cs) Spain1997,"DaughterofFortune", (novel) Spain1999,"PortriatinSepia", (novel) Spain2000.All express her extraordinary talent and vivid imagination. She draws the reader into a world that captures the mind until the punctuation of the last sentence.
             "How much does a man live, after all?
             Does he live a thousand days, or one only?
             For a week, or for several centuries?
             How long does a man spend dying?"
             The House of Spirits opens with this very quote. Although vague at the start, this poem will eventually turn into the mantra that drives the plot of this story. Allende brilliantly uses foreshadowing and intriguing characters to draw the reader deeper into the world of one family.
             The book begins being told by a narrator who does not appear in the story. The narrator alludes to having read Clara's, the main character at the time, notebooks. They speak of the early events of Clara's life with explosive and colorful language. The reader can feel the stuffiness of Saint Sebastian's and see the porcelain complexion of Rosa. Allende entices with detailed descriptions of Clara's house and the loving people that live with in Clara's world.
             The story is set around the turn of the twentieth century in an unnamed South American country. Allende does the purposely because during and throughout the twentieth century most South and Central American countries were experiencing the volatile political state and eventual coup ET tat. The initial setting is the childhood home of Clara Del Valle, who later matures into the family matriarch. The setting later evolves into Tres Marias, the town where Esteban Trueba, the eventual patriarch, grew up. He returns after Rosa the Beautiful's, his fiancée, death. He finds it in ruins and returns it to prosperity, mainly his own. After this boom in opulence, Trueba remembers his sister warning about finding a wife. He returns to the De...