How I Became A Writer by Isabel Allende
My life seems to be about pain, loss, love, and memory. Pain and loss are the teachers; they make me grow. Love helps me to endure and gives me joy. (I know it sounds corny!) Memory is the raw material for all my writing.
I was born during the Second World War. Yes, I am a crone, a relic from the pyramids, but not yet totally senile. I grew up in a patriarchal family where my grandfather was second only to God Almighty. My mother, against his will, married the wrong man. My father. During their honeymoon, on a cruise in the Pacific, the groom was constantly seasick; however, they managed to conceive me. In the next three years my parents were separated most of the time, but in the short periods that they spent together they had two more kids. (Fertility runs in my family. I am fortunate to have reached womanhood in the era of the pill.)
My parent's marriage was a disaster from the start. One day, around my third birthday, my father went to buy cigarettes and never returned. That was the first great loss of my life, and maybe that is why I can never write about fathers. There are so many abandoned children in my books that I could start an orphanage. My father left my mother stranded in a foreign country with three small kids. To make things worse, there was no divorce in Chile. It is the only country in the galaxy without divorce. [Divorce in Chile was finally legalized in 2004.] Somehow my mother managed to annul her marriage, and thus she became a single mother with three illegitimate children. She had no money, little education, no particular skills. Her only choice was to go back to her father for help, which she did.
The home of my grandparents, where I spent my childhood, was inhabited by wild pets, strange humans, and benevolent ghosts. My grandmother was a charming lady who had little interest in the material world. She spent most of her time experimenting with telepathy and talking to the souls of the dead during her séances. This clairvoyant lady, who could move objects without touching them, served as model for Clara del Valle in my first novel, The House of the Spirits. She died long ago, at a young age, but like my daughter Paula, she is a constant presence in my life.
My grandfather, a solid Basque as stubborn and strong as a mule, gave me the gift of discipline. He could remember hundreds of folk tales and long epic poems, he spoke in proverbs. He lived to be a century old, and during the last part of his life he read the Bible many times from cover to cover and the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z. He gave me the love of language and stories.
In my family, happiness was irrelevant. My grandparents would have been astounded to learn that people actually spend money on therapy to get over their unhappiness. For them life was naturally painful and the rest was nonsense. Satisfaction came from doing the right thing, from family, honor, service, learning, enduring. Joy was present in many ways in our lives, of course, and love was not the least of them, but we never spoke of love either—it would have been extremely embarrassing. Sentiments flowed silently. There was not much touching or kissing. Children were not praised or pampered; it was believed to be unhealthy. Physical appearance and the functions of the body were ignored. It was a crime of bad taste to talk about religion, politics, health, and above all, money. My family practiced charity abundantly and discreetly. Generosity was not a virtue; it was a duty, nothing to brag about.
Isabel Allende’s newest novel, The Japanese Lover, comes out November 2015! Add it to your to-read shelf on Goodreads: (x)