Daughter Of Fortune: A Novel By Isabel Allende

This novel is absolutely compelling. I have read all this author’s novels and it would be unfair to rate any one above any other. Isabel creates quite wonderful descriptions of the atmosphere surrounding the characters of the novel and the places where the action is taking place. I felt at times that I was there. This novel has confirmed for me that the change of direction that I took following the death of my wife was correct. When asked by friends why I behave differently and pursue different acctivities, I point to my line of Isabel’s books on one of the bookshelves. She has been my total inspiration.

Isabel Allende is a strong and beautiful woman. She would be extremely interesting to many even if she could not write. But she can write. Allende tells a story well. It is no wonder that her books have a wide audience throughout the world. She is not, however, comparable in style or technique to either Jorge Luis Borges or Gabriel Garcia Marquez as some might suggest.
DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE takes the form of a historical novel in the romantic tradition/genre. It is a straightforward narrative presented essentially chronologically from 1843 to 1853. The book’s heroine is one Eliza Sommers, born of uncertain parentage and raised by English expatriates in Chile. Eliza’s “formal” guardian is Rose Sommers – a handsome, proper, animated, and wealthy single woman with a “past.” But equally influential in Eliza’s upbringing is “Mama” Fresia – a Chilean peasant serving the Rose and her brother as cook and housekeeper.
Love is the combustible fuel that propels Eliza’s story forward and that serves to generate sub-plots and character development for all of the women in this book. And there are other dominating female presences here. There’s Paulina, Lin, and “Joe Bonecrusher,” There are men in this work, but they come across in varying degrees as unremarkable, weak, insentive, unethical, or immoral. This book is about admirable woman, plain and simple. And these women make for a good narrative.
Strength and desire take Eliza from from Valparaiso, Chile to San Francisco, California; from Victorian privilege to New World adventure; from security to danger; from merchant commerce to Gold Rush. This is highly readable historical fiction.

Isabel Allende- Daughter Of Fortune
Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden
89th book read in 2020
I purchased this book used as I read two other books by Isabel that I liked and decided to buy another book by her and this book sounded very good and I also enjoyed reading it.
This book was published in 2006.
There was no problems at all with the translsation and enever had to go back and reread anything to ensure I understood what was being said.
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.

As we follow her spirited heroine on a perilous journey north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and northern California, we enter a world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. A society of single men and prostitutes among whom Eliza moves–with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chien–California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her search for the elusive Joaquín gradually turns into another kind of journey that transforms her over time, and what began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom.
Literary Awards
Premio de traduccion lieraria Valle inclan Nominee for Margaret Sayers Peden 2000
I would give this book 4*

This is one of my favourite books! I’ve read well over a dozen times and I plan on reading it even more. I pick it up every year and half to two years. It’s just a great story. The writer just has a way with words. You can see everything your reading. In all her books the woman is strong. Anyway it’s an amazing book.

I read this book years ago and actually just gave the book to good will a month, From my recollections I had not really enjoyed the book that much so I was not really looking forward to buying it twice, but I had to as it was a book group choice.
To my surprise the book was a totally different experience this time. Amazing how ten years can alter ones reading preferences. I could not put the book down and I have to say that it was the story that grabbed me the most, not the Characters, although I found no fault in the character development but never got too interested in anyone of them. I loved the story best. Particularly I suppose because it was a book about women.

We have Rose Sommers, who appears to be a proper young women but we find out she has a past. I found it intriguing that Rose wanted to keep this baby and dedicate her life to bringing up this child as a lady, and created all these weird untruths about how she arrived on the door step. I think both characters Rose and Eliza, show the issues that young women dealt with if they have an adventurous spirit. I got caught up in the life’s lessons that these two head strong girls were being taught their passions and compulsive behaviour not allowed in their time took away any other life choices they may eventually have wanted, one slip up at sixteen and they were tainted for life. That is what separated them from who they could have been and the reality of what they are. Rose became her brothers house keeper and Eliza chose flight. Their story also shows that there is a positive out come to the choices they make, I really enjoyed reading both their stories.

I thoroughly enjoyed the tangle that was created in this story. I loved the adventure of Eliza escaping and how her journey develop. What sort of young woman would she be? would she find the lover would she return home. We read that Rose suffers at loosing Elisa and wishes she had behaved differently and at the end of the Novel we read that Eliza will write to Rose, and we see that their relationship was one of love and they will be able to reunite, I really enjoyed the appreciation they had for each other even though they were apart. I felt for Joaquine’s mother left at home to die and never to know if her son was alive or not. I was left wondering if he had died early on as only one letter was ever delivered. Or was he a man that talked the talk but really once out of sight both his mother and Eliza were quickly forgotten.

Tao, was an interesting character and was a wonderful person for Eliza to grow up through and see her self and her love for Joaquine, in comparison to Lin, who was the perfect bride with her deformed feet and ill health, but was sweet and gentle and his guide through out the story. Mama Fresia, leaves after eighteen years and no one knows her name or where she lives, I thought this was extremely sad and very telling of how Rose and Jeremy lived and viewed servants even though they really were so important to them. We have read this so often in other books.

The ending leaves you up in the air, but it was in someways satisfying to be left to imagine what happens.
There were so many issues for women in this book, choices they could make, Rose on one hand never married but used her passion for her lost lover to write risqué novels. John appreciates his sister taking Elisa in and together they keep a secret from their brother Jeremy, I thought that was particularly sad for him when he found this out. So this sixteen year old secret twists the dynamics of their relationship like all secrets do.
Rose marched Elisa down to the orphanage pointing out that if she misbehaves she will end up back there. In retrospect Rose realises what a horrible thing she did, but as a young woman that took a chance at eighteen she reverted back to a less understanding form of child raring, which I thought was enlightening. Rose obviously regretted the choice she made and hoped to be able to keep control of Elisa.

Beautifully written, heartwarming and very interesting. . I’ve given it five stars and am now reading another one of Isabel’s books, called Paula.