Daughter of Fortune
Isabel Allende
Harper Perennial
1999
Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden
Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she has read
other novels by Ms. Allende, and she wished to read a new one. She chose this
book because the description reminded her of another she has read, FROG MUSIC,
by Emma Donoghue. Ms. Hen imagined these two books took place in the same
world, the San Francisco gold rush time, when the city was a wild outpost, full
of scoundrels and prostitutes, with danger at every corner, but brimming with
hope and possibility.
DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE is about an orphan, Eliza, who is found
on the steps of an English family’s house in Valparaiso, Chile. She is raised
by a brother and sister, though she was never adopted. She is taught to be a
young lady; she learns English, and takes piano lessons. She learns to cook
from the maid in the house. Rose, her acting mother, likes to threaten that she
will send her to the orphanage if she misbehaves. Rose has secrets, as does
everyone in the house.
Eliza falls in love with a young man, Joaquin Andieta, but does not tell anyone. They become lovers, but she thinks she loves him more
than he loves her. He leaves to go to California to find his fortune, and she
follows him. She enlists her uncle’s associate, the Chinese cook on the ship he
was sailing, Tao Ch’ien, to help her leave. She stows away to California
to search for Joaquin.
Ms. Hen thinks the characters in this novel are realistic. Everyone is interesting, and they all have a story. From Miss Rose
to her two brothers, to the maid to Tao, they seem to Ms. Hen to have been real
people that could have existed somewhere in the world. The novel is also well
plotted. Certain points along the way are turning points, when the action
changes and the story becomes something else. Minor characters are introduced,
but pop out because they have so much color, such as Joe Bonecrusher, or Lola
Montez, the famous courtesan.
This is a novel about love, but not about love that makes a
person happy, rather that makes a person miserable. Several characters have a
difficult time with love, and have suffered from aches of the heart. Eliza
wants to find Joaquin, but her journey is painful to her. She thought she would
end up in one place, but she ended up in a completely different place than she
imagined she would.
There are several mentions of chickens in this novel, as
there usually are in Allende’s tales. Tao is thinking about the prostitutes
from China that end up in San Francisco, and he ponders, “They awaited disaster
in their cribs, exactly as a chicken in its coop at the market: that was their
destiny.” Ms. Hen pities the prostitutes from China; they barely have hope to
survive, much like chickens at the market.
Ms. Hen adored this novel. She thinks it’s a perfect book to
read near Valentine’s Day; it's about how people struggle with love, and are
tortured and suffer because love and existence in itself can be terrible. The
world is primarily horrendous, but sometimes it’s not that bad, though Ms. Hen
tends to think people who are happy don’t see the whole picture, and only
choose to see what they want. L
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