Here’s what happens in Eva Luna: a fascist scientist develops the perfect embalming method, an old woman survives a flood by floating in her own coffin, a little girl and a Portuguese man cut open chicken throats for gold, an artful application of Universal Matter helps rescue rebel prisoners from a jungle prison, a high ranking military official makes advances and threats during a classy dinner, a young Austrian boy and his mentally disabled sister hide under a tablecloth from their abusive father, three cousins explore love in a South American hamlet, a guerilla leader can’t follow some of his own rules, a talented artist becomes more of a woman than most who are already born that way, a girl buries her dowry after witnessing a suicide, telenovelas start heading in new directions, and a stuffed puma shows up every once in a while.
Allende manages to blend all these stories and more into a single, coherent story. The story within a story idea fascinates me, and I began to think of each Allende story as a living thing. I kept thinking of walking through a jungle as I read; there were enough details to be almost overwhelming, yet these details helped me focus on new details as they crossed my path. As Allende tells these stories, she seamlessly switches from first person to third person; she moves but never rushes. My only issue with the story was that Eva Luna seemed a little too irresistible to be believable, but that’s only a small interruption in what was otherwise a continuous and vivid dream. I’m satisfied that this read has left me with the open-ended question of “how does an author create this coherent jungle book, a complex ecosystem that has taken Mother Nature millions of years to achieve?”
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