MEXICANOS AL GRITO DE GUERRA (1943)

Luis se enlista en el ejército para defender a México del ataque de los franceses, paralelamente se enamora de una chica que es sobrina del embajador de Francia. Cuando el ejército mexicano se ve mermado en fuerzas Luis los alienta tocando con su corneta el Himno Nacional de México haciendo que los soldados se recuperen y venzan a los franceses, sin embargo, es herido y muere justo cuando su amada logra escapar del calabozo.

FILMOGRAFÍA

MEXICANOS AL GRITO DE GUERRA

(Historia del Himno Nacional)

1943

http://pedroinfante.yomarnathalia.com/pinfante/MexicanosAlGritoDeGuerra1943.php

Luis se enlista en el ejército para defender a México del ataque de los franceses, paralelamente se enamora de una chica que es sobrina del embajador de Francia. Cuando el ejército mexicano se ve mermado en fuerzas Luis los alienta tocando con su corneta el Himno Nacional de México haciendo que los soldados se recuperen y venzan a los franceses, sin embargo, es herido y muere justo cuando su amada logra escapar del calabozo.

Director: Alvaro Gálvez y Fuentes e Ismael Rodríguez

Argumento: A Gálvez y Fuentes

Fotografía: Raúl Lavista

Música: Manuel Esperón

Tipo: Drama histórico

Canción del dominio público (El durazno), Himno Nacional de México.

Reparto: Pedro Infante (como Teniente Luis Sandoval), Lina Montes (como Esther Dubois), Miguel Inclán (como el presidente Benito Juarez), Miguel Arenas (como el Conde Dubois), Miguel Angel Férriz (como General Ignacio Zaragoza), Carlos Riquelme (como Francisco González Bocanegra), Salvador Carrasco (como Jaime Nunó), Margarita Cortés (como Lupe), Salvador Quiroz (como Antonio López de Santa Anna), Armando Soto La Marina Chicote (como el Panadero), Arturo Soto Rangel (como el padre de Esteban Sandoval), Ricardo Carti (como General Alponte), Ramón G. Larrea (como General Jurien), Pedro Elviro (como Lombardini), Francisco Jambrina (como General Juan Prim).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036156/

Mexicanos al grito de guerra (1943)

Directors:Álvaro Gálvez y Fuentes

Ismael Rodríguez

Writers:Álvaro Gálvez y Fuentes

Joselito Rodríguez

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Release Date:16 September 1943 (Mexico) more

Genre:Biography / Drama / Romance / War more

Plot Outline:In times of the French Intervention, a student of Nunó, author of the Mexican National Anthem, falls in love with the niece of the French Ambassador, which causes quite amusing complications.

Plot Keywords:Historical

Also Known As:Historia del himno nacional

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Runtime:101 min

Country:Mexico

Language:Spanish

Color:Black and White

Sound Mix:Mono

MOVIEmeter: 30% since last week why?

Company:Producciones Rodríguez Hermanos more

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Mexican Movies at Shout of don't censor me!!!, 18 October 2004

Author: Fermin Treviño Adame from Monterrey,Mexico

This Patriotic Film had to be very attached to the real Facts(¿?),at least what the school books said about how our national anthem was made in order to avoid difficult to be released, so we can see a very young Pedro Infante(at his 26),encourage to his teacher Salvador Carrasco(the Spanish Musician, Jaime Nuno)composes the music of the National Anthem, and Carlos Riquelme(Francisco Bocanegra) who was Locked Up in his room for his Girlfriend to be Forced to write the Lyric of it ,all this around a love story between Infante,a medium class soldier convert because he wants to relieve in some way what his father do against the nation'cause he was fighting at the French side, and Lina Montes an aristocrat lady.Galves y Fuentes a very prestigious radio announcer filmed his unique movie and provide it with large Scenes of the 5th May Battle,besides he gives it a very popular sense typical in Ismael Rodriguez movies that was easy to understand because he was behind him as co-director and producer

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Un saludo a todos los compas al norte del Bravo que hoy festejan el 5 de Mayo. Sí, ya sé que nuestros primos creen que es más importante que la fiesta del 16 de Septiembre. De cualquier manera que se la pasen chido.

No dudo que van a tener comida Mexicana. Ya sé que ahora hasta en los lugares más apartados de la union Americana hay “tienditas” como en México. Recuerdo cuando estuve en Colorado, fuimos a conseguir una calling card; y había unos compas de CHIHUAHUA que hacían el TRASIEGO de literalmente todo desde la frontera azteca hasta Greeley. Mis cuates y yo les preguntamos: oigan ¿‘ónde comemos rico?, y nos contestaron: !Ah, sí! Allá en “Los Comales” en la 23 y 14 (es de memoria, a lo mejor no es totalmente cierto en ese cruce), ahí pueden comer tacos. Neta que tenían de tocho, desde barbacha (de cabeza, pues) hasta de trompo (ok, AL PASTOR. ¿Hablaremos otro idioma en TAMPICO? Mmm), sin el sabor acartonado de los restaurantes Tex-Mex.

Pues que lo disfruten paisas, un abrazo solidario hasta OXACALIFORNIA, NAHUAYORK y los demás lugares donde habitan los “bronceados”. Sigan con el plan, si continuan reproduciendo como conejos (no le apliquen la otra acepción a la mexicana) in firty years time tomaremos la Unión México-Americana, perdón Americana; y sin necesidad de Economic Hit Men.

En cuanto al comentario del compa Regio. Le recuerdo que muy poco se sabe en realidad de la “verdad histórica”, no sólo de México sino de la Historia Universal. Mmmm, si eso nos amalgamó como país, ¿es válido? A lo mejor. Prefiero eso a querer borrar de la historia Mexicana períodos incómodos como La Reforma. ¿Ustedes qué opinan? Te recomiendo Fermín un capítulo de los Simpsons donde la Lisa averigua la “realidad histórica” del héroe de Springfield. Hay mentiras que NO MATAN. Si lo encuentro en youtube, al rato se los posteo. !Ah! En algo coincidimos es una película melosa dirigida por el Ismael Rodríguez, ya sabes, el de “Nosotros los PROBES”. VAAA el Himno MEXICANO completo con sus diez estrofas, no pude encontrar el audio (no hice una exhaustiva búsqueda, no me griten).

http://www.sre.gob.mx/belice/comunmex/himno.htm

Por cierto ni una mención a los Zacapoaxtlas POBLANOS en estas reseñas. Sin ellos la batalla no se hubiera ganado. Así de fácil. ¿Verdad que la memoria histórica es flaca? Mejor las “PRIMAS” lo mencionan. Me les voy a arrimar, …a ver si les aprendo algo, …no sean mal pensados.

M@rconmemorativo,

Norwich, G(ran) B(atalla Poblana),

5/5/07.

P.D.soñadora.

http://www.4shared.com/file/13230635/f91a9853/05_A_que_le_Tiras_Cuando_Sueas_Mexicano.html

P.D.Hepática. Bandazos AMARILLOS en COLA de espera.

P.D.Calling-card. "...all I had to do was pick up the phone/ I'm out in space, trying to talk to someone..." - Calling America (ELO)

P.D.Semidiosa. - "...Like a holy rolling stone/Back up to Heaven all alone…" One of US (Joan Osborne).

... La Toma de la Bastilla.

El diálogo no pasa sólo por el aprendizaje del pensamiento discursivo y lógico, sino por una búsqueda y apertura. Comprender es algo discursivo e intuitivo que en el ser reflexivo y sensible implica un retirarse o envolverse de cierto silencio. Es esa la manera del pensar poético si lo que éste persigue es pensar desde el alma, desde lo más humano del ser.

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/05/04/index.php?section=opinion&article=a06a1cul

José Cueli

Poesía vs violencia

El diálogo no pasa sólo por el aprendizaje del pensamiento discursivo y lógico, sino por una búsqueda y apertura. Comprender es algo discursivo e intuitivo que en el ser reflexivo y sensible implica un retirarse o envolverse de cierto silencio. Es esa la manera del pensar poético si lo que éste persigue es pensar desde el alma, desde lo más humano del ser.

Mientras que para los imperios no es válida la reflexión, por el contrario, sólo la ejecución; se persigue y se persigue y se defienden de la persecución imponiendo restricciones más severas, nacidas de la parte más primitiva, prepotente, narcisista y paranoica para volver a hablar y ejecutar por las buenas o por las balas. Es el caso del imperio moderno, nuestro vecino, los Estados Unidos de América que, actualmente impone su poderío en el Medio Oriente y a los mexicanos nos lastima con un muro fronterizo.

La fuerza de este imperio ha llevado a la degradación de la mística en la política. Ha desembocado en un encasillamiento unívoco con grave distorsión y deterioro del pensamiento, falta de discriminación de escenarios, rechazo de los develamientos de historia, acompañados de un sentimiento profundo de envidia rabiosa hacia la historia cultural de los países dominados.

Envidia destructiva hacia los marginales, los diferentes, los otros. Los que están a su servicio y además les arrebatan sus riquezas. Porque la envidia, el sentimiento sadomasoquista de los débiles, provocándoles todo el dolor posible, la rivalidad omnipotente y narcisista, están al nivel de los viejos complejos edípicos de castración, engullendo a la historia y a los individuos. El rechazo del otro, del desprotegido, sometiéndolo y viéndolo como perseguidor, trivializa de manera burda y cruel, la evolución humana, buscando a la pequeña bestia.

Es el poeta, con su pensar flotante, quien puede rehacer, corregir, a reserva de quemárselos por los fulgores inhabituales el rumbo caótico y destructivo, incluida la tecnología por el que se perfila la humanidad en manos de estos modernos dioses de hilos invisibles.

Qué espléndidamente poetizó el problema Octavio Paz en Piedra de Sol: ''Nunca somos/ a solas sino vértigo y vacío/ muecas en el espejo, horror y vómito. La vida no es de nadie todos somos la vida/ pan de sol para los otros/ los otros todos que nosotros somos/ para que pueda ser he de ser de otro/ salir de mí buscarme entre los otros/ los otros que no son si yo no existo los otros que me dan plena existencia".

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En ese proceso de negación sicológico muy conocido, me resistía a aceptarlo. "Ya se descararon, están envalentonados", diría Lorenzo Meyer. Hay dos proyectos de país, que delínea esplendidamente este compa en la presente columna. Miren, si puedo les doy el reporte semanal del estado del país. Lamentablemente tengo que preparar un reporte climático para alguien mucho más importante que el mismísimo CISEN. Esos locos del susodicho centro de INTELIGENCIA no lo entenderían de todos modos. VAAA.

M@rculto,
U(na) K(ultura),
04/5/07.

P.D.Secesionista. "Any kingdom DIVIDED against itself will be RUINED, and a HOUSE DIVIDED against itself will FALL..." LUKE 11:17 (NIV)

P.D.Washingtoniana. "even the PRESIDENT needs ... /...some people can KILL for PASSION" - PASSION (Rod Stewart).

P.D.Muda. "...it's a JUNGLE, I'm a FREAK/heavy TALK but never SPEAK..." - World (New Order).

P.D.Campesina. "...there's no point in talking, when nobody is listening/so we just ran away..."- Young Turks (Rod Stewart)


P.D.DesTERRAda. "What the HELL am I doing HERE/ I don't belong HERE" - Creep (RADIOhead).

... Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada.

Una mujer, que se manifiesta inconforme ante todo, es agredida constantemente por una mano misteriosa que lanza huevos contra su casa. Limitada por sus prejuicios y temores e incapaz de encontrar una salida a sus conflictos internos, tendrá un trágico e inesperado final. Alrededor del eje central de esta comedia se presentan y critican personajes y situaciones reales de la sociedad cubana actual.

http://www.cubacine.cu/ficcion/plaff.htm

Ficha Técnica

Guión: Daniel Chavarría y Juan Carlos Tabío

Dirección: Juan Carlos Tabío

Producción General: Ricardo Ávila

Dirección de Fotografía: Julio Valdés

Edición: Roberto Bravo

Música Original: Nicolás Reynoso

Sonido: Raúl García

INTÉRPRETES

Daisy Granados

Luis Alberto García

Thais Valdés

Jorge Cao

Raúl Pomares

Alicia Bustamante

Sinopsis

Una mujer, que se manifiesta inconforme ante todo, es agredida constantemente por una mano misteriosa que lanza huevos contra su casa. Limitada por sus prejuicios y temores e incapaz de encontrar una salida a sus conflictos internos, tendrá un trágico e inesperado final. Alrededor del eje central de esta comedia se presentan y critican personajes y situaciones reales de la sociedad cubana actual.

Premios y Reconocimientos

Tercer Premio Coral, Premio FIPRESCI y Premio al mejor guión inédito. X Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, La Habana, Cuba, 1988.

Premio Caracol a la mejor dirección de largometraje y al mejor guión. Festival Nacional de Cine, Radio y TV (UNEAC),1988.

Premio Catedral al mejor filme (Oficina Nacional de la Organización Católica de Cine de Cuba), 1988.

Premio El Mégano al mejor filme. Festival Nacional de Cine clubs, 1988.

Mención Especial del Jurado de la International Federation of Film Societés. XIV Festival de Cine Iberoamericano, Huelva, España, 1988.

Premio al mejor filme. Festival Latino de Nueva York, 1989.

Premio a la mejor actuación femenina (Daysi Granados). Festival Internacional de Cinema, Troia, Portugal, 1989.

Premio al mejor filme. II Festival de Cine del Caribe, Fort de France, Martinica, 1990.

Premio a la mejor actuación femenina (Daysi Granados). Festival Internacional de Cine de Asunción, Paraguay, 1990.

Subir

Cubacine

www.cubacine.cu

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Well, acabó de quitarme un poco del peso que cargo, contra mi voluntad, en la espalda. Hace unos cuantos minutos le entregué las conclusiones a mi asesor, se va de viaje y es posible que me tenga las correcciones para este Viernes. Yo le creo, es muy eficiente, su cubículo está peor de desordenado que el mío, pero en cuestión de checar lo que escribo es rapidísimo. A ver si publicamos un par de artículos para que mi nombre se escriba con letras de oro, en lo que no sirve, el círculo de expertos en cambio climático.

Le comentaba hace poco a la “Mujer Maravilla” que, hasta HOY, lo que más me enorgullece en esta PERRA vida, es el chispazo ese de monitorear la elección, comp@s. Según el blog ayer se cumplió un año exactito, para mi que fué el 29 de Abril justo al amanecer. Gracias a todos ustedes fue posible, yo fui solo un instrumento de quién sabe quién. Ella me dice que la gente está muy apática, que ya ni le mueva, que renuncie a esas quijotadas. A lo mejor es el humor entre los clase-medieros con los que se junta. Porque leyendo las noticias (es un verdadero vicio, la neta, he intentado un día dejar de hacerlo, pero me es imposible), y viendo las fotos de la capirucha, no le creo. Le creo en todo, pero en eso no le creo a ese mujerón. Estoy orgulloso de tod@s ustedes porque siguen tan renegad@s como siempre, como si fuera el 3 de Julio de 2006. ¡Vientos huracanados del Caribe!

Hoy, estaba dormitando frente al teclado escribiendo las ultimas líneas de ese capítulo. Tuve que ir por una droga que refresca (sí, ya sé que debo apoyar el boicot; denme chance, desde que era adolescente renuncié a tomar las aguas negras del imperio, pero ahora que estoy terminando la tesis, he sentido esa necesidad para mantenerme despierto) y tuve el presentimiento de que vamos a ganar. He andado muy certero en estos últimos días. Así que, ¡cuidadito! ¿Vieron el escándalo de la red de prostitución en la capital gringa? ¡Moles! Pero, ya saben esos primos son bien doble moral, se espantan de todo, remember la Lewinsky. En México lo raro sería que los politicos no tuvieran quelite, doble frente, capillita, etc., etc., etc. A lo mejor por eso no se me da la polaca; en eso soy bien conformista con una me basta y sobra. El independent británico también trae otro artículo de un empresario enredado en lío de faldas. ¡Chales!

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article2502079.ece

Downfall: BP boss quits after lying to protect his privacy

Lord Browne was once Tony Blair's favourite businessman. But the chief executive of BP resigned yesterday in the aftermath of a torrid case of sex, lies and perjury. He lost £15m and the right to keep his life private. Now he may face jail

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

Published: 02 May 2007

`Cherchez la femme`

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherchez_la_femme

A ver si escribo un cuentito para celebrar el primer aniversario de la “creatividad socialmente comprometida”. Pero tiene que pasar el tamiz de la “Mujer Maravilla” si no, no lo posteo.

M@rcubano,

Norwich, U(na) K(uba)

2/5/07

P.D.Minina. Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!!!

P.D.Perrona. 'El cambio que vengo a proponerles no es un CAMBIO para dejar de ser amos, sino para dejar de ser PERROS''. (Tatiana Clouthier).

P.D.Tristona. "Planet EARTH is BLUE and there's nothing I can do..." - Space Oddity (David Bowie).

P.D.Futurista. "...si quieres hacer reír a DIOS cuéntale tus planes". - Susana (Amores PERROS, 2000)

P.D.Pegajosa. "...lo malo son las noches que MOJAN mi mano…". - Sin tu latido. (Luis Eduardo Aute).

P.D.Desprendida. "...AMA más a tu prójimo que a ti mesmo". - EZLN

P.D.Chaquetera. "How long halt ye between TWO opinions?" - 1 Kings 18:21 (NIV)

P.D.Vegetariana. "won't you sign up your NAME?/... you could be acceptable, respectable, presentable, a VEGETABLE". - The Logical Song. (SuperTRAMP).

P.D.Vermox. Bajo prescripción a todo aquel que cumpla con las siguientes condiciones: sexo femenino, INDIGENA, anciana, pobre y REBELDE. El cuadro clínico se complica si su gentilicio pertenece a cualquiera de las regiones MEXICANAS al sur de la latitud 19 del hemisferio NORTI.

Pilona Exorcizada.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hechos%2016;&version=42;

Pablo y Silas en la cárcel

16 Una vez, cuando íbamos al lugar de oración, nos salió al encuentro una joven esclava que tenía un espíritu de adivinación. Con sus poderes ganaba mucho dinero para sus amos.17 Nos seguía a Pablo y a nosotros, gritando:

—Estos hombres son siervos del Dios Altísimo, y les anuncian a ustedes el camino de salvación.
18 Así continuó durante muchos días. Por fin Pablo se molestó tanto que se volvió y reprendió al espíritu:

—¡En el nombre de Jesucristo, te ordeno que salgas de ella!

Y en aquel mismo momento el espíritu la dejó.

Tacos de tren, pan de cariño, bocoles, empanadas, gorditas, tacos de chorizo, entomatadas, carne de puerco con calabacitas, guacamole, flautas, tortas de la barda, sopes de papa (ok, ok, lo correcto es decir con papa), tortas de carne deshebrada, alubias, frijoles charros, pasteles caseros, barbacoa, mondongo, nopalitos en pipian, bocoles, cochinita pibil, pollo en achiote, huevos en salsa verde, arroz a la jardinera, paella, sopa juliana, caldo de jaiba, salpicón a la Vizcaina, frijoles refritos, picadillo de carne, pescado al vapor, costilla horneadas de cerdo, migadas, atole de tamarindo, gelatina de mosaico, chilaquiles, chop suey de camarón, patas de cerdo, pay de limón, fideo chino, arroz a la jardinera … tamales VERACRUZANOS (en hoja de plátano) gigantes.

... illuminati.

The undefeated

Often compared to Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende is more interested in telling stories about her own life, her difficult upbringing, marriage and her daughter's death

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,2067060,00.html

The undefeated

Often compared to Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende is more interested in telling stories about her own life, her difficult upbringing, marriage and her daughter's death

Aida Edemariam
Saturday April 28, 2007
The Guardian

The day before we met, Isabel Allende went on a march. She had heard that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a Bush innovation, had been conducting house-to-house raids not far from where she lives, on a bluff overlooking San Francisco Bay. One of these raids had netted a father and his seven-year-old son who would not let go of him, so the two were shackled together and removed. When the mayor eventually discovered where they had been taken, he called a town meeting. Allende found herself declaiming into a microphone and marching, "surrounded by a Spanish-speaking crowd, all of them mestizos - dark people, little people, and they were shouting the same slogans that we were shouting in the 70s in Chile: 'El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido!' 'The people, united, will never be defeated!'" When she went to bed that night, she had a panic attack, "because everything that I had lived in Chile during the military coup came back. I realised that I had lived that before, with different nuances."

Allende is dark-haired and little herself, a fierce 5ft, 64-year-old matriarch who has made sure that after the Pinochet coup that killed her second cousin Salvador Allende, marooned her brother in Moscow and sent her to Venezuela, her family are all nearby: her son lives with his second wife and her grandchildren just down the hill; her son-in-law and his family live in the house she and her second husband, San Francisco lawyer and novelist William Gordon, vacated. The house they now live in has curved rooms and a swimming pool overlooking the bay. It is called La casa de los espíritus, House of the Spirits, after the book that opened the door to a new life for her, the most liberating of a succession of new lives.

Allende was born in Peru, where her father Tomás had been posted as a diplomat; yet following his disappearance, when she was three, her mother had to return to Chile. "I remember my childhood as a horrible time," she says, but "my mother says that nothing so horrible ever happened to me as the things that I remember". When her grandmother - the inspiration for Clara in The House of the Spirits (1985), Allende's favourite character in all her books - died, her grandfather wore black and painted the furniture black. Her mother, now 86, always seemed to be ill. "Because she lived under the big umbrella of my grandfather and she didn't have any education - she had three kids, had been abandoned by her husband, had no money - it was a horrible life. The only way she could get attention from her father or anybody else was by being sick. She didn't do it consciously. As a child I felt impotent and guilty because I felt that I couldn't help her in any way."

Isabel determined that she would not be a weak woman ("at five I was already a feminist and nobody used the word in Chile yet"). Her new novel is a straightforward feminist excavation of the life of Inés Suárez, who, although largely written out of Chilean history books, helped Pedro de Valdivia (plus a handful of conquistadors and 1,000-odd subjugated Indians) to conquer Chile for Spain in the 16th century. Allende is at her best when staying closest to her own experience. Inés of My Soul (2007) is baldly told, bland except for some unbelievable details, which turn out to be true: Inés was a water diviner, which saved the soldiers' lives on the gruelling crossing from Peru; and she did end a battle by decapitating at least one - maybe seven - Mapuche hostages (the record is unclear).

Allende married early, into an Anglophile family and a kind of double life: at home she was the obedient wife and mother of two; in public she became, after a spell translating Barbara Cartland, a moderately well-known TV personality, a dramatist and a journalist on a feminist magazine. Her only foray into political reporting ended when she asked Salvador Allende, by then South America's first elected socialist president, what he thought of Christmas. "Don't ask me bullshit like that, Isabel," he replied. When she asked Pablo Neruda for an interview, the poet replied: "My dear child, you must be the worst journalist in the country. You are incapable of being objective, you place yourself at the centre of everything you do, I suspect you're not beyond fibbing, and when you don't have news, you invent it."

The CIA-backed military coup in 1973 changed everything. She has said that, until then, she retained a kind of innocence; after it, her name meant she was caught up in finding safe passage for those on the wanted lists; she helped until her mother and stepfather, a diplomat in Argentina, narrowly escaped assassination. When she herself was added to the list and began receiving death threats, she fled to Venezuela, where she stayed for 13 years.

Venezuela gave her the freedom of anonymity, but also stripped her of a sense of rootedness or purpose, and she drifted into affairs; briefly she escaped to Paris with an Argentinian flautist. In Venezuela, "sensuality ceased to be a defect that had to be hidden for the sake of gentility, and was accepted as a basic ingredient of my temperament," she once wrote - though, she says now, she has to make a conscious effort to include the senses in her writing, and finds it much easier to write love and sex than violence. She has just abandoned work on a book about slavery, partly because she found it so hard to comprehend the levels of torture involved.

She was nearly 40 when she wrote the fantastically embroidered autobiography of her family that became The House of the Spirits. "It would have been much better if I had started [writing novels] at 19. But I couldn't. I had to support a family, I wasn't ready. And I think I needed to lose my country to start writing, because The House of the Spirits is an attempt to recreate the country I had lost, the family I had lost." Ilan Stavans, a professor of Latin American and Latino culture at Amherst College in Massachusetts and author of The Hispanic Condition, has written that the book "symbolised the end of the old-boys club in Latin American letters. This intensely experimental club sought, [through] Julio Cortázar and José Lezama Lima, among others, to renovate literature: to show that the novel as a genre no longer belonged solely to Europe, where it appeared exhausted after Kafka, Proust and Joyce, but that it was alive and well in the Americas." Yet by the time Allende arrived, popular appetite was "for sheer entertainment. Allende is the ultimate transmogrifier of literature into a middlebrow commodity."

Allende quickly tired of being compared to Gabriel García Márquez, to being claimed, over and over again, as a late, pale entrant into the magical-realist fold. "I just want to tell a story as straightforwardly as possible, from all angles, with a strong voice," she says tersely. "I'm not trying to experiment with the form." In fact, the more baroque aspects of her work have progressively been subdued.

It wasn't until she had published her third book, Eva Luna (1989), that she left her day job at a school for the disabled, and, for good measure, her marriage. Allende has an unusual willingness to make her private life public. Her website contains a selection of personal photographs; she has written without reservation (though with self-mockery, too) of the way in which she met her second husband, "an Irish-looking North American lawyer with an aristocratic appearance and a silk tie who spoke Spanish like a Mexican bandido and had a tattoo on his left hand" at an event for Of Love and Shadows (1987). Within a couple of weeks she had mailed him a contract detailing her demands, and what she was prepared to offer in a relationship, even though she was "absolutely shocked by the way he lived - by how awful his family was. He had three biological children, all of them drug addicts. How can you have three children, all of them drug addicts? No sense of family, everybody disconnected." He soon found himself the subject of a novel, The Infinite Plan (1993); she found that his often invented Spanglish was creeping into her writing; these days she has her work trawled for linguistic and grammatical oddities.

"If I had to choose between a relative and a good story, I would take the story," she says of the outrage that The House of the Spirits provoked among her relatives in Chile. This tendency produced a 1995 memoir that has been called - with good reason - her masterpiece. It was written at her daughter Paula's bedside, after the 29-year-old had fallen into a year-long coma following complications due to porphyria. Intended at first as a way to fill in the gaps for her daughter when she woke, Paula is furious, grieving, recklessly honest; occasionally, when Allende begins to realise that her daughter will never return, is in fact dying, it is unbearably so. Her mother, who was her trusted editor, was horrified and wanted her to turn it into a novel. Allende tried; it felt wrong, a betrayal of Paula, and she refused.

A year later Gordon's daughter disappeared, presumed murdered. (The oldest child has been in and out of prison his whole life; the youngest, after eight years of heroin, is clean.) It was nearly the end of their marriage. "But every time I mentioned the word divorce, Willie would drag me to therapy. He was determined to keep this thing going. And he won. It was very funny, because I remember once we made a deal that for three weeks we would not mention the word divorce, no matter what. We could kill each other, but that word was not going to be mentioned. And it saved us, because we realised that if you put your energy into solving the problem instead of running away, everything shifts." It was five years before she could write again, and she tested the water with Aphrodite (1998), a book of recipes and aphrodisiacs. She had started Daughter of Fortune (1999), about Chileans in the California gold rush, before Paula fell ill, but didn't finish it for another seven years. It's a sweeping melodrama, full of flashing eyes and pirates and love at first sight.

Allende knows this sort of thing means she doesn't often get reviewed - especially in Chile, where she is nevertheless popular (Inés has been at the top of the bestseller lists since it was published there in August) - but she is defiant. "I think that any writer who is commercial, who sells a lot of books, has to face criticism. Because the more hermetic and the more difficult your book is, supposedly it's better. But as a journalist you learn that you have a readership, and you have to connect with that readership no matter what. If your readers do not pick up your book and read it, you've wasted your time. I want people to identify with the characters, to know that other people feel the same way. To know that what is happening to them at a particular point - a child dying or something - has happened before and will happen again."

Inspirations

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
The Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda
The Arabian Nights
Paintings by Marc Chagall
'Gracias a la Vida', a song by Violeta Parra

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

M@rconfutatis,
Norwich, U(na) K(asa),
1/5/07

P.D.Piromaníaca. Nerón en la Roma.

P.D.Anónima. Formando una sociedad de cofradías.

P.D.Lépera. "¿A dónde fueron mis palabras SUCIAS de sangre de Abril?" - ¿A dónde van? (Silvio Rodríguez).

P.D.Perseguida. "...dark ANGELS follow me/over a GODLESS sea..." - Why should I cry for you? (Sting).

P.D.Excomulgada. "I thought that I heard you laughing ..." - Losing my religion (REM).

... Confutatis Maledictis.