Of Karma, Reincarnation, and Love

The publication of Como agua para chocolate in 1989 catapulted a former kindergarten teacher from relative obscurity into literary stardom. The novel was an immediate sensation in Mexico, and its initial success foreshadowed what would eventually become a global literary phenomenon. In 1992, it became available to Anglophone readers under the title Like Water for Chocolate. Beautifully written, the novel intertwines history with a young woman’s struggle against the constraints imposed by her family. It quickly climbed bestseller lists around the world and earned its author, Laura Esquivel, widespread acclaim from literary critics. Many praised her imaginative and compelling fusion of local culture, history, family dynamics, and magical realism. The novel also functions as a culinary text through its inclusion of detailed recipes for traditional Mexican dishes. Its remarkable success marked the arrival of an exciting new voice in contemporary world literature.

The former writer for a children’s television program had become both a household name and an internationally celebrated author. Without a doubt, Like Water for Chocolate emerged as a literary sensation and has since become a cornerstone of contemporary Latin American literature. It was also adapted into an award-winning film in 1992. The novel sold more than three million copies in over thirty languages, while the film won eleven awards. By every measure, it was a stellar debut. It was therefore only natural that the literary world eagerly awaited Esquivel’s next work. Following her newfound success, Esquivel immediately began work on another novel. Her sophomore novel, La ley del amor, was published in 1995 and was received as a highly anticipated literary event. A year after its publication in Spanish, it became available to Anglophone readers as The Law of Love. As she had done with her debut novel, Esquivel once again pushed the boundaries of her literary imagination.

Surely the heart is not a fitting place to house hatred. But where is its place? I don’t know. That is one of the universe’s Unknowns. It would seem that the God’s truly delight in messing things up, for in not having created a particular spot to house hatred, they have provoked eternal chaos. Hatred us forever hunting down a refuge, poking it’s nose where it shouldn’t, taking over sites reserved for others, invariably forcing out love.

Laura Esquivel, The Law of Love

The Law of Love opens with the siege of the ancient city of Tenochtitlán in the sixteenth century. The Spanish conquistadores successfully wrest control of the city from the Aztecs. After defeating the indigenous inhabitants, Hernán Cortés orders the city to be leveled and replaced with a new colonial capital rather than leaving it in ruins. He recognizes that preserving the ruined city would transform it into a powerful symbol of Aztec identity and eventually inspire attempts to reclaim it. Thus begins the creation of what would become modern Mexico City. Cortés grants his soldiers parcels of land that once formed part of the city’s sacred pyramids. Among them is Rodrigo Díaz, whose allotment includes a pyramid that had served as a sacred religious site dedicated to an Aztec goddess of love. As part of his spoils of war, Rodrigo also receives fifty Indigenous servants, including Citlali, a woman of noble Aztec lineage.

A brutal act committed by Rodrigo against Citlali at the very pyramid upon which he builds his home sets into motion a series of karmic events that will unfold across the past, the present, and the future. Rodrigo later brings to New Spain a Spanish wife, Isabel Gonzales, who eventually becomes pregnant. The novel’s opening concludes with an act of violence that reverberates throughout the narrative. At this point, the story undergoes a dramatic transformation. Esquivel transports readers from the sixteenth century to twenty-third-century Mexico City, where the novel introduces its central protagonist, Azucena Martínez. Azucena is an astroanalyst who guides individuals through past-life regressions to help them achieve harmony in their present lives and discover the origins of their current struggles. For example, her landlady’s grandmother is blind because, in a previous life, she served as a member of the Chilean military.

Azucena is also engaged in a deeply personal quest. She seeks to restore peace to the planet by reinstating the Law of Love, the universal principle that governs harmony throughout existence. Assisting her in this mission is her guardian angel, Anacreonte. However, her pride prevents her from accepting his guidance. Running parallel to Azucena’s mission is her search for her alma gemela (twin soul). Having evolved into a highly advanced Super-Evo, she is finally granted the opportunity to reunite with her twin soul, Rodrigo Sánchez. In Esquivel’s vision of the future, a soul that has died and been reincarnated thousands of times eventually attains sufficient wisdom to recognize its true counterpart—the missing half essential to its spiritual completion. Azucena has finally repaid the karmic debts accumulated throughout her 14,000 previous lives.

Unfortunately, Rodrigo has not achieved the same level of spiritual purity. The day after their first meeting and a night of cosmic passion, he is framed for murder by Isabel Gómez, a candidate for Planetary President, and is subsequently deported to the penal planet Korma. As fate would have it, Rodrigo Sánchez is the reincarnation of Rodrigo Díaz, forging an explicit connection between the past and the future. In The Law of Love, time functions not as a linear progression but as a fluid construct, allowing the narrative to move freely across different historical periods while following characters through successive reincarnations. Rodrigo’s various lives are repeatedly marked by violence, yet his soul remains inseparably intertwined with Azucena’s. Overcome with grief, Azucena resolves to reunite with her beloved. As she searches for her twin soul, she relives episodes from numerous past lives, gradually realizing that these experiences form part of a larger divine design. Her search ultimately sets into motion the chain of events that culminates in the restoration of the Law of Love on Earth.

Most people are constantly forming opinions…This creates an insurmountable barrier and we find ourselves dominated by intolerance. As soon as we meet a person, we immediately set out our opinions before him to see how he reacts; if he shares them, we accept him. If not, we try to tear down his opinions in order to impose our own, convinced that the other person is bad because he thinks differently from us. We become narrow-minded inquisitors who in the name of truth put to death anybody whose ideas do not coincide with our own.

Laura Esquivel, The Law of Love

In her sophomore novel, Esquivel embarks on an ambitious and innovative exploration of a wide range of themes and ideas. At the forefront are karma and reincarnation, concepts that serve as subtle reminders that human actions reverberate across time. This premise echoes the ancient Indian belief that good actions and intentions generate positive karma, leading to more favorable reincarnations, whereas negative actions produce karmic consequences that must eventually be confronted. The plight of Azucena’s landlady’s grandmother, whose blindness stems from the violence she committed in a previous life, exemplifies this principle. Rodrigo’s violent past also haunts him, even as he tries to rebuild himself in his succeeding lives. For Azucena, she had to embark on a personal journey to evolve and attain karmic purity. Azucena’s karmic cleansing also came with the bonus of being allowed to meet and pursue her twin soul, albeit her twin soul is karmically impure. The novel then unfolds as a tapestry woven with the sins of the past. Characters were caught in webs of betrayal and malice that eventually dictated their rebirths.

Yet while violence, betrayal, and resentment dominate the characters’ pasts, Esquivel continually leaves room for redemption. Anger and hatred may define much of their emotional lives, but transformation remains possible. Such personal evolution, however, requires confronting the unresolved traumas of previous incarnations. This process is facilitated through astroanalysis, in which practitioners such as Azucena guide individuals through past-life regressions to uncover long-buried grief, guilt, and resentment, thereby opening the path toward healing and spiritual balance. As Azucena undergoes her own regressions, she gradually realizes that her destiny has always been intertwined with those of Rodrigo, Isabel, and Citlali. Across multiple lifetimes, the four repeatedly assume the roles of victim, aggressor, lover, and avenger. Just as she guides her clients toward self-understanding, Azucena’s own journey into the past enables her to discover her true identity and purpose.

These developments naturally raise the question of what the Law of Love truly represents. As in Like Water for Chocolate, love occupies the thematic center of the novel. The title itself signals Esquivel’s central concern with love’s transformative and restorative power. This idea is most vividly embodied in the relationship between Azucena and Rodrigo, whose love transcends time, death, and successive reincarnations. Their relationship suggests that love is capable of reshaping not only individual destinies but also the moral and cosmic order itself. The concept of twin souls reinforces the notion that profound spiritual connections endure beyond a single lifetime. Love emerges as a force capable of healing divisions and restoring harmony. The Law of Love argues that genuine peace becomes attainable only through forgiveness and reconciliation. By embracing forgiveness, individuals realign themselves with the cosmic order and move toward both personal and universal redemption. The characters ultimately experience moments of catharsis that allow them to confront their pasts and begin the process of spiritual renewal.

Within Esquivel’s cosmology, every soul possesses a rightful place within the universe, and the Law of Love offers the possibility of redemption to all who pursue spiritual growth. Guided by Azucena, Rodrigo, Citlali, and Isabel eventually release the anger, guilt, and resentment that have long obstructed their karmic evolution. The novel’s system of karmic cycles rewards those who strive for spiritual purification and alignment with the universal order. Esquivel further enriches this metaphysical framework through historical reflection, particularly in her portrayal of the Aztecs. Their perseverance, ingenuity, and adaptability enabled them to build one of the greatest civilizations in the Americas. Upon arriving in central Mexico during the twelfth century, they were a nomadic people who gradually absorbed the cultures and practices of neighboring societies. This process of cultural assimilation contributed to the rise of a powerful empire, which, like many great civilizations before it, eventually succumbed to decline and conquest.

An evolving spirit must pass through every imaginable horror before reaching enlightenment, for there is no way of arriving at light except through darkness. A soul is tempered only by suffering and pain. There is no way for human beings to avoid this predicament, nor is it useful to give them lessons in advance. The human soul is basically very stupid and cannot comprehend an experience until it lives it out in the flesh. Likewise, no knowledge ever reaches the brain without first passing through the organs of the senses.

Laura Esquivel, The Law of Love

By juxtaposing the brutality of the Spanish conquest with a futuristic society seeking to redress historical injustice, The Law of Love creates an intricate literary tapestry that examines the interconnected themes of power, morality, history, and love. Esquivel offers readers an unconventional perspective on humanity’s enduring search for meaning, forgiveness, and redemption while emphasizing the cyclical nature of both history and human experience. These concerns distinguish the novel from her acclaimed debut. Whereas Like Water for Chocolate blends historical fiction with magical realism, The Law of Love ventures even further into experimental territory. Esquivel combines magical realism with elements of romance, mythology, spirituality, and futuristic speculation to create a narrative that resists easy generic classification. Although the novel is set in the twenty-third century, it does not present itself as conventional science fiction. Instead, it imagines a future in which reincarnation, karmic justice, and cosmic harmony constitute the foundations of everyday existence.

Esquivel also continues to challenge conventional storytelling through the novel’s innovative formal structure. Beyond its genre-blending qualities, The Law of Love is remarkable for integrating multiple artistic media into the reading experience. At various points, Esquivel instructs readers to listen to selections from the accompanying compact disc, which features operatic arias by Giacomo Puccini alongside traditional Mexican danzones. The narrative is further complemented by illustrations from the Spanish artist Miguelanxo Prado. Rather than distracting from the story, these multimedia elements deepen its emotional and sensory impact, creating an immersive reading experience that extends beyond the printed page. Nevertheless, the novel’s unconventional structure occasionally results in narrative confusion. Moreover, although Azucena is an engaging, intelligent, and unpretentious protagonist, neither she nor Rodrigo fully develops. While The Law of Love ultimately falls short of the extraordinary accomplishment of Like Water for Chocolate, it nevertheless demonstrates Esquivel’s remarkable originality.

Despite its imperfections, The Law of Love remains one of Laura Esquivel’s most daring and intellectually ambitious works. Its fusion of romance, historical fiction, magical realism, speculative fiction, philosophy, and multimedia experimentation reflects Esquivel’s willingness to expand the boundaries of storytelling. The Law of Love distinguishes itself from Esquivel’s debut novel through its bold engagement with questions of history, memory, spirituality, and the moral consequences of human action. By envisioning love as a cosmic principle capable of transcending violence, time, and reincarnation, Esquivel presents forgiveness as the foundation of universal harmony. The novel ultimately argues that redemption is achieved through the difficult work of confronting the past and accepting responsibility. While it may never rival the cultural impact of Esquivel’s celebrated debut, The Law of Love stands as a testament to her artistic ambition and experimental imagination, reaffirming her place as one of the most unique voices in contemporary Latin American literature.

We must know how to strike without pity, without remorse, without fear of discarding the bits of stone that stand in the way of its splendor. To know how to produce a work of art is to know how to discard the extraneous. All creation follows the same process. In the maternal womb, the cells themselves know what to discard; some sacrifice themselves so that others may exist. In order for the upper lip to separate from the lower, thousands of cells that once joined them must die. Were that not so, how could man speak, sing, eat, kiss or sigh with love.

Laura Esquivel, The Law of Love
Book Specs

Author: Laura Esquivel
Translator (from Portuguese): Harriet de Onis
Publisher: Crown Publishers, Inc
Publishing Date: 1996
No. of Pages: 266
Genre: Literary, Magical Realism

Synopsis

The story is set in Mexico City three centuries hence when humanity was discovered that everyone goes through 14,000 reincarnations in order to achieve a perfect fusion with their twin soul (the ultimate goal of life). Our heroine, Azucena, is an astroanalyst, a sort of highly evolved psychotherapist who, with the help of her Guardian Angel, ministers to the karmically challenged using the power of music to reacquaint her patients with their past lives. As an astroanalyst and an enlightened soul, Azucena has finally been allowed to meet her twin soul, her true love, Rodrigo. But after only one night of supreme passion, the lovers are separated, and Azucena must search of Rodrigo across the galaxy and through 14,000 past lives. She encounters many obstacles and adventures in her search, inadvertently getting involved in a plot by a fraudulent reincarnation of Mother Teresa who wishes to use her false identity to become President of the Planet. Azucena is forced to expose the fraud and replace the capstone on the Temple of Love, destroyed when Cortes conquered Tenochtitlan, which will restore harmony to the galaxy.

About the Author

To learn more about Laura Esquivel, click here.