The Horrors of the Regime

World history is dotted with several authoritarian regimes that have shaped the landscape of history. The ascent of these populist leaders and political strongmen has indelibly altered the flow of history. Their perversion towards violence led to several bloodsheds that marked dark periods of human history. Fascism and authoritarian regimes have become synonymous with Adolf Hitler.  He laid the groundwork for his dreams of reviving an Aryan republic. As history would have it, he masterminded one of the biggest genocides in modern history. Over in Italy, the teeth of fascism came biting with the rise to power of Benito Mussolini. In Spain, a new fascist was slowly inching towards absolute power. When the dust of the Spanish Civil War settled, Generalissimo Francisco Franco was installed as the nation’s absolute leader.

This phenomenon was not entirely unique to Europe. In Africa, several nations are still governed by presidents for life. As of date, there are five sitting African heads of state that have been in power for over three decades: Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Cameroon’s Paul Biya, Republic of Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerk. Biya is the longest consecutively serving non-royal leader in the world and is also the oldest head of state in Africa. Meanwhile, in Asia, the Philippines has Ferdinand Marcos Sr., North Korea has Kim Jong-un, Syria has Bashar al-Assad, and Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev, among others. Autocratic leaders have become ubiquitous and are staples in the majority of countries across the world.

Latin America also has had its fair share of dictators and their atrocities are well documented in literary works of Latin American writers. In fact, Latin American literature has a subgenre specifically dedicated to this literary probe into the legacy of autocracy and the psychological profiles of dictators. These are referred to as dictator novels. Among the scores of Latin American writers who wrote about the legacy and horrors of dictatorships was Isabel Allende. While not considered a dictator novel, the Chilean writer’s debut novel, The House of the Spirits, is widely recognized as one of the best works of modern Latin American, if not world literature. The House of the Spirits immediately catapulted Allende to literary stardom.

“In a few words, since by nature and professional training he was more inclined to listen attentively than to talk, he told her that for some time he had not found employment as a psychologist and was looking for any respectable job. Photography had seemed a good possibility, but since he had not wanted to be like those amateurs who end up begging to photograph weddings, baptisms, and birthdays, he had come to the magazine.”

~ Isabel Allende, Of Love and Shadows

Building on the momentum from her debut novel, she published her sophomore novel, De amor y de sombra in 1984. A year later, the book was made available to Anglophone readers with the title Of Love and Shadows. Just like her debut novel, Of Love and Shadows is set in an anonymous country. While there were no direct references, it is not rocket science to figure out that the novel was set in Allende’s home country, Chile. At the heart of the story was Irene Beltrán, a magazine editor. She was born into an affluent, bourgeois family of junta supporters. She was also engaged to Army Captain Gustavo Morante. Her life, as she knew it, started to unravel with her encounter with photographer Francisco Leal. Unlike Irene, Francisco was the poor son of a communist. He has a degree in psychology but he was unable to put it to good use, hence, his shift to photography to earn himself a living as a journalist.

The crux of the story was when Irene and Francisco traveled to the countryside. Rumors of the supernatural powers possessed by Evangelina Ranquileo, a farmgirl living near the village of Los Riscos, reached Irene. While the central event of the story is between Francisco and Irene, the novel also backtracks to capture the story of Evangelina. It started with the story of two babies who were switched at birth. Nevertheless, the children’s mothers opted to raise their switched offspring. Both girls were named Evangelina. Digna, Evangelina Ranquileo’s mother, raised her as though she was her own. Evangelina would grow up the center of her brother’s incestuous desire. Despite this, she grew up assuming an air of the ethereal. Her supernatural powers started to manifest as convulsions and the enactment of lewd positions and expressions.

It didn’t take long before rumors of Evangelina’s power started spreading like wildfire. People from different parts of the region flocked to the Ranquileo home hoping that Evangelina would heal them from their maladies. When Irene and Francisco arrived at the Ranquileo home, they found that the army had arrived too. Evangelina’s brother Pradelio, who works in the military, has told his superior Lieutenant Juan de Dios Ramirez, about his sister’s abilities. Believing it to be a hoax, the lieutenant and his corpse gatecrashed the Ranquileo home. Their aim was to scare Evangelina by surrounding their home with firearms. It backfired as the army bore witness to her supernatural power. Out of humiliation, the lieutenant held the Ranquileo family at gunpoint and arrested Evangelina.

Unfortunately, Evangelina would not be heard from again, devastating her mother. To get to the bottom of her disappearance, Irene and Francisco volunteered to help Digna look for Evangelina. Their inquiries took them to various parts of the region, pointing them to the military station and even to the morgue. Hints of Evangelina’s whereabouts were trickling in but they were far and few in between. Irene and Francisco also had to wade through these various leads and filter which of them were true and which were not. Francisco was cognizant of the urgency of this case. Time is of the essence lest they lose every trace of Evangelina. What they did not know was that their sleuthing would lead them to the discovery of the gruesome secrets of the regime.

“She had become the wife of a desaparecido. She had often said that no one disappeared in their country, and that such stories were anti-patriotic lies. When she saw the distraught women marching every Thursday in the plaza with portraits of their relatives pinned to their bosoms, she had said they were in the pay of Moscow. She never imagined she would find herself in the same situation as those wives and mothers searching for their loved ones.”

~ Isabel Allende, Of Love and Shadows

As the story slowly unfolded, it was increasingly becoming palpable what Allende was trying to capture. She was painting a vivid portrait of the authoritarian regime in her nation. The dictator’s tentacles were everywhere. A gathering of more than three people is immediately intervened by the police or the military. Locals have also learned to be discrete about what they say because it is the “basis for survival.” The literary shadows of fascism haunted Irene and Francisco everywhere they went. These were realities that Francisco was already cognizant of, after all, he grew up in a household helmed by a supporter of communism. The same cannot be said for Irene, who grew up in the comforts of affluence. At the morgue, the stench of death was an eye-opener, piercing the veil of ignorance draped on her by her affluence.

This part of the novel was rife with vivid images of the atrocities committed by the Augusto Pinochet regime, which wreaked havoc from 1973 to 1990. However, like the country and the places in the book, Pinochet was never named; he was simply referred to as the dictator. We read of how the regime stymied all forms of activism. Those who were perceived to be members of revolutionary movements were tortured in concentration camps or were killed and buried en masse in mass graves. The media and journalism were censored; Irene’s profession was symbolic and she would also find herself grappling with the political red tapes. The extent of atrocities perpetrated by the regime was beyond one’s imagination. Once the beacon of democracy in Latin America, Chile found itself trudging the same path as its neighbors.

The sea of difference between Irene and Francisco captures how the authoritarian regime was experienced by the denizens of Chile. Those who are affluent are shielded from these atrocities. Some, like Irene’s mother Beatriz Alcantara, become advocates of the regime. They find bliss in their ignorance of the events that are actually happening around the country. For sure, some cannot be blamed as news that trickles into their realms is filtered by the regime. They believe that the insurgents and the activists deserve their persecution by the military. They are a nuisance, disruptions to the “peace” that permeates the air. Even as the truth came knocking on their door – and the international press got wind of the oppression – Irene’s mother chose to ignore it. Little knowledge can be dangerous but it can also be bliss.

“All you will have is the present. Waste no energy crying over yesterday or dreaming of tomorrow. Nostalgia is fatiguing and destructive, it is the vice of the expatriate. You must put down roots as if they were forever, you must have a sense of permanence.”

~ Isabel Allende, Of Love and Shadows

For Irene, uncovering the atrocities of the regime put her at a crossroads. She was starting to see through the smokescreen. She was even starting to question her relationship with her fiance; she was delaying her marriage although her mother was pressuring her to seal the deal. Logically and expectedly, the proximity of Francisco and Irene would lead to romantic overtones, hence, the titular “love”. But, of course, this element plays second fiddle to the shadows referred to in the title that are lurking at every corner of the country. The novel actually recounts a historical event. In 1978, the bodies of 15  murdered essentially peasants were uncovered in a mass grave. This exposed the Pinochet regime to the rest of the world. Ironically, the rest of the world just stood by. More mass graves of los desaparecidos (the disappeared) would be uncovered in the years following the fall of the Pinochet regime.

Compared to its predecessor, Of Love and Shadows had little elements of magical realism. In her sophomore novel, Allende aimed for a realistic portrayal of the brutalities perpetrated by the military regime. The contrasting elements of passionate love and lethal violence provide the magical element of the story. In stepping out of the shadows of magical realism, Allende was developing her capabilities as a novelist. She created a lush and colorful world where prostitutes, military officers, priests, communists, and insurgents converge. The story also drew inspiration from Allende’s own experiences as a journalist and a civilian during Pinochet’s regime. The niece of deposed Chilean President Salvador Allende, she found a conduit in Irene.

Like The House of the Spirits, Allende’s sophomore novel is a homage to her home country, its colorful people, diverse landscape, and even its tumultuous history. Through Irene and Francisco’s sleuthing – and their developing romance – Allende captured a dark phase in contemporary Chilean history. Allende sheds light on the darker sides of our humanity, the side of us that allows some of us to exploit our fellow and turn a blind eye to these inequities and atrocities. Nevertheless, there are still among us who, with courage, are willing to remove the lid and expose these brutalities, even at the expense of their lives. Of Love and Shadows is a compelling and evocative follow-up to Isabel Allende’s successful literary debut. It consolidated her status as a literary star.

“She thought of the magnitude of her loss. She would never again walk the streets of her childhood, or hear her language spoken as she loved it; she would not see the outline of her sweet land’s mountain at dusk; she would not be lulled by the song of its rivers; gone would be the aroma of sweet basil in her kitchen, of rain evaporating from her roof tiles.”

~ Isabel Allende, Of Love and Shadows
Book Specs

Author: Isabel Allende
Translator (from Spanish): Margaret Sayers Peden
Publisher: Black Swan Books
Publishing Date: 1988 (1984)
No. of Pages: 298
Genre: Magical Realism, Historical, Romance

Synopsis

Set in a country of arbitrary arrests, sudden disappearances and summary executions, Isabel Allende’s magical novel tells of the passionate affair of two people prepared to risk everything for the sake of justice and truth: Irene  Beltrán, a reporter, comes from a wealthy background; Francisco Leal, a young photographer secretly engaged in undermining the military dictatorship, is strongly attracted by her beauty. It does not matter that her fiancé is an army captain: each time Francisco accompanies her on a magazine assignment, he falls more deeply in love with her.

When they go to investigate the mysterious case of Evangelina Ranquileo, a girl suffering from spectacular fits which are rumoured to have miraculous powers, the arrival of soldiers adds a sinister aspect to the mystery. And then Evangelina disappears. Irene and Francisco, in trying to trace her and indict the Junta, become engulfed in a vortex of terror and violence.

About the Author

To learn more about the prolific Chilean writer Isabel Allende, please click here.