but can this be enjoyed when people whom the government considers suspicious sometimes "disappear"?
A natural human tendency in such situations is to look the other way, to deny the facts, or rationalize them by assuming that the "disappeared" must be some kind of undesirables (e.g., "communists" in an earlier day, or "terrorists" today). Irene does not take this route.
I think that almost anyone who accepts the possibility of the milieu in which the book is set would be moved by this book. But some, through
inexperience, may wonder if the milieu is overdrawn. If one can't accept the book's setting, then its story becomes a kind of escapist fairy tale, like a detective story.
I have lived in several South American dictatorships and happened to be in Santiago for a month preceding and (involuntarily) a month after the 1973 coup. In my experience, the milieu described in "Of Love and Shadows" is not overdrawn. If anything, it is underdrawn.
There are a few places in the book where I had to suspend disbelief (e.g., a poltergeist incident which plays a significant role in the plot's development), but the "feel" of the society in which the characters move is consistent with my experiences in such places.
Readers who have difficulty imagining a society in which people can simply "disappear", perhaps never to be seen again, or perhaps to show up mutilated in some morgue, might ponder the U.S. after the destruction of the World Trade Center. Innocent travelers have been known to "disappear" into secret prisons, never charged with any definite crime and released (perhaps) years later after mistreatment and without explanation or apology.
Most people, like Irene before her awakening, are not affected. Unlike Irene, many do not care, so long as they are not likely to be affected.
There is a great difference of degree between the post-9/11 milieu in the U.S. and that in which the book is set, but is there a real difference in kind? This book may cause some readers to ponder how they would act in Irene's circumstances.
[Note: Many of Ms. Allende's books, such as "Eva Luna" and "The House of the Spirits", are written in the so-called "magical realism" style. "Of Love and Shadows" is not (though it does appear briefly in the poltergeist incident mentioned above). Readers who don't care for that style might still find value in "Of Love and Shadows". On the whole, it is completely different.
I couldn't get through "The House of the Spirits". I did get through "Eva Luna" but its cartoonish style left a bad aftertaste. After finishing it, I wondered why I had wasted my time.]
- Reviewed by customer ID: A38W5YNYUZ639L
• Allende Simply The Best 05 January, 2007
as always she writes a book that takes you away from the normal life that you lead and you experience something totally new to think about. she is simply the best.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A249Q10BAVPSD3
• Not Magical Realism But Greek Tragedy 10 May, 2006
I loved this book. I think a lot of the low ratings are from people who are disappointed because they were expecting a magical realist novel. Allende's first novel, "The House of the Spirits," is a wonderful example of magical realism, but this is a completely different beast. While it contains a handful of supernatural events, most of them are one-liners, which I suspect may be throw-away references to other Latin American writers. There is one significant happening which can be seen as supernatural, but which can also be explained completely realistically.
I think this book should actually be read as a Greek tragedy. It comes complete with a chorus (the inhabitants of the old people's home), with a fatal flaw in the heroine's character (albeit one which would be a virtue in any reasonable society), and with a tragic ending. This book is amazingly poetic. It's about love, and living in a military dictatorship, and doing the right thing regardless. But it's not magical realism, and if that's what you're looking for, don't read it.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1PUDTME3PHAIT
• Of Love And Shadows Review 16 March, 2006
Of Love and Shadows was a great book. I have never been to South America or known the things that took place there under a dictatorship. I love the books becuase it helps me imagine in great detail where these events took place. It takes me to this place "Of Love and Shadows". I thought it was a great book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2MSWV43EVVCSU
• The Best Book I've Read In Ages... 27 October, 2006
i saw the movie before i ever heard about the book, i thought it could
never live up to the movie but i was so wrong. the book told more than the
movie did and even though i some times love the movie more than the book
this time i have to say both are amazing. i have to say even though i read
and watch movies that have war and death in them i'm not a real fan but it
takes writers like isabel to change my mind. i especially love the part
where even though their dealing with death and war all around them irene
and francisco fall in love. i think every one should read this book, it
would change their lives......i know it's changed mine because before reading this book i never knew or even cared about what was going on in
countries like chile but now after reading this book i do and i think after other people read it they will too.
- Reviewed by customer ID: ATE71HE3Q4ET6
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