Review by New York Times Review
IT was an art critic who coined the term "magic realism," to describe a new wave of painting in 1920s Germany. The work departed from the moody Expressionism of the day, emphasizing material reality even as it unlocked an elusive otherworldliness in the arrangement of everyday objects. Sometimes, though, the fantastic rubbed elbows with the real: in one painting, a fat general nonchalantly shares a table with headless men in tuxedos. In literature as in art, the genre has been dominated by men. So critics devised the label "magical feminism" just for Isabel Allende's multigenerational family chronicles featuring strong-willed women, usually entangled in steamy love affairs against a backdrop of war and political upheaval. These elements are all present in her latest novel, "Island Beneath the Sea," which is set partly in late-18th-century Haiti. The protagonist, a mulatto slave named Zarité, is maid to a sugar planter's wife who gradually goes mad. (The Caribbean seems to have had a reliably deranging effect on women in fiction, from "Jane Eyre" onward.) Even before her mistress's death, Zarité becomes the concubine of her master, Valmorain, submitting to that role across decades and borders, even when he flees to New Orleans after the 1791 slave revolt. The resulting canvas contains no less than the revolutionary history of the world's first black republic as Allende portrays the island's various factions: republicans versus monarchists, blacks versus mulattoes, abolitionists versus planters, slaves versus masters. She revels in period detail: ostrich-feathered hats, high-waisted gowns, meals featuring suckling pigs with cherries. Her cast is equally vibrant: a quadroon courtesan and the French officer who marries her; Valmorain's second wife, a controlling Louisiana Creole; Zarité's rebel lover, who joins Toussaint L'Ouverture in the hills. But for all its entertaining sweep, the story lacks complex characterization and originality. And its style is traditional. Where, you wonder, are the headless men - or, in Allende's case, headless women? Where is the magical realism? What "magic" there is in the novel appears at the intersection of Haitian history and the voodoo-influenced folklore of the slaves. Indeed, Haiti inspired one of the earliest literary uses of the term "magic realism." After a 1943 trip there, the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier wrote an influential essay arguing that in the natural landscape and politics of the Americas, reality was already fantastical. His fictional expression of this argument, "The Kingdom of This World," which also features the slave revolt, clearly inspired Allende. Both novels contain an episode that exemplifies the role of the supernatural in Haitian history, but Allende's guarded approach reflects a drift from the experimental mode that distinguished her early work. In 1758, the plantocracy burned alive a rebel leader, François Macandal, a one-armed runaway slave and voodoo priest. Legend has it that he escaped the flames by turning himself into a mosquito. "Macandal had often entered the mysterious world of the insects," Carpentier's novel explains, "making up for the lack of his human arm with the possession of several feet, four wings or long antennae." But in Allende's rendition it is all, disappointingly, just a matter of perspective: "The whites ... saw Macandal's charred body. The Negroes saw nothing but the empty post." In a welcome revision, Allende brings women to the forefront of the story of the rebellion. She replaces the African war god Ogun with the love goddess Erzulie. (In the one episode that most approaches magic realism, Erzulie possesses Zarité, but even then it's unclear whether this is merely happening in Zarité's imagination.) Ultimately, however, Allende has traded innovative language and technique for a fundamentally straightforward historical pageant. There is plenty of melodrama and coincidence in "Island Beneath the Sea," but not much magic. In a welcome revision, Allende brings women to the forefront of the story of the Haitian slave rebellion. Gaiutra Bahadur is writing a book about plantation-era women in the West Indies.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 30, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Allende, an entrancing and astute storyteller cherished the world over, returns to historical fiction to portray another resilient woman whose life embodies the complex forces at work in the bloody forging of the New World. Zarité, called Tété, is born into slavery in the colony of Saint-Domingue, where enslaved Africans are worked to death by the thousands, and European men prey on women of color. So it is with Tété and her master, the deeply conflicted plantation owner Toulouse Valmorain, who relies on her for everything from coerced sex to caring for his demented first wife, his legitimate son, and their off-the-record daughter. When the slave uprising that gives birth to the free black republic of Haiti erupts, Toulouse, Tété, and the children flee to Cuba, then to New Orleans. In a many-faceted plot, Allende animates irresistible characters authentic in their emotional turmoil and pragmatic adaptability. She also captures the racial, sexual, and entrepreneurial dynamics of each society in sensuous detail while masterfully dramatizing the psychic wounds of slavery. Sexually explicit, Allende is grace incarnate in her evocations of the spiritual energy that still sustains the beleaguered people of Haiti and New Orleans. Demand will be high for this transporting, remarkably topical novel of men and women of courage risking all for liberty.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Zariete, known as Tete, is born a slave in Haiti, then called Saint-Domingue, in 1700. She is bought by Toulouse Valmorain, a young Frenchman whose ideals quickly disappear in the brutality of life on a sugar plantation. Tete tenderly cares for Valmorain's son and, since she is her master's property, bears two of the master's children herself. She helps Valmorain and the children escape just as the bloody violence of the slave revolt reaches the plantation. They set sail for New Orleans, a raucous city where Tete finds more family drama and, finally, love and freedom. Verdict Confining Allende's trademark magic realism to the otherworldly solace Tete finds in the island's voodoo, this timely and absorbing novel is another winning Allende story filled with adventure, vivid characters, and richly detailed descriptions of life in the Caribbean at that time. Sure to be popular with Allende's many fans. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/10.]-Leslie Patterson, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Given recent events, the timing couldn't be better for this historical fiction from Allende (The Sum of Our Days, 2008, etc.), which follows a slave/concubine from Haiti during the slave uprisings to New Orleans in time for the Louisiana Purchase.In 1770, Toulouse Valmorain arrives in Haiti from France to take over his dying father's plantation. He buys the child Zarit to be his new Spanish wife Eugenia's maidservant and has her trained by the mulatto courtesan Violette Boisier, whose charisma could carry a book on its own. Barely into puberty, Zarit is raped by Valmorain, who gives the resulting son to Violette and her French army officer husband to raise as their own. Eugenia bears Valmorain one legitimate heir before she descends into madness. Zarit, who is devoted to pathetic Eugenia until her early death, lovingly raises baby Maurice and runs the household with great competence. She also submits to sexual relations with Valmorain whenever he wants. When Zarit's daughter is born, Valmorain assumes the child Rosette is his and allows her to remain in the household as Maurice's playmate. Actually Rosette's father is Gambo, a slave who has joined the rebels and become a lieutenant to the legendary Toussaint Louverture. When the rebels destroy Valmorain's plantation, Gambo and Zarit help him escape. In return Valmorain promises to free Zarit, who stays with him, she thinks temporarily, for the children's sake. Valmorain relocates to Louisiana, where Eugenia's brother has purchased him land. His new wife, jealous and vindictive Hortense, makes life unbearable for both Zarit and Maurice, who is sent to school in Boston. While Valmorain, less a villain than a man of his time, finally grants Zarit the freedom he's promised, more tragedies await strong-willed Rosette and sensitive, idealistic Maurice, whose love crosses more than racial boundaries. Still Zarit, along with the reader, finds solace in the cast of secondary characters, who also journey from Haiti to New Orleans. A rich gumbo of melodrama, romance and violence.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
