Ms. Hen reviews A Long Petal of the Sea

A Long Petal of the Sea

Isabel Allende

Ballentine Books

2020

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel, because she needed to recover from the last two books she had read, and she wanted to read something nice. She has read lots of books by Isabel Allende, and they always make her feel better about the world. She got this book from her local library.

This novel is about a couple who escapes the Spanish Civil War, and go to Chile. Victor is an army doctor, and his brother's fiancee, Roser, who is pregnant, escape Spain to go to France at the end of the war. Her fiance died fighting in the war. Victor and Roser survive refugee camps, and are separated, but find each other. Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet, finances a ship, the SS Winnipeg, to save refugees and take them to Chile. Roser and Victor have to get married, out of necessity, to qualify getting passage on the ship.

They live together as man and wife with their child in Chile. Victor finishes his medical studies, and Roser teaches music and performs. They dream of going back to Spain, but don't know if that can happen. The country they knew does not exist anymore.

Ms. Hen knew about the Spanish Civil War, but the way it's described here is gruesome. It was said there was so much blood, that the peasants found onions that were red, and potatoes with teeth. That image will stay with Ms. Hen for a while.

This is a good recovery novel from the last two that Ms. Hen read. She doesn't know how she can classify this as a "nice" novel, but she will try to. It's a normal book, something that is pleasant to read, even with the graphic sections. She doesn't know how a novel can be normal, especially when it's so interesting and compelling. But she thinks it can be called normal.

Some chickens appeared in this novel, which Ms. Hen liked. "Roser spent the money on two live chickens," she bought the chickens because the family had very little food when they were in Spain. The chickens saved their lives! Chickens can be helpful, which makes Ms. Hen happy.

Parts of this novel dragged at the end, and it got a little like a history book, which Ms. Hen found tiresome. But she loved the story of refugees going to a different country to start over. Ms. Hen learned after she read this, that this is based on a true story. If you want a comforting novel, this is the one for you. It's about an entire life, its ups and downs, love and pain, war and peace, and finding love when and where we least expect it.