This memoir was published in 2003, seven years after Allende's first memoir, Paula. The latter is a better and more thorough memoir; but My Invented Country (subtitled "A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile" on the hardbound edition I read) still has something to say. The descriptions of Chile's landscape are thorough, but those of some of the customs and beliefs of Chileans came across a little too much as generalizations or stereotypes.
As with Paula, there is information in this book that provides background for her novels and other books. In particular, I learned that The Infinite Plan (1994), her first novel set in the United States, is based on the life of her second husband (married in 1987), who she discusses more thoroughly here than in Paula.
I liked her distinctions between exiles and immigrants, and her discussion of memory, nostalgia, and imagination, and the parts they play in writing and life. I could draw some parallels to how I felt when I was away from Texas and how I feel now that I'm back (sometimes I think Texas is my "invented country"). Some memorable quotes from the book:
"But that's how nostalgia is: a slow dance in a large circle. Memories don't organize themselves chronologically, they're like smoke, changing, ephemeral, and if they're not written down they fade into oblivion....memory twists in and out, ike an endless Moebius strip." (p. 141)
"When I compare my experience as an exile with my current situation as an immigrant, I can see how different my state of mind is. In the former instance, you are forced to leave, whether you're escaping or expelled, and you feel like a victim who has lost half her life; in the latter it's your own decision, you are moving toward an adventure, master of your fate. The exile looks toward the past, licking his wounds, the immigrant looks toward the future, ready to take advantage of the opportunities within his reach." (p. 174)
"I have constructed an idea of my country the way you fit together a jigsaw puzzle, by selecting pieces that fit my design and ignoring the others." (p. 178)
"'You remember things that never happened.' Don't we all do that? I have read that the mental process of imagining and that of remembering are so much alike that they are nearly indistinguishable. Who can define reality? Isn't everything subjective? If you and I witness the same event, we will recall it and recount it differently....Memory is conditioned by emotion; we remember better, and more fully, things that move us...When we call up the past, we choose intense moments--good or bad--and omit the enormous gray area of daily life." (p. 179).
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