Isabel Allende
Hardcover | Pages: 457 pages Rating: 4.05 | 31684 Users | 3161 Reviews
Specify Out Of Books Island Beneath the Sea
| Title | : | Island Beneath the Sea |
| Author | : | Isabel Allende |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 457 pages |
| Published | : | April 27th 2010 by Harper (first published August 25th 2009) |
| Categories | : | Historical. Historical Fiction. Fiction. Magical Realism |
Narration In Favor Of Books Island Beneath the Sea
Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarité -- known as Tété -- is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tété finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves.
When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it’s with powdered wigs in his baggage and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father’s plantation, Saint-Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. It will be eight years before he brings home a bride -- but marriage, too, proves more difficult than he imagined. And Valmorain remains dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.
Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of the intertwined lives of Tété and Valmorain, and of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.
Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden.Be Specific About Books To Island Beneath the Sea
| Original Title: | La isla bajo el mar |
| ISBN: | 0061988243 (ISBN13: 9780061988240) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Jean Lafitte, Zarité Sedella, Toulouse Valmorain, Violette Boisier, Sancho García del Solar, Maurice Valmorain, Rosette Sedella, Tante Rose, Dr. Parmentier, Loula |
| Setting: | Saint-Domingue(Haiti) |
Rating Out Of Books Island Beneath the Sea
Ratings: 4.05 From 31684 Users | 3161 ReviewsAppraise Out Of Books Island Beneath the Sea
I've loved Isabel Allende since college. According to the New York Times, they had to create a whole new genre of fiction for her, "magical feminism," because magical realism was all male. This book, however, does not have that magical quality that her earlier writing has. It reads more like a newspaper account of the life of a slave as she moves from pre-revolutionary Haiti through the revolution and on to New Orleans with her master after he loses his plantation on Haiti.It's important stuff3.5 stars, rounded upIsland Beneath the Sea is an epic historical saga, following the lives of slave Tété and her master Valmorain. The story begins on the island of Saint Domingue (modern day Haiti) and follows the pair through a slave uprising and onwards to exile in New Orleans. Allendes storytelling is wonderful and she really transports the reader to the geographical and historical setting. I enjoyed the first part of the book, set in Haiti, more than the second part set in New Orleans,
This is one of those books that make me wish for a "0" rating, so that I can count it on my list of books read, but tell ya how I really feel about it.My updates pretty much say it all-there are some things that are shockingly out of place here (did you know monkeys and wolves were indigenous to Haiti? I sure as hell didn't.), and what is (mostly) historically accurate is very obviously researched, cut and pasted practically. Know what? Daremblum says it so much more beautifully than I, so
"Islands Beneath the Sea" refers to where people go when they die. I guess it's some kind of folklore, the origins of which are unclear from the book. I don't have anything really deep and meaningful to say about this book. I thought it was in effect an overly emotional soap opera about cartoonishly evil and inept villain Toulouse Valmorain and the chronically persecuted Zarete (Tete). All of this against the backdrop of the very brutal slavery conditions in Saint-Domingue aka Haiti and the
4 Stars. Before reading this book, I knew that slavery in (now) Haiti was particularly difficult, lethal in a short time, that the work and the tools and the vermin in the sugar cane were deadly, not just the overseers and managers and owners. I learned about life in (now) Haiti, the free blacks the mixed races, the women of pleasure, such as Violette. Before I reading this book, I just thought of slaves, owners/managers, and sugar. I have learned much about the society. Allende conveys a large
I thought I would never finish this...like a split personality friend, the first 250 pages were a drag and the last 250 were epic!This is a big feat, my friends, to have finished this book. I'm serious. Somebody throw me a party, because for a 500 page book (which is usually no big deal), this one felt like Moby Dick, minus the whale. It was that slow. I almost gave up on it, but kept returning to it because I had spent $10 on the e-book and it was recommended to me, so there's that. But hey, I
Take the rich historical settings of Haiti and New Orleans. Toss in voodoo ceremonies, zombies, bloody slave uprisings, forbidden loves, pirates, spies, fortune-tellers, hurricanes, epidemics, and a pinch of scandal. Place all of this is Isabel Allende's gifted hands, and what's not to love? This book took some time and concentration to get through, but when I got to the end I found myself wanting more, more, more. I wanted to know what happens to Tete and Zacharie and Maurice and their families
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