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Dewey Decimal Number: 920 EAN: 9780006548560 ISBN: 0006548563 Label: Flamingo Manufacturer: Flamingo Number Of Pages: 384 Publication Date: April 22, 1996 Publisher: Flamingo Studio: Flamingo Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: "Listen, Paula. I am going to tell you a story so that when you wake up you will not feel so lost." So says Chilean writer Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits) in the opening lines of the luminous, heart-rending memoir she wrote while her 28-year-old daughter Paula lay in a coma. In its pages, she ushers an assortment of outrageous relatives into the light: her stepfather, an amiable liar and tireless debater; grandmother Meme, blessed with second sight; and delinquent uncles who exultantly torment Allende and her brothers. Irony and marvelous flights of fantasy mix with the icy reality of Paula's deathly illness as Allende sketches childhood scenes in Chile and Lebanon; her uncle Salvatore Allende's reign and ruin as Chilean president; her struggles to shake off or find love; and her metamorphosis into a writer. Product Description: In December 1991, Isabel Allende's daughter Paula, aged 26 fell gravely ill and sank into a coma. This book was written during the interminable hours the novelist spent in the corridors of the Madrid hospital, in her hotel room and beside Paula's bed during the summer and autumn of 1992. Faced with the loss of her child, Isabel Allende turned to storytelling, to sustain her own spirit and to convey to her daughter the will to wake up, to survive. The story she tells is that of her own life, her family history and the tragedy of her nation, Chile, in the years leading up to Pinochet's brutal military coup. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - a wonderful bookIsabel Allende writes about the relationships of women to their men and their children also including womens' related emotions. She wraps this book around how we live and come to accept death. The book is written using a past, present and future construct which tested my memory. It touches the senses and emotions. cassandra jennings hall Rating:  - Fabulosa!!!Fabuloso libro de Isabel Allende, escrito con talento unico, sin hacer menos a su generosidad de compartir con nosotros sus lectores su autobiografia, donde nos describe hasta los mas intimos rincones de sus memorias, tales como su experiencia a sus escasos 8 anos, cuando escapo a madrid a reunirse con "el amante" como ella le llama, su honestidad su palpa en cada palabra. Paula fue un gran placer conocerte al igual que a tu mama y a toda su tribu!! Dios las bendice! Gracias!!! Rating: - Loss and UnderstandingA writer who can make you laugh, smile, and cry in the same chapter is indeed a writer to be cherished. Such is the case with Allende's Paula. As a mother, I suffered with Allende's description of her struggle to keep her comatose daughter alive, yet amid the tragedy she could digress and recall earlier periods of laughter and funny irony. Even in the midst of the anguish of trying to find a way to communicate with her inert daughter, she found comic relief in the drama of the lives of other patients ... Read More Rating: - One Life. Three Traumas.In this book, Isabel Allende downplays her first two traumatic experiences. The central focus is her third trauma, her daughter's illness. The first trauma is a predator who's incomplete seduction is enough to scar a child; moreover, she sees the man's death. The second trauma is that of her uncle forced from office in an air bombardment and dies (perhaps at his own hand) along with many supporters, precipitating a military coup in which thousands die, flee and/or are tortured. She is not ... Read More Rating: - Devastatingly BeautifulWhen Isabel Allende's daughter suffered a calamatous illness, Allende did what came naturally. She wrote a story. On its most basic level, this book is about a mother who is losing her child. She goes through the stages of grieving, sometimes even arguing with herself on the pages about what might come next. It goes much deeper, though. There is a point in the book when it seems she has discovered she is no longer writing the book for her daughter. A seer told Allende that her daughter would be known ... Read More |
