THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS

by Isabell Allende

© Valentin Wegerth, 1999

The plot of the novel stretches from the 30s of our century to the present. The story is about
two families of the chilean upper class, the Truebas and the Del Valles (spricht man übrigens
„dell vajes“ aus).
Esteban Trueba – whose father was a drunkard and a gambler and lost all his money - decides
to seek his luck in the goldmines in the nord of the country. He hopes to get rich as fast as
possible to be able to marry the beautiful Rosa del Valle. Rosas sister Clara – who was some
kind of strange since her childhood – develops - in the time when Esteban is working in the
mines – a clear-sighted abillity (=hellseherische Fähigkeit). Her father Severo – who is very
interested in politics – hopes that she will lose her strange gift when she becomes older – but
it turns out to be right the other way round: One day she announces the sudden death of
somebody – this somebody turns out be her own sister – Rosa.
To escape from the past Esteban decides to move to the mansion (=Gutshof) of his family.
Although it’s the middle of the century all people there live like slaves. All people belong to
the patron and serve him for their whole lives. He had never known another social structure
and considers this one as the best for all participants. He cares for them as well as they care
for him but all people fear his anger and his sexual ecapades (=sexuelle Eskapaden). There’s
hardly no young woman in the area that has no child from him or hasn’t seen his bedroom.
But they don’t offer any resistance (sie leisten keinen Widerstand) because it always had been
that way and you had to forgive things like that when it was your patron.
Clara – who stopped speaking after Rosa’s death and only communicates with signs grows
more and more eccentric. Claras parents Nivea and Severo del Valle want all their children to
marry exept Clara whose abilties nobody should discover. They are even more surprised when
they hear Clara announing her intention to marry Esteban Trueba – who lives hundreds of
kilometres away – he doesn’t want to live on the mansion for the rest of his life. Everybody
agrees with the marriage between Clara and Esteban and soon they celebrate their
engagement. Esteban – who meanwhile had become rich – decides to build a house in the city
and to concentrate more on speculative operations (= Spekulationsgeschäfte) than on farming.
He and Clara have 3 children and are married luckily – as it seems for outsiders. But actually
there are several family tragedies – often when Esteban forbids Clara’s strange sessions.
Esteban’s unmarried sister Feruela tries to keep her brother away from his wife – with the
consequence that she’s thrown out of the house.
Every summer the family returns to the huge mansion where Clara’s daughter Blanca falls in
love with the young communist Terenco Garcia. Esteban – who despises (verachten) as a
conservative senator all kinds of socialism – scares him away and threatens him that he would
kill him should he return to see his daughter again. After an earthquake – in which Esteban
gets heavily hurt – they start meeting again. The relationship to his wife Clara develops in
such a bad way that one day she swears not to speak any word with him again.
Both their sons Jaime („chreime“) and Nicolas are in the eyes of their father good for nothing
because they stand up for left parties. After Nicolas becomes a member of an asian sect his
father sends him to Canada where he becomes a Guru and earns a lot of money.
Jaime works as a doctor at a hospital for poor people in Santiago de Chile where he earns at
least the money he needs to survive.
After a long secretly kept relationship between Blanca and Terenco Garcia they get a baby. In
great anger Esteban – who thinks he can’t afford such scandals as a senator - attacks Terenco
who then flees to Santiago to become a famous musican.

One day Clara gets premonitions (=Vorahnungen) about her death. She feels it near but she
isn’t frightend because she knows the spirits from the other side as well as her own childern.
After Clara’s death only Senator Esteban Trueba, Blanca and her daughter Alba remain in the
house in Santiago. The old Senator still fights all Comunists and invests a lot of money in the
election campaign – and in the
corupting (=bestechen) of other people. One day the comunists win the elections and Trueba’s
enemy Garcia – the father of his granddaughter Alba becomes a minister. The right orientated
parties decide – with the help of the USA – to corupt all truck drivers in Chile with the
consequence that the poverty under the communist’s reign increases.
The military takes advantage of the situation and putsches the communist government. They
shoot the president and redo communist reforms. After they refuse elections and arrest his son
Jaime and shot him Senator Tueba – who first was for the military – recognices that he had
been deceived (=getäuscht). For the first time in his 85 year lasting life he feels that he was
defeated.
He makes it up with his daughter Blanca and his former enemy Garcia and smuggles them
both out of the country. Every month he sends them a check with the money from his
businesses.
His granddaughter Alba is the only one who stays in Chile and so he takes very much care of
her and even allows her to hide guerilleros in the house in Santiago. But one day they are
discovered and Alba gets arrested and gets tortured. Only with a help of a friend Esteban gets
her out of prison.After that Alba and Esteban Trueba start writting down their biography and
when they finish the old man feels his dead close. His mind though (trotzem) remained clear
to the very last moment and finally he dies in his own house – in the same room like his wife
Clara.