Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende

I just love Isabel Allende. Another wonderful book, this time about the founding of Chile. Allende tells the story from a woman's point of view. Inez Suarez is an actual historical character - a woman from Spain who comes looking for her husband in the new world, but finds he has been killed in battle, and then falls in love with Pedro deValdivia, becomes his mistress, and helps him found Chile. Her skills in medicine, sewing, and food preparation are vital to the founding of Santiago. History books tell us about the battles, but rarely about the day in and day out survival that has to happen for a settlement to thrive, and Allende shows that this kind of work was often done by women. Allende tells a good story, as if told by Inez Suarez at the end of her life, who is telling it to her daughter Isabel. I like the historical and geographic setting, the realities of the hardships they had to endure. I have to admit I did had trouble listening to the way the Spanish invaded Chile and the bloody battles with the Indians, who were only trying to defend their territory. Allende was able to walk the fine line - her Inez was also disgusted by unusual cruelty, but at the same time not apologetic about being there in the first place - as if it was the right of the Spanish to come in and take over the lands from the Mapuche. I found it fascinating how the races intermixed. All the Spanish men used the Indian women, and had plenty of mixed children by them. There were also black slaves and various different native South Americans including the Incas and the Mapuche. Since I was listening to this book instead of reading it, some of the terms are unclear to me. Though there have been racial mixtures throughout the Americas, the Puritan whites were probably less likely to have children from Indians, and definitely less likely to make them part of the community. Racial mixtures - another field of inquiry for me, as I now want to read more about Chile, and may reread some of Allende's other books, which talk about later years in Chile's history. Oh how we could use an author like her for Latvian history!