The Gilmore Book Club

 Does Isabel Allende Know Why I’m Single?

I am not a mermaid. Yup, I said it. And it’s important that everyone knows this before proceeding any further.

On most days, I have a pretty good body image. Some days I feel pretty, and some days, looking in the mirror isn’t so fun. Of course, I can’t speak for everyone, but I think that’s a pretty normal experience. I don’t believe that I’m the prettiest person God put on the earth, but I’m no Gollum either. I feel relatively secure in my middle-of-the-road-ness. Not that I’ve been thrilled my entire life to be there, but if the choice is between that and the stringy, sneaking Gollum of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring series, I’ll happily remain in my current state for the remainder of my life. That being said, I can say that without a shadow of a doubt: I am no mermaid.  My hair isn’t green, my skin isn’t pearly white, and if I was mistakenly murdered by a poisoned batch of rum, my legs would not meld into one glistening fin. Though I’ve always loved my long flowing hair, and prided myself on having a natural grace and rhythm, the extent of those qualities is all within the normal human limits. I might be able to claim a smidge of the intuition and foresight of Isabelle Allende’s characters in The House of the Spirits, but none that you could attribute to a mythical sea creature.

Allende is a master at magical realism. In any other fantasy book, you’d be ready for magic spells, people that can talk to animals, and sorcerers, witches, and wizards. But Allende weaves the smallest glittering details into the tapestry of everyday life, details that if you don’t read carefully, you could miss them. And isn’t that exactly how life is? If you don’t keep an eye out for it, you miss the magic, until it’s too late and you realize, you’ve missed it.  But I magic of Allende’s words from the moment I started to read her books, and The House of the Spirits, is one of Allende’s most magical novels- in more ways than one.

Covering several generations of the del Valle family, The House of Spirits is a portrait of family joys and heartbreaks, politics and war, love and loneliness- experiences as symbiotic to life as the sand is to the sea. The novel focuses on several of the del Valle women: those that have other-worldly qualities. Rosa the beautiful, as she is often called in the novel, is depicted as possessing the beauty, grace, and appearance of a mer-person. Clara, Rosa’s younger sister, has visions of future events and sometimes moves or levitates household objects with her mind. Though Clara’s story, and that of her descendants, is the main focus of the book, it was the tale of Rosa the beautiful that affected me the most. 

Besides the fact that my parents were certain I was going to be a boy, there was nothing surprising about my birth. But Rosa, Rosa was a goddess on earth from the moment she first opened her eyes. Her beauty was astounding, her yellow eyes enchanting, and her green hair captivating. The word mermaid is never mentioned while Rosa lives, but the image is clear: Rosa is not of this world. In fact, her appearance has been known to cause traffic accidents as the motorists were so transfixed by her green tresses that they ignored road signs and lost sight of the road.  

And just like in a high-school dramedy where every boy seems to dote upon that same popular girl, everyone who sees Rosa immediately falls in love. Of course, no one attempts to get to know her in any way. They’re all so enchanted that her appearance wraps them in feelings of yearning and lust. For who wouldn’t want to be the one that captured Rosa the beautiful and by that one act, would be set above all others?

It may seem like Rosa had dodged a bullet, that all these men, had they succeeded in winning her hand, would not have truly loved her for her mind and her soul, only for her beauty. She could have lived a miserable life, pining for someone who would value her thoughts and opinions, who would appreciate her personality, who would love her even if one day her beauty began to fade.

That misery that could have so easily been Rosa’s is one of my greatest fears. I know what it’s like to feel unseen, or to only be seen and judged by your appearance. I’ve watched fledgling relationships that only fostered discord and ambivalence because they were born of the need to have someone rather than finding someone whose heart truly fits your own. I’ve listened to too many conversations about crushes that never became more because they were focused on looks rather authenticity, and maybe they subconsciously knew that a relationship based on attractiveness alone would never endure the test of time, but they were too infatuated, or too lonely to admit it. And I know I could never endure such a relationship, not even for a day. Because for me, my identity, the essence of what made me, strong and sure even from childhood, was far more important. If anything threatened to go against my true nature, then I didn’t do it. And in this case, where fake relationships seemed to be the norm, that meant I remained single, and that was ok. Not great, not good, but just ok. For a while anyway.

But that would not be Rosa’s fate.

This when the trouble begins, when the waves of fear of rejection continually roll over you until they’ve washed away all your rational thought and self- confidence. This is not a job interview where maybe your experience isn’t what’s preferred or you can’t start work as soon as they’d like. This is a rejection of you, your whole being, of every single cell in your body, of every thought in your brain, of every word you’ve ever spoken. You are not good enough. That’s what you’ll feel. But it’s not what’s real.

Until I read this book, I was unaware that for most of my life, I’ve been treated like a mermaid, but for reasons that have nothing to do with my looks.

Continue to Part 2

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