Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende August-December 2017 3,5/5 *Read in French (trans. from Spanish by Claude de Frayssinet) Award: Premio de traducción literaria Valle Inclán Nominee for Margaret Sayers Peden (2000) French translation: Fille du destin Summary Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him. As we follow the spirited heroine on a perilous journey north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and northern California, we enter a world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. A society of single men and prostitutes among whom Eliza moves -- with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi’en -- California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her search for the elusive Joaquín gradually turns into another kind of journey that transforms her over time, and what began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom. -- Goodreads My review I picked up Daughter of Fortune by accident. Actually, it wasn’t really me who picked it. A friend chose it for me at one of those “blind date with a book” event organized by his school. The words used on the brown wrapping to describe it were “French, love, Pacific Ocean, and adventure”. To be honest, that’s a pretty bad description of the book. French obviously refers to the language. Love and adventure are alright, but the Pacific Ocean... I would’ve used “Gold rush, quest, friendship, and exodus”. A lot of Daughter of Fortune does focus on love, but not on the actual relationship. The main protagonist, Eliza, is on a quest to find her first love who fled to California to participate in the Goldrush of the 1850s. The character development was stunning. Seeing her grow up in colonial Chile all the way to being a grown woman was so rewarding. Admittedly, the beginning is slow and it takes a while for the action to start. The presentation of her adoptive family and her caretaker are relevant to the story, but, this might be just a personal preference, reading from the point of view of a young child does not fascinate or entertain me. She’s not a particularly interesting kid either. While I admire Eliza’s determination, at some point the plot just got unrealistic and overdramatized. I understand that if you are 16 and end up pregnant by your first love, you might do some unrealistic things, but she never loses her naïve spirit. The real fun begins when you are introduced to Tao Chi’en, her Chinese friend and doctor. First, I did not know a lot about the American Gold Rush, and especially not about the immense exodus of Chinese people to participate in it. The background is very well researched and Allende includes so many tiny details about the living conditions of woman, miners and immigrants in California. It’s the typical “cowboy” culture but from a different perspective. The historical factoids were my favorite part of the story no matter how nerdy that sounds. Second, Tao Chi’en is an amazing character. He is historically accurate (yes, that means he’s slightly sexist sometimes, but I can’t imagine 1800s Hong Kong as a very progressive place), gentle, and knows what he wants. Both him and Eliza are pledged with grief and find a way to see past their skin colors, since they both grew up so far from each other with no knowledge of either Chinese or Chilean people, to conquer the Wild West. Daughter of Fortune surprised me. It was occasionally dry, but it was not as bad as I anticipated! It is rare for me to give more than 3 stars to an adult historical novel, so 3,5 is pretty good. Even if it took me 5 months to finish it, it was an enjoyable read. Now, I really want a Tao Chi’en spin-off… If you liked Daughter of Fortune, you will love… Eldorado by Laurent Gaudé Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Repetys Hunting Houses by Fanny Britt
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