Eva Luna

Two of my all time favorite books are "A Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Nights" and "100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. "Eva Luna" by Isabel Allende captured the essence of both through story telling and magical realism. It wasn't until preparing for this review that I realized I had already read the follow up book "The Stories of Eva Luna". I think that that book would make more sense now than it did before.

Eva Luna, is born under unusual circumstances and quickly learns her mother's trade. At the age of 8 she is orphaned and with the help of her godmother finds work as a servant. On the other side of the globe Rolf Carle is struggling to grow up in a repressive household. After his father dies his mother sends him to Latin America to help his uncle with his business raising pure breed dogs and repair clocks.

Eva grows up serving various households and meeting a number of different people along the way until Riad Halabai finds her on the streets. A tradesman with a heart of gold, he brings her back to his village as an offering to his barren wife. Rolf Carle discovers his passions for youthful flirtations and film. All grown up Eva returns to the city and rediscovers her inate ability to tell stories. Her stories save her from homelessness, starvation, and eventually leads her to great things including love.

Isabelle Allende manages to draw together strong characters struggling against societal norms through love, war, and stories. Anyone who is interested in romance, magical realism, societal struggles, or good old fashioned story telling will really enjoy this book.

Life of Pi

I am usually skeptical when all the book reviews for a particular book are glowing. But the Life of Pi deserves all the positive recognition it has received. Yan Martel effortlessly carries his readers along the waves of a story about man vs. nature through magical realism.

Pi, an Indian 15 year old boy is fascinated with religion, God, and nature. Raised as a zookeepers son he learns the habits of all the animals under his father's care. His father, a man of science, is careful to teach his children that wild animals regardless of their conditions can be dangerous to their keepers. Pi's family is befuddled when they learn that their son is practicing not 1 but 3 religions: Catholicism, Islam, and Hinduism. They gradually accept their son's decision to observe the 3 religious practices as a passing phase.

After some Indian political upraise Pi's family must move to North America. It takes the family about a year to make the necessary arrangements to close the zoo and travel across the ocean to their new home. Unfortunately the ship does not make the journey leaving only Pi surviving the demise of the sea craft. The narrative from Pi's perspective is simple and yet hard to set down. If you need a book that draws you in, I think this is it. In times of adversity humanity can do extraordinary things to survive.