It is obvious that Isabel Allende's novel about Chile, The House of the Spirits, has something about it that appeals to women readers: but I cannot imagine what that something is. 'Magical realism' is the vogue-word: but this seems to me a farrago of fantasy-triggers. I was astonished when Marina Warner asserted on television that the book 'gives you an astonishing understanding of a political situation'. On the same day, Marilyn Butler was equally effusive on Radio 3 and Hermione Lee assured us in the Observer that the author has 'impeccably heroic socialist and feminist credentials'. My daughter-in-law brought home Cosmopolitan with a long extract, prettily illustrated, and an astounding comment from Emma Dally: 'Although it is not a "women's novel", the strength of the female characters is quite astounding.' Isabel Allende herself on television has described these figments as 'strong women who are somehow opposite to violence and torture, all this male world'. They had struck me as rather ineffectual ladies.

LRB 1 August 1985 | PDF Download