Portrait in sepia
Portrait in Sepia is a novel by Isabel Allende that was published in Germany in 2001.
Brief description
Two people are the focus of this great family epic: above all Aurora del Valle , but also her paternal grandmother Paulina . The novel depicts the relationship between the two women in a time of turmoil. The close cohesion and affection of both does not hide the difference in characters or the different understanding of roles as the protagonists' women .
In Chile at the end of the 19th century, rich and poor, civilians and the military as well as men and women only seem to meet in harmony - old traditions meet new ideas and a new self-confidence in social role play. In the midst of the turmoil of the coup and civil war, Paulina increased her wealth and Aurora developed the courage to survive as a woman in society and find her appropriate place.
Content and plot
1862–1880: Aurora is the child of a beautiful, fragile woman and a father to whom his pleasure as a bon vivant is more important than his interpersonal responsibility. As expected , Matías del Valle does not recognize his paternity either. His cousin Severo , who has been in love with the now pregnant Lynn for many years , saves her social position and marries her. When Lynn dies from complications of the difficult birth, a world collapses for Severo del Valle . The young Chilean lawyer goes to war, his daughter Aurora remains in the care of her maternal grandparents, where, despite all attempts by Paulina del Valles to raise the child, she grows up in the Chinese quarter of San Francisco . Eliza and Tao Chi'en give the child all love and leave nothing to be desired. When the extraordinary grandfather suddenly dies, Eliza keeps her promise to bring her husband's body to China and to ensure that it is buried in the land of his ancestors. So Aurora comes to Paulina's house at the age of five and her life changes radically. The memories of the first years of life sink more and more into the deep subconscious, are forgotten and become shadowy and nebulous contents of Aurora's dream world.
1880–1896: After Paulina del Valle had lived in San Francisco for 36 years with her husband, who has been dead for a few years now, she is now making arrangements to go back to her native Chile for financial reasons , where her nephew Severo lives and is married again. The longtime and very devoted butler Frederic has enough boldness and love to hold Paulina's hand before moving . The matriarch is smart enough to agree to the suggestion after some thought, because she knows that a woman in Chile is better off with a man by her side. Partly out of calculation, partly out of love, she agrees and Frederic is passed off as the English lord - a role that suits the correct servant as if tailored to the body and does not even allow conflicts to arise because of the differences in class. So Aurora arrives with her grandmother and Frederic in Santiago de Chile , the land of her roots. There she is tutored by private teachers, is always amazed at her grandmother's financial skills and finally fights successfully and against all odds for an apprenticeship in the country's first photo studio. As if obsessed with photography, she trains her eyes, is constantly amazed at the luminosity of reality and develops an above-average power of observation. When her birth father finally returns to die, Aurora learns a little more about her past. Matías , emaciated from syphilis , spends the last few months in his mother's house until he dies mentally deranged. She feels sorry for her father, but also clearly understands the extent of what Severo has done for her.
1896–1910: Paulina takes a trip to Europe as an opportunity to have an operation in London. A gastrointestinal tumor was removed from her and after recovering from severe adversity thanks to the surgeon Iván Radovic , she, like Aurora and Frederic , took part in social life again in London and Paris . In Paris, Aurora meets a young upper-class Chilean, Diego Dominguez , and falls head over heels in love. Frederic looks at the development of the relationship with skepticism, but it comes as it has to: Diego finally asked for Aurora's hand . Back in Chile, Aurora will soon leave for her new "marriage home". Far away from Santiago in the mountains and endless solitude is the huge farm that is now her new home. Given by a wonderful and loving mother-in-law, Aurora finds no happiness with Diego , who treats her like a pesky sister. Little did she know that for her husband she was basically nothing more than a social alibi . Diego has been hopelessly in love with his brother's wife for years and the two meet for nocturnal flirtations. Aurora becomes suspicious, and when she is caught red-handed, a world collapses within her. Still, Aurora stays because she basically understands what this unrequited love must mean for Diego too , but mainly because of the very sick mother-in-law. So she promises to stay until the poor woman dies. But fate wants it different:
Word reaches Aurora that Paulina's condition is in dire straits . She travels home and stays with her grandmother, shaken by the decay that cancer has caused. The former fun-loving matron is just a bundle of skin and bones. She and Frederic devotedly take care of Paulina until the grandmother dies. Back from Europe, Aurora meets the surgeon Iván Radovic again. What was already simmering latently in Europe is now breaking out: The two fall in love, Aurora gets to know lust and love of a completely new quality class and Frederic now has an easier time convincing her not to return to Diego . With a new self-confidence, Aurora comes to terms with the separated wife status; she lives with the kind Frederic , sees Iván as often as possible and grows towards a new, inner freedom every day. After all, life provides her with the last piece of mosaic and lifts her early past out of the fog of the subconscious into the light of understanding: Eliza , Aurora 's maternal grandmother, who has been back from China for years, no longer feels bound by the promise of all contact with her granddaughter Avoid and occurs in Aurora's life. This closes the circle, Aurora learns everything from her first years of life, the fog clears and for the first time Aurora feels rooted and comprehending.
Others
The choice of the novel's title Portrait in Sepia only becomes understandable at the very end of the story. In the epilogue , Isabel Allende lets Aurora take stock. She says: “ I live between diffuse shades, veiled secrets; the shade in which I tell my story is more like that of a portrait in sepia… ”(quote).
Aurora's grandmother Eliza is the protagonist in Isabel Allende's novel Fortuna's Daughter . Fortuna's daughter and portrait in sepia tell the story of the story behind the novel The Haunted House . Anyone who has read the bestseller will find some resonance here in the great work that appeared in Germany in 1984 and long topped the bestseller lists. All three works basically form a “retroactive” trilogy and enrich the literary world with a century of Chilean social criticism.
criticism
A powerfully eloquent novel, exciting, humorous and full of empathy. Those who like to read literature that offer historical background knowledge as well as exciting amusement will make a harmonious choice with a portrait in sepia .