|
|
|
|
||
|
HELP | |
|
  $7.95 List price:
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
More copies of this ISBN:Saving the World: A Novelby Julia Alvarez
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Julia Alvarez's resplendent new novel takes us into the worlds of two women swept up in campaigns against the scourges of their day. Alma Huebner, a Latin American novelist transplanted to the United States, is writing another of her bestselling family sagas. Her husband works for a humanitarian organization dedicated to health and prosperity in developing countries. He wants her to go with him, but she demurs. She must finish her newest novel.
In truth, Alma is sidetracked by the story of a much earlier idealist, Francisco Xavier Balmis, who in 1803 undertook to vaccinate the populations of Spain's American colonies against smallpox. To do this, he needed living "carriers" of the vaccine. Enter Isabel Sendales y Gómez, the rectoress of La Casa de Expositós. Isabel selects twenty-two orphan boys to be the carriers and joins them on the voyage. Her bravery inspires a very different novel from Alma. A brilliant novel-within-a-novel, Saving the World pits ambition against altruism — and, in the process, tells the radiant stories of two courageous women. Review:"In Alvarez's appealingly earnest fifth novel (after A Cafecito Story), two women living two centuries apart each face 'a crisis of the soul' when their fates are tied to idealistic men whose commitments to medical humanitarian missions end in disillusionment. Alma Heubner's husband, Richard, goes to the Dominican Republic to help eradicate AIDS, while Alma, a bestselling Latina writer, stays at home in Vermont to work on a story about a real, ill-fated 19th-century expedition chaperoned by Doña Isabel Sendales y Gómez, the spinster director of a Spanish orphanage who agrees to vaccinate 20 of her charges with cowpox and bring them from Spain to Central America to prevent future smallpox epidemics. While the leader of the anti-smallpox expedition, Dr. Francisco Balmis, and Richard see their missions collapse in defeat, Doña Isabel and Alma surmount their personal depressions to find inner strength. Alvarez depicts her two heroines with insightful empathy and creates vivid supporting characters. But her effort to find resonating similarities between the intertwined plots sometimes feels contrived, and the details of Doña Isabel's odyssey slow the momentum. The narrative culminates in a compelling scene in which greed and ineptitude trump idealism, dramatizing the question of whether the means are ever justified by the ends." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"Julia Alvarez isn't afraid to ask hard questions. 'Saving the World,' as the title suggests, confronts one that's troubled every great religion: how to deal with social inequity. How can a person of sensitivity and conscience justify being one of 'the lucky ones,' as Alvarez puts it, when so many people elsewhere in the world haven't got the means to live, let alone 'to be a human being'? Who can... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Review:"In this cleverly structured and seductive page-turner, Alvarez uses romance and suspense to leaven probing inquiries into plagues, poverty, and politics; altruism and self-aggrandizement; good intentions gone wrong; and the way stories are told." Booklist Review:"Alvarez's generosity of vision compensates for the not-altogether-convincing central conceit of her sixth novel." Kirkus Reviews Review:"Alvarez's descriptions of nature and character are both naturalistic and poetic, creating a psychological novel-within-a-novel that is intense and riveting." Library Journal Synopsis:Latina novelist Alma Huebner is suffering from writer's block and is years past the completion date for yet another of her bestselling famly sagas. Her husband, Richard, works for a humanitarian organization dedicated to the health and prosperity of developing countries and wants her help on an extended AIDS assignment in the Dominican Republic. But Alma begs off joining him: the publisher is breathing down her neck. She promises to work hard and follow him a bit later. The truth is that Alma is seriously sidetracked by a story she has stumbled across. It's the story of a much earlier medical do-gooder, Spaniard Francisco Xavier Balmis, who in 1803 undertook to vaccinate the populations of Spain's American colonies against smallpox. To do this, he required live andquot;cariersandquot; of the vaccine. Of greater interest to Alma is Isabel Sendales y Gandoacute;mez, director of La Casa de Expandoacute;sitos, who was asked to select twenty-two orphan boys to be the vaccine carriers. She agreedand#8212; with the stipulation that she would accompany the boys on the proposed two-year voyage. Her strength and courage inspire Alma, who finds herself becoming obsessed with the details of Isabel's adventures. This resplendent novel-within-a-novel spins the disparate tales of two remarkable women, both of whom are swept along by machismo. In depicting their confrontation of the great scourges of their respective eras, Alvarez exposes the conflict between altruism and ambition. About the AuthorWhen she was ten years old, Julia Alvarez's family had to flee the Dominican Republic because her father had been involved in a coup against dictator Trujillo. Four months later, most of her father's co-conspirators were killed. These dangerous times and her experience of exile were formative for Alvarez as a writer: "What made me into a writer was coming to this country . . . all of a sudden losing a culture, a homeland, a language, a family . . . I wanted a portable homeland. And that's the imagination." Exile became the basis for two of Alvarez's best-selling novels: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) and its sequel, Yo!(1997). Her father's revolutionary ties inspired In the Time of the Butterflies(1994). Those novels have won many honors, including the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, ALA Notable Book of the Year, American Bookseller's "Top 10 Books to Discuss" and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. They have been translated into nine languages. Something to Declare, Julia Alvarez's first nonfiction book, a collection of her best and most influential essays, was published in 1998. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
Average customer rating based on 1 comment: | ||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
Don't Miss
