April Book Club Discussion: Daughter of Fortune

[Star_Anise]

From a tied vote, our female author for this month's reading has been chosen - Isabell Allende. The book is Daughter of Fortune. Start your reading engines:)

[Jez]

Just picked this up from the library. It's pretty thick!

[Silverfalcon]

I better pick this book soon since I proposed the idea!!!

(Well, I'm reading [I]The Rainmaker/I] - a thick book by John Grisham - so hopefully I can get started on it soon... Shoot, I have to read my books for English class too... arrr)

[LeSilenceEternel]

It's a long book, to be sure, but it seems really easy to read.

[Jez]

I'm liking it so far. I'm about 50 pages in and so far it kind of reminds me of The Thirteenth Tale the way the author goes back and talks about the lives of the previous generation.

[thelastmelon]

Just picked this up from the library. It's pretty thick!

From one thick book to another. I've got about 200 pages left in the book I'm reading at the moment, but I'll go to the library tomorrow and pick up Daughter of Fortune anyway. :)

[Star_Anise]

From one thick book to another. I've got about 200 pages left in the book I'm reading at the moment, but I'll go to the library tomorrow and pick up Daughter of Fortune anyway. :)

melon, you are such an inspiration, the amount you read, despite all your commitments. I think my goal this month will be to take you as my model and get back to reading.

[thelastmelon]

melon, you are such an inspiration, the amount you read, despite all your commitments. I think my goal this month will be to take you as my model and get back to reading.

Wow, thank you Star! :)

[LeSilenceEternel]

melon, you are such an inspiration, the amount you read, despite all your commitments. I think my goal this month will be to take you as my model and get back to reading.

Agreed, really. :)

I'm getting somewhere with it... Hope to finish it today.

[musi]

Oh, I should take it from the library.. Hope I can read it fast, because I have 2 books I must read before 17th week. :( Oh, well, I'll be at the library tomorrow :good:

[Jez]

I'm really bad :embarrass: I brought this back to the library. I liked it, but i really wasn't into it at all. Hope you guys like it more than I did.

[thelastmelon]

I'm really bad :embarrass: I brought this back to the library. I liked it, but i really wasn't into it at all. Hope you guys like it more than I did.

I hope I do too. Cause when I finally get time over to read something other than school books, I want it to be good. ;)

[musi]

I got a copy from the library this morning. I still have to finish Vonnegut tonight, so maybe tomorrow. I am gone again for the weekend, so will have plenty of time to read on bus :good:

[DominatingWaffles]

Ahh.... I still have to pick it up! Why did all my library reservations have to be free at the exact time? There was at least 2 more people in line for half of the books XD

[thelastmelon]

So, who's reading Daughter of Fortune this month? :) I started on it last night.

[DominatingWaffles]

I just got it from the library and just finished "Veronika decides to die"

[musi]

So, who's reading Daughter of Fortune this month? :) I started on it last night.

I am :) Half of it read on the bus home today, another half left :)

[thelastmelon]

I'm really bad :embarrass: I brought this back to the library. I liked it, but i really wasn't into it at all. Hope you guys like it more than I did.

By the way, how far did you read before you took it back to the library? :) Thought that'd be interesting to know.

[Jez]

I'm not sure. Do you have a list of the first ten chapters?

[Winifred]

If I can find an unabridged tape version, I'm in, too. I miss the book clubs! Just not sure I can manage a long book unless I can listen to it, too.

[musi]

I am slowly progressing forward. It is good so far and I am almost ready to give up my firm ideas about the stupidity of romance novels, but I'll have to wait for the last page to have an opinion :p

[Winifred]

Well, I've put both the book and the unabridged tape on hold at the library in the next town. We'll see how far behind I'll be!

[musi]

Meanwhile comments: I really like the description of the Gold Rush, as a moment of history. Very interesting. I was reading up on it a few weeks ago (didn't know it would be in the book), so am enjoying that.

[Winifred]

The unabridged tape came in today, and I have about an hour's worth of driving to do tomorrow!

[musi]

I finished reading the book. I shall wait for everyone else, I think :)

[DominatingWaffles]

*Slightly panicking* I knew I should've picked the book up earlier XD

[Jez]

*Slightly panicking* I knew I should've picked the book up earlier XD

Don't worry. If you finish it in three months, the thread will still be here for you :)

[DominatingWaffles]

Don't worry. If you finish it in three months, the thread will still be here for you :)

Hahaha feels good to know, though I really should get going on my reading. I need to return three books in a week.

[Jez]

:) The TBR pile never stops growing, does it?

[Winifred]

Well, I'm enjoying the beginning. Love the mystery of Eliza's past, and the dichotomy between the inputs of the very English Rose and the native healer/cook Mama Fresia (not the least of which is the floral fragrance elicited by their names...).

[Winifred]

Eliza and Tao Chi'en are wandering around Sacramento, etc., at the moment in my reading/listening.

I've read and enjoyed other books by Allende:My Invented Country, Zorro, and City of the Beasts.

This one started out well, if familiarly: her language is always entertaining, her women are empowered, family secrets abound. Somehow, I'm losing interest as she wanders through California, too much dusty chaos and barroom prostitution just out of the picture, with our Spanish speaking/ mute Chinese boy sitting quietly in corners. Maybe it will refocus.

On an emotional level, Allende has captured those times in life when, focussed on some longing, even the most colorful background is muted. It's just a bit difficult to read through....

[musi]

This one started out well, if familiarly: her language is always entertaining, her women are empowered, family secrets abound. Somehow, I'm losing interest as she wanders through California, too much dusty chaos and barroom prostitution just out of the picture, with our Spanish speaking/ mute Chinese boy sitting quietly in corners. Maybe it will refocus.

On an emotional level, Allende has captured those times in life when, focussed on some longing, even the most colorful background is muted. It's just a bit difficult to read through....

What kept me going was the thought of whether Eliza would meet her beloved one or not. However, due to the book's ending (even though midway through I guessed how it would end), the question of what we find in life while looking for something. Deep one.

*SPOILERS JUST IN CASE*
Do we find what we were looking for or do we redifine our values and goals and find something more significant along the way? You know, like life is what happens to you while you are making plans. And maybe the journey towards something is more worth than actually getting to a destination? And it was that things that made me think of this book as different from all other romance novels, so to whoever suggested it (I am very lazy to look for that right now) - my warmest gratitude :)
Oh, did I give away too much? :)

[Winifred]

I guess most of us reading Daughter of Fortune have finished.

I ended up liking Daughter of Fortune pretty well, for a number of disconnected reasons, which is perhaps fitting, given Allende's style of intense focus followed by dreamlike flight, as she says, “when the contours of reality were as faint as a tracery of pale ink.”

I like her strong, sensual women who pass their wisdom across the generations like the fragrance of rose and freesia enveloping a young garden. I like Allende's portrayal of discipline and varied knowledge as necessary parts of growing up. I like her hopelessly impossible coincidences, they remind me of my own life :) Her sense of humor keeps me entertained – years of learning to play the piano, so one can earn a living in a brothel (with perfect posture, of course), or the demure spinster cranking out porn novels....I like her deft handling of emotional denial – Eliza's determination to maintain her love for Joaquin in spite of time, distance, sexual frustration with him and the possibility of his being a cold-blooded killer (who occasionally spares women).

Like musi, I also enjoyed Allende's historical background. As an American raised on school history books, I learned the California gold rush as another great time of expansion across our great nation, shooting savages and bad guys and taming the land. Allende paints a very different Wild West, much more ethnically mixed (“Americans, French, and Mexicans....also adventurers from Hawaii, Chile, Australia, and Russia...since the Chinese preferred fan-tan.....”), more aware of the unfairness and greed mixed in with opportunity. I loved Paulina, the brainy female capitalist with small dogs who thought of shipping iced vegetables and fruit to San Francisco. “Where there are women, there is civilization, and when that times comes in San Francisco, my ship will be there with all the necessities.” I'd probably hate her in person, but I admire the audacity.

Times that hit me: Rose's interview with Joaquin's mother. Rose's fear of what Eliza might become, lost in a masculine-controlled culture, and her own feeling of guilt for her own subconscious passions. As she later says to Jeremy, “Why were you so generous with me but cannot be with Eliza?”

Also, the flight of Tao Chi'en after the death of his teacher (How could anyone not like Tao Chi'en?). I reflect on the second chance offered by the New World at that time (also for Jacob Todd, and Eliza herself, among many others), a chance to start over with all past mistakes chalked up to learning experiences. What will we, as a culture, replace that new frontier with?

Of course, I could also say that I got tired of the feminine superwoman sex goddess with impeccable manners who can also cook, dress like a man, and go for years sleeping chastely with a man before she realizes he's the one for her. And, other than liking small feet for an insensitive and barbaric while, again, how could anyone not like Tao Chi'en – too good to be true.

Overall, however, a great read, with lots of thought-provoking ideas, and, after all, a romance!

[thelastmelon]

I've finally finished Daughter of Fortune as well. :) And being the first book by Allende that I've actually finished, I actually enjoyed it. At times I thought it wasn't all that much fun to read, but that wasn't because of the book, but by the fact of things around me that made me tired and made me not concentrate enough to enjoy it.

My favorite character was Miss Rose. How she lived a secret life, but still managed to live life normal. Her writing, her background with her first love, her secrets with Eliza's background etc. She fascinated me. :)

[musi]

Of course, I could also say that I got tired of the feminine superwoman sex goddess with impeccable manners who can also cook, dress like a man, and go for years sleeping chastely with a man before she realizes he's the one for her. And, other than liking small feet for an insensitive and barbaric while, again, how could anyone not like Tao Chi'en – too good to be true.



I guess there is that disbalance in novels - "modest" "love" novels hardly have any human attraction in them and the notions of animal instincts are somehow supressed, while the "trashy" novels have it all about sex.. Weird, huh?

My best part was still the fact that Eliza was with Tao Chien in the end, that the book didn't end with a happy ever after love fairy-tale with Joaquin and how Eliza went to the other side of the world to meet the man she loves. Duh, that would be boring. Besides, a man who leaves her for good - is he worth going after? Tough one.
I think if this were turned into a soap opera, she would eventually find Joaquin, who would be injured suffering from a memory loss :D Otherwise I am very much content with the novel, even though it didn't beat my all time favorite in novels Love In The Time Of Cholera ;)

[DominatingWaffles]

The only part that makes the book seem like an open source file to me is the fact that you don't get to know if Rose eventually found Eliza and, if she did, how she reacted. But I guess that's also a good part :)

Also, has anyone else noticed this (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235783/)? If anyone here has an IMDBpro account, please let us know what is concealed to us mere mortals? :P

[musi]

The only part that makes the book seem like an open source file to me is the fact that you don't get to know if Rose eventually found Eliza and, if she did, how she reacted. But I guess that's also a good part :)

Also, has anyone else noticed this (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235783/)? If anyone here has an IMDBpro account, please let us know what is concealed to us mere mortals? :P

I think they eventually met, because Eliza said she would write to her, so I am pretty sure. :)

No, I unfortunately don't have the account. I thought of getting one some time ago, but it seemed pointless after a while :)