Eva Luna [Mass Market Paperback]

Isabel Allende (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1989

An exotic dance that beguiles and entices... The enchanted and enchanting account of a  contemporary Scheherazade, a wide-eyed American  teller-of-tales who triumphs over harsh reality  through the creative power of her own imagination...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A woman makes love to an Indian dying of snakebite, miraculously restoring him to life and engendering a daughter named Eva"so she will love life." Thus begins Allende's latest novel, a magnificent successor to The House of the Spirits and Of Love & Shadows. Set in a Latin American country, it relates Eva's picaresque adventures. Brought up in the house of an eccentric doctor devoted to mummifying corpses, where her mother is a servant, Eva is left an orphan at six. Her black godmother, or madrina , leases her as a servant to a series of bizarre households of metaphorical significance, the last of which she leaves in grand style upon emptying a government Minister's chamberpot over his head. Interleaved with Eva's story is her account of a certain Rolf Carle, with whom her life will become linkedshe tells of his youth in Nazi Austria and young manhood as a filmmaker in South America. Through a series of improbable and felicitous coincidences, Eva is taken under the wing of such exotic benefactors as a street urchin who becomes a guerrilla leader, a colorful whorehouse Madam, a kindly Turkish merchant and a stunningly beautiful transsexual. Like the author, Eva is a prodigious fabulist, weaving extraordinary tales that change reality at will, making it, as she says, easier to bear. Although the fabulist's art is seen as dangerously escapist, Allende's wonderful novel, crammed with the strange and fantastical, the sensuous and the erotic, also speaks powerfully in the cause of freedom. 40,000 first printing; BOMC and QPBC alternate.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Born in the back room of the mansion where her mother toils, and herself in service from an early age, the enchanting and ever-enchanted Eva Luna escapes oppression through story telling. Rolf Carle flees Germany for South America, and ultimately works as a documentary film maker, to escape childhood memories of burying the concentration camp dead. The two are brought together by guerrilla Huberto NaranjoEva's lover and a subject for Rolf's camerain this dense, opulent novel that serves as a metaphor for redemption through creative effort. In her earlier works ( The House of the Spirits, LJ 4/15/85; Of Love and Shadows, LJ 5/1/87), Allende's rich language occasionally shaded into overripeness; but here the prose is more tightly controlled, the characterizations defter. Her best work yet. BOMC alternate. Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (August 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553280589
• ISBN-13: 978-0553173307
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.8 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #367,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #14 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Latin American

More About the Author

Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of eight novels, including, most recently, Zorro, Portrait in Sepia, and Daughter of Fortune. She has also written a collection of stories; three memoirs, including My Invented Country and Paula; and a trilogy of children's novels. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages and have become bestsellers across four continents. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Isabel Allende lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The author's use of magic realism will spur your imagination, February 12, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Eva Luna (Mass Market Paperback)

Are you looking to add some vivid color into your life? Isabel Allende's literary and highly imaginative writing style will captivate and and delight you in this highly visual and sensual novel. I found this book to be much better and less formulaic than the HOUSE OF SPIRITS was. The character is fully fleshed out and seems more real; perhaps because the protagonist is a woman, Eva Luna herself, and in the other book, Allende offers the narrative through a domineering and somewhat obtuse man's eyes. The growth of Eva Luna is beautifually told and readers will identify with her throughout. This evocative novel set my imagination on fire and made all the colors in my world appear brighter while I was reading it.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CAPTIVATING, January 23, 2002

By 

Bonita L. Davis - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eva Luna (Mass Market Paperback)

Conceived on her father's deathbed and almost strangled to death by her umbilical cord, the baby who emerged would become the woman, Eva Luna. Her birth is incredible and her life is even more so as Eva spins for us her story and the story of those who impacted her life.

Isabel Allende captivates the reader by having us take a glimpse of the life and times of Eva Luna, a child whose life is so surreal and incredible to the point where fact and fantasy become one and the same. Eva's voice sweeps us into the dark world of perverts, undesirables and revolutionaries. Through Eva's stories you get a closer look at a society rotten at its core while masquerading as a democracy.

Come with Eva, as a little girl where she plays with a stuffed puma owned by a mad-man who uses Indians for his embalming experiments. Watch as this orphaned girl is "sold" off by her strange godmother who believes in the gods of her ancesteral Africa and the saints of Catholicism. Watch Eva as she grows from childhood to adolescense to an adult who has to confront the reality of love and revolution.

EVA LUNA is a lyric tale whose language draws you immediately into the life of the character and her supporting cast. You feel a deep empathy for this woman and you see through her eyes the contradictions that life has to offer. Allende has given us an exceptional work that explores both the spiritual, political and sensual side of a woman caught up in the stream of chaos in her South American country. Come, let Eva tell you a story, her story and you will find yourself unable to tear yourself away from her amazing tale.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good one by Allende, November 2, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eva Luna (Mass Market Paperback)

Sometimes, actually pretty often, Isabel Allende's writing overflows with her own love of language, and you kinds want her to dial it down a little. Not so much, however, in Eva Luna. The writing is more controlled; the book reads as tho an editor actually paid some attention to it before sending it to press.
Child of a servant, the beautiful and enchanting Eva Luna escapes into lyrical storytelling when life gets too tough to bear. She and Rolf, a film maker, are brought together through Eva's guerrilla lover. The result is a lovely piece of literature that works as a metaphor for salvation through creativity.
It's a good one.