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Portrait in Sepia: A Novel
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Binding: Hardcover
Edition: Bargain
Format: Bargain Price
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: September 30, 2001
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Editorial Review:
Isabel Allende has established herself as one of the most consummate of all modern storytellers, a reputation that is confirmed in her novel Portrait in Sepia. Allende offers a compelling saga of the turbulent history, lives, and loves of late 19th-century Chile, drawing on characters from her earlier novels, The House of Spirits and Daughter of Fortune.
In typical Allende fashion, Portrait in Sepia is crammed with love, desire, tragedy, and dark family secrets, all played out against the dramatic backdrop of revolutionary Chile. Our heroine Aurora del Valle's mother is a Chilean-Chinese beauty, while her father is a dissolute scion of the wealthy and powerful del Valle family. At the heart of Aurora's slow, painful re-creation of her childhood towers one of Allende's greatest fictional creations, the heroine's grandmother, Paulina del Valle. An "astute, bewigged Amazon with a gluttonous appetite," Paulina holds both the del Valle family and Allende's novel together as she presides over Aurora's adolescence in a haze of pastries, taffeta, and overweening love.
One of the most interesting aspects of the novel is Allende's decision to turn her heroine into a photographer: "through photography and the written word I try desperately to conquer the transitory nature of my existence, to trap moments before they evanesce, to untangle the confusion of my past." There is little confusion in Allende's elegantly crafted and hugely enjoyable novel. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk
Internationally celebrated novelist Isabel Allende has written a magnificent historical novel set at the end of the nineteenth century in Chile -- a marvelous family saga that takes up and continues the story begun in her highly acclaimed Daughter of Fortune.Recounted in the voice of a young woman in search of her roots, Portrait in Sepia is a novel about memory and family secrets. Aurora del Valle suffers a brutal trauma that shapes her character and erases from her mind all recollection of the first five years of her life. Raised by her ambitious grandmother, the regal and commanding Paulina del Valle, Aurora grows up in a privileged environment, free of the limitations that circumscribe the lives of women at that time, but tormented by horrible nightmares. When she is forced to recognize her betrayal at the hands of the man she loves, and to cope with the resulting solitude, she decides to explore the mystery of her past.Portrait in Sepia is an extraordinary achievement: richly detailed, epic in scope, intimate in its probing of human character, and thrilling in the way it illuminates the complexity of family ties.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Luscious, delicious, savory
"Through photography and the written word," Aurora del Valle says, "I try desperately to conquer the transitory nature of my existence, to trap moments before they evanesce, to untangle the confusion of my past. Every instant disappears in a breath and immediately becomes the past; reality is ephemeral and changing, pure longing."
Here is the story of Aurora del Valle, granddaughter of the powerful Paulina del Valle and of Eliza Sommers [the protagonist in Daughter of Fortune]. Allende ... Read More
Rating:  - bad
I didn't liked it, it's very boring and more of the same (from the first part daughter of fortune).
Rating: - powerfully feminine family saga
The story told by Aurora del Valle in Isabel Allende's "Portrait in Sepia" is profoundly engrossing, captivating the reader in a net of unusual events among remarkable, original characters.
"Portrait in Sepia" reconstructs the past of Aurora, the protagonist of "The Daughter of Fortune", a very successful earlier novel by Allende, but it does not mean it is a mere sequel. This novel stands on its own and can be read separately as a whole. It is deeply rooted inn the South American tradition ... Read More
Rating: - STARTED OFF SLOW BUT A GREAT READ
I really liked this book. It started off a little slow but I really enjoyed it. It's a wonderful story about a Chinese-Chilean beauty and her family. Well written, and It's worth a second read.
Rating: - Nostalgic Storytelling
This memoir serves as a sort of biography for Allende's fictional main character. Your own emotions will run the gamut while you read this book.
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