The Infinite Plan, Isabel Allende
When I asked some work colleagues in South America for recommendations on authors to represent Chile in my world literature project, the name most frequently mentioned was Isabel Allende. I duly bought The Infinite Plan, her fourth novel. It’s been lingering unread on the bookshelf for the last two years. The Spanish Literature Month readalong hosted by Winston’s Dad blog and Richard at Caravana de Recuerdos, gave me the nudge I needed to actually open the pages.
It’s an ambitious novel that charts the progress to self awareness of Gregory Reeves. He’s the son of an itinerant preacher who claims that nothing in life is random but is governed by an infinite plan. It takes Gregory five decades to realize there is no plan; there is ‘just the strife of living’. Or maybe in his case it would be more apt to say the strife of surviving since Gregory is a man who seems to have more than his fair share of obstacles and calamities. As a child he is taken to live in a crowded Los Angeles barrio when his father is taken ill and is forced to abondon his ministry. As an outsider in a Latino world, he is a target for racial discrimination and sexual predatory behaviour. All that sustains Gregory is the friendship of of the Mexican Morales family, especially their daughter Carmen, and the caring love of an exotic midwife come fortune teller called Olga.
Gregory stumbles into two disastrous marraiges only to discover – far too late – that they resemble his mother, an ethereal figure who effectively separates from life in horror over the bombing of Hiroshimia. He’s an even more disastrous father. The only part of his adult life that seems to go well is his career as a wealthy lawyer, but even that turns out to have been built on rocky foundations.
This is a man who seems to court disaster. Instead of creating a character who evokes our sympathy, Allende’s narrative had the reverse effect for me with the exception of the hallucinatory effects Gregory suffers as an aftermath of his Vietnam war experience. I never felt drawn into his predicament so by the time we get to his breakdown and his redemption I was just wishing he would get the whole therapy and healing thing done with quickly.
There were moments when the writing was elegant and lyrical and I could glimpse the qualities that have made her such a well respected author. But one stylistic technique she employed proved irritating to an impossible degree. I don’t know what the correct terminology would be to describe this but the closest description I can get to is ‘foretelling’ or giving us some hints that the situation she is describing would change in the future. As an example, in the midst of a section explaining how Carmen developed a habit of wearing multicoloured ‘gypsy’ style clothes and began to gain success designing and making jewellrey the narrator suddenly breaks in with “but all this is in the future.”. I really couldn’t understand how this glimpse of the future added any value, in fact for me it became intensely irritating. I wanted to know more about the here and now, and wanted to let the story takes its course, not have all these hints dropped.
I also found the switch of narrative voices rather disconcerting. Most of the novel is told via a third party narrator but then would switch to first person narration from Gregory without any preamble. Not until the final pages do we learn that all the time he has been telling his life story to an unidentified person.
This could have been a great novel but the flaws were too many for me to class it as anything more than okay.
I don’t think I’d enjoy Allende, Karen, not so much for the demerits you mention here but for the way she often seems to dabble in “exotic” characters and “mystical” elements. Unfortunately or not, your review reinforces my existing prejudices against her! (By the way, I agree with Alex that the technique you were writing about that irritated you so much is called “foreshadowing.”) For a much different type of work about Chile by a Chilean author, I’d encourage you to consider either Roberto Bolaño’s Distant Star (1st choice) or his By Night in Chile (2nd choice). Anyway, sorry to hear that the Allende didn’t live up to your expectations but thanks for contributing a post for Spanish Lit Month–will link to your review soon.
Thanks for that recommendation Richard.
The House of Spirits is the only one that I’ve read and I enjoyed that more than I was expecting to (it was a book group choice). I am with you completely though about what I call ‘foreshadowing’ though. It drives me insane!
I was tempted to say foreshadowing but wasn’t certain it was the correct term but if you’re using it then I’m more confident
I’ve read a few Allende books but not this one. House of Spirits is my favorite among the ones I have read.
So many people have now highlighted House of Spirits that I feel I will just have to read it.
If you do, I hope you enjoy it!
I love what I’ve read of Allende, but I haven’t tried this one. I’d also recommend House of Spirits. Paula is a heartbreaking book, but completely captivating.
Soemtimes, too much flaws overshadow an otherwise good book. Thanks for this.
I also like House of Spirits and Eva Luna. I find them more accessible than some of her more recent books.
I love Isabel Allende! I don’t think this was one of my favorites, I’d definitely go back to her earliest ones, House of Spirits and Eva Luna. I really liked the book she published last year, Maya’s Notebook. I wouldn’t start there though…
Since both you and Ali had the same recommendations, it seems like I would be on safe ground with one of these
I read this many years ago, but didn’t enjoy it quite as much as some of her other books, though it’s years since I read any.
Any recommendations for a better one by her Ali?
Well when I read them I enjoyed Eva Luna and The House of the spirits. There were a couple of others too but it’s so long ago I can’t remember the titles. The book she wrote about her daughter Paula is also very good.
House of Spirits is the title that I debated instead of Infinite Plan but now I can’t remember why I made the choice I did