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The Wind Knows My Name

Isabel Allende,

Francis Riddle (Translator)

Start date: August 1, 2023

Finish date: August 31, 2023

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September-October 2025: The River Knows Your Name
By Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Jenn Ƹ̴… , Founding Retro Chick · 1 post · 8 views

last updated Aug 23, 2025 07:26PM

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Jun 27, 2023 Brina rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, isabel-allende, holocaust, immigration, hispanic-culture

About a year and a half ago, Isabel Allende told the story of her mother’s life in Violeta. Recently, Long Petal of the Sea portrayed a different angle to House of the Spirits, her first book published nearly forty years ago that put her on the map as a Hispanic writer to be reckoned. I thought these two books that returned Allende to what she knows best were a fitting way to end a memorable writing career. Apparently, I thought wrong. Writers will always have stories to tell, and Allende is amo About a year and a half ago, Isabel Allende told the story of her mother’s life in Violeta. Recently, Long Petal of the Sea portrayed a different angle to House of the Spirits, her first book published nearly forty years ago that put her on the map as a Hispanic writer to be reckoned. I thought these two books that returned Allende to what she knows best were a fitting way to end a memorable writing career. Apparently, I thought wrong. Writers will always have stories to tell, and Allende is among one of the best story tellers there is. When I heard that she had written a book about immigration and Holocaust survival all rolled into one, I was skeptical, but she is Isabel Allende after all, so I knew that I would have to read her new book for myself.

Isabel Allende is at her best when she employs magical realism to describe the history of her native Chile. As she has lived in California for a good portion of her life, the magical realism can also work in this setting, as when she describes her own house on a hill reminiscent of her grandparents, using her clairvoyant grandmother’s table to communicate with the spirits. This is the Allende I know and love and have been reading for thirty years. When she branches out and tells other stories that are not as personal, the quality storytelling is still there, and she is still better than most, but the magical realism is gone. Having no personal connection to the story, it becomes difficult for her to insert these magical occurrences into everyday life. I read both The Japanese Lover and In the Midst of Winter and came away with this conclusion, that Allende is indeed at her best when either Chile or her family history is the star of the story. Other stories will still flow from a writer’s pen but are just stories. And that is the feeling I was left with after reading The Wind Knows My Name.

I am going to be critical of anyone writing Holocaust fiction. The era has been overdone in recent years to the point of people being inundated with World War II era fiction. Many people I speak with you jump to read most historical fiction books published have become over saturated with books taking place during this time. Allende notes that she got the idea for the book after seeing a play called Kindertransport. She empathized with the mothers, choosing to send their young children away at a young age to give them hope for surviving the Holocaust. Only two chapters of the book take place in 1938 Vienna, as Rachel Adler is forced to make the decision to send her only son Samuel, then age five, on one of the Kindertransport trains to England. Samuel is traumatized and places the memory of being separated from his mother at the far recesses of his mind, but he survives the Holocaust, and the rest of his extended family does not. I am still undecided as to whether Allende does justice to the Holocaust as this comprised a small yet important section of the book. I am also thinking from the lens of someone who studied the Holocaust in religious school every year and is almost desensitized to the images. For people with different backgrounds as myself, the emotion is still there, and to be fair, so is Samuel’s story, as he goes on to become a concert level violinist and college professor, and, conveniently for Allende, does not practice Judaism after leaving his childhood behind.

Interspersed with Samuel’s story is that of Salvadoran immigrants. This is another red flag for me because my husband is Salvadoran, and he came to the United States legally thirty years ago. Legally, sponsored, on an airplane. This is a red flag because Allende inserts politics into the story, as she and many other writers of her generation have been apt to do lately. It is because recent fiction has been politicized that I have gravitated toward becoming a primarily nonfiction reader; I read fiction to escape. Leticia Cordero arrives in the United States with her father in the early 1980s. According to my husband who can give a much more detailed account than Allende, this is the height of the Salvadoran civil war. Allende’s description of the villages is accurate, but devoid of emotion. She just needed to move her story along. Eventually Leticia (ironically my mother-in-law’s name, it is a common Salvadoran name) settles in San Francisco and becomes Samuel Adler’s housekeeper. This threads their stories together because conveniently again and politics again, she ends up quarantining in Samuel’s mansion when he is now an octogenarian and widower and needs assistance in his day to day life. That alone is fair enough, but I’m not interested in Allende’s politics spoiling an otherwise good story.

The character development of Samuel Adler and Leticia Cordero are ok enough but the most compelling storyline belongs to seven year old Anita Diaz, a Salvadoran immigrant who was separated from her mother at the border. Of course, more of Allende’s politics which are diametrically opposed to my husband’s view on immigration. Anita is represented by a social worker named Selena Durán who is attempting to win her asylum. She enlists the help of lawyers willing to take the cases pro bono and that is how Allende develops the character of Frank Algileri. There has to be a love interest in the story somewhere in Allende’s stories, and Selena and Frank’s story are closest to aspects of Allende’s life than any other part of the book. Their romantic story is sadly the reason I kept reading even though I know Allende well enough to realize that without reading further that they would end up together and the storylines would all tie up neatly. At her age, she is entitled to a story that has a bow at the end, but to me it lacked punch, even with Anita Diaz’ tale which is meant to be heart rending. Interestingly enough, I found the male characters more charming than the women because Allende does not use her politics to further their character development.

In all, The Wind Knows My Name is a quick 260 pages. It lacks the punch of an Allende novel set in Chile. There is no magical realism other than one clairvoyant character who is a peripheral player at best. While some of the storylines tug at emotions, none of them are anything I didn’t know about prior to reading. Had I known that these were the two storylines that Allende chose to weave together added to inserting her politics, I might have skipped the book altogether. Allende is still a master storyteller at her age; however, I feel if she is going to keep writing, to stick to her best: magical realism in Chile. Perhaps those stories are all told, but there is always room to flesh out another character from a different angle. I do hold Allende to a high standard and this is not among her best work. I hope she has one more top of the line story in her because I would hate to see her end an otherwise stellar career with just an average story.

3 stars ...more

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Aug 10, 2023 ˜”*°•.˜”*°• Sheri •°*”˜.•°*”˜ rated it did not like it

Shelves: retro-chicks-buddy-read

Too busy pushing a political agenda to develop the characters.

25 likes · Like · see review

Nov 20, 2024 Book Concierge rated it really liked it

Shelves: library, social-commentary, concierge, strong-women, world-war-ii, audio, family, book-club, immigrant-experience, latino-literature

Book on CD performed by Edoardo Bellerini and Maria Liatis
4****

Allende explores the immigrant experience, and particularly the heart-wrenching separation of children from their parents with a dual timeline. In 1938 the Adlers send their son Samuel to Britain from Austria after the events of Kristallnacht make it clear that Jews are no longer safe in Nazi-occupied areas. And in 2019 in Arizona a Anita Diaz and her mother seek asylum after an arduous journey from their native El Salvador, only to ...more

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Aug 17, 2023 Maureen rated it liked it

3.5 I really wanted to love this book. It started out very good, but became confusing with all the characters. There were too many for such a short book. I really couldn’t connect to the characters.
The only story I really liked was Sam’s story.
It is a sad story of children immigrating to the U.S.

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Aug 22, 2023 Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Jenn Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Schu rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

In this short novel, Allende attempts to convey the emotions of being separated from family. The story begins with Kristallnacht and young Samuel being place on the Kindertransport to escape the Nazis. Samuel's hosted at several families in the UK but finally finds his home with a Quaker couple in the United States. He goes on to become a musician and professor, renowed for his work in Jazz. Later in life, after his family is gone, he has a housekeeper, Leticia and they quarantine during the Cor ...more

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Aug 16, 2023 Lory Sakay rated it it was ok

Quite underwhelming.
Allende has been a hit or miss for me lately. I read the famed House of Spirits a few weeks ago and was not impressed, yet I loved Paula and A Long Petal of the Sea. This story had great bones - the collective story of immigrants and the traumas they bear and how their lives become intertwined by fate and collective experiences. I feel, however, that the execution of connecting and retelling these stories fell short for me. The beginning of the book and introduction of charac ...more

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