This was one of the few Isabel Allende’s books I hadn’t read, at this point (I’m still missing a few, though). I wasn’t particularly interested, considering that this is non-fiction and I didn’t use to read much non-fiction back in the day (a lot has changed since then, I guess). So, I picked this up at my aunt’s and gave it a read.

It’s fun how I live in the same country, but everything is completely different for me. Well, not everything, but a lot has changed since the 60s. There are a few things that basically remain the same. Some of her comments about Chilean character and society hold true.

It’s hard to classify this book. It’s a bit memoir and a bit essay. She’s basically talking about how she sees her (our) home country. And I find it very interesting how she reflects on how being Chilean has defined her character in one way or another. She talks about how Chileans don’t like talking too loud and order everything in diminutives (agüíta, cafecito), which is something that’s very ours. She links it with what she seems to think of as an inferiority complex on our part. Or how we don’t like to show off. She analyzes all that and tries to reconcile it with her own identity.

That is also interesting, because Allende also makes a point of showing how different she is from Chilean society. I guess that that’s something everyone does from time to time. We see a lot of stuff we don’t like, and desperately want to show that we’re not like that. If someone says Chileans are “classist”, they immediately follow by saying that they are no, of course. Or make a comment on how obsessed Chileans are with last names and the schools people went to (seriously, it’s usually one of the first things you get asked by anyone you meet), but they don’t really care.
Allende does this all the time, showing herself as a rebellious and unconventional woman (I don’t doubt that she is, of course). She has a critical outcome on our society, and calls out hypocrisy and how fake are some standards.

Allende’s Chile is also very different from mine. I was brought up in a small town, born after the dictatorship and so on. Her Chile is Santiago’s upper class, in the middle of the 20th century. That makes for a completely different Chile for both of us. My only criticism is that the book seems to assume something like “Santiago is Chile” (NOT), and it shows a narrow view of what Chile actually is. Of course, it’s understandable because it’s about Allende’s memoirs, so trying to show the whole of Chile isn’t the scope of this book.

Allende’s style is engaging and entertaining, so I enjoyed this book. It’s an interesting view of my own country that showed me how different can be my perspective from others, even if we’re talking about the same country. If you’re curious about Chile’s recent history, it’s an interesting source (not really historical, but shows a contemporary perspective).