Paula (ISBN 0060172533)

Amazon.com Review:
"Listen, Paula. I am going to tell you a story so that when you wake up you will not feel so lost." So says Chilean writer Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits) in the opening lines of the luminous, heart-rending memoir she wrote while her 28-year-old daughter Paula lay in a coma. In its pages, she ushers an assortment of outrageous relatives into the light: her stepfather, an amiable liar and tireless debater; grandmother Meme, blessed with second sight; and delinquent uncles who exultantly torment Allende and her brothers. Irony and marvelous flights of fantasy mix with the icy reality of Paula's deathly illness as Allende sketches childhood scenes in Chile and Lebanon; her uncle Salvatore Allende's reign and ruin as Chilean president; her struggles to shake off or find love; and her metamorphosis into a writer.

Devastatingly Beautiful:
When Isabel Allende's daughter suffered a calamatous illness, Allende did what came naturally. She wrote a story. On its most basic level, this book is about a mother who is losing her child. She goes through the stages of grieving, sometimes even arguing with herself on the pages about what might come next. It goes much deeper, though. There is a point in the book when it seems she has discovered she is no longer writing the book for her daughter. A seer told Allende that her daughter would be known throughout the world. At some point in the writing, Allende discovered it would be through her own efforts, not her daughter's. Allende has so many fascinating pieces in the story of her life, not the least of which is the fact that she is an extremely famous author. She is also a historical figure, being the niece of the Chilean president ousted by a military coup. She witnessed this and talks about it in the book. She was also raised by a man in the Foreign Service of Chile. She has traveled around the world and experienced what it is like to be accepted and what it is like to be rejected. She has been an exile as well. She wonders in the book whether her life has been very interesting. To her, it seemed normal and boring. This is really one of the best books I have read. The vulnerability with which Allende writes is devastatingly beautiful. In her sorrow, she chooses to share her story and the story of her daughter with us. I feel honored.

a wonderful book:
Isabel Allende writes about the relationships of women to their men and their children also including womens' related emotions. She wraps this book around how we live and come to accept death. The book is written using a past, present and future construct which tested my memory. It touches the senses and emotions. cassandra jennings hall

One Life. Three Traumas.:
In this book, Isabel Allende downplays her first two traumatic experiences. The central focus is her third trauma, her daughter's illness. The first trauma is a predator who's incomplete seduction is enough to scar a child; moreover, she sees the man's death. The second trauma is that of her uncle forced from office in an air bombardment and dies (perhaps at his own hand) along with many supporters, precipitating a military coup in which thousands die, flee and/or are tortured. She is not numbed by these, but she is by her third trauma, her daughter's coma. It took about 100 pages for me to get into it. I almost put it down. After about 100 pages, the breezy language and cryptic metaphors seemed to stop and Allende opened up. She became frank about about her married and extramarital life, but continued to restrain the prose relating the first two traumas. For instance, the childhood predator story is told like it was someone else's. Her uncle is like a stranger, and if how she is related to him is mentioned, I don't remember it. There is some discussion of family members who oppose the uncle, but nothing about their actually knowing him. There is some of the language of magical realism present in her novels. This book is worth reading for it's description of letting go. There are some vague descriptions (admittedly not the focus of the book) of life in Chile after the coup and life as an exile. I think there is a bigger memoir inside of Isabel Allende yet to be written.

Loss and Understanding:
A writer who can make you laugh, smile, and cry in the same chapter is indeed a writer to be cherished. Such is the case with Allende's Paula. As a mother, I suffered with Allende's description of her struggle to keep her comatose daughter alive, yet amid the tragedy she could digress and recall earlier periods of laughter and funny irony. Even in the midst of the anguish of trying to find a way to communicate with her inert daughter, she found comic relief in the drama of the lives of other patients in the hospital. The author provides compelling stories of her early childhood, great loves, and introduces a parade of interesting characters. All these are gently interwoven with a description of historical events and political turmoil in Chile creating a provocative glimpse of an era which I suspect most US readers were probably unaware. A tender and sensitive description of loss, tragedy, and of finding peace, Paula is indeed one of my more revered reads for this year.

Fabulosa!!!:
Fabuloso libro de Isabel Allende, escrito con talento unico, sin hacer menos a su generosidad de compartir con nosotros sus lectores su autobiografia, donde nos describe hasta los mas intimos rincones de sus memorias, tales como su experiencia a sus escasos 8 anos, cuando escapo a madrid a reunirse con "el amante" como ella le llama, su honestidad su palpa en cada palabra. Paula fue un gran placer conocerte al igual que a tu mama y a toda su tribu!! Dios las bendice! Gracias!!!