Esteban catches Pedro preaching revolutionary ideas that are critical of wealthy landowners like him to the peasant workers.

As Clara grows up, she develops her abilities and is even able to communicate with ghosts and spirits. And sometimes that can be awkward all around: Esteban’s granddaughter is the lover of a Communist revolutionary; Alba is the granddaughter of a leading conservative senator. After her death, Esteban decides to fulfill her dying wish for him to marry and have legitimate children. Allende does multigenerational right, creating characters who change as they clash, cooperate, and come together during a tumultuous time in Chile. Clara's clairvoyance and precognition provide an elegant symmetry to her all-encompassing notebooks which are the backbone of the narrative.

Amanda and her little brother Miguel stay for a short time at the Trueba house; Miguel is able to witness Alba's birth, his future lover. The same political conflicts that shaped Esteban and Clara's lives continue to affect Alba and her peers. Clara is set-apart from the outset through her talent for clairvoyance and her prediction of the death of her sister (also fiancee of the central male character, Esteban Trueba), Rosa. He rapes many of the peasant women and children, and his first victim, then 15 year old Pancha García, becomes the mother of his bastard son, Esteban García. Spanning four generations, Isabel Allende's magnificent family saga is populated by a memorable, often eccentric cast of characters.

As I have the other times I have read this masterpiece, I rate House of the Spirits 5 shining stars for Allende's outstanding prose and magical realism. Then again, I suppose that only shows how some people are with us all our lives while others come and go or simply go. The names Nívea, Clara, Blanca, and Alba are more or less synonyms, and this is mentioned as a family tradition.He only succeeds in cutting off three of Pedro's fingers, and is filled with regret for his uncontrollable furies. Esteban has a tense relationship with his daughter Blanca but shows genuine love and devotion to his granddaughter Alba. Through a combination of intimidation and reward, he enforces respect and labor from the fearful peasants and turns Tres Marías into a "model hacienda". Reaching the ripe old age of ninety and telling this story alongside his grand-daughter Alba, Senator Trueba sees Chile rise, fall, and rise again. Trifle sunned at the bottom edge else fine in lightly toned and moderately worn, very good or better dust jacket with a tiny interior dampstain that doesn't show through.

However, his transformation comes too late, and he is left to grapple with the consequences of his past actions. The conservative forces, represented by Esteban, are pitted against the socialist revolutionaries, represented by Pedro and Jaime.It's packed with drama, violence and upheaval, multiple love stories and there's some magic realism too.