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Maya’s Notebook
Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende. Here are some previous notes taken from the introductory lecture.
Maya’s Notebook- This book was written by Isabel Allende, who is Chilean. The tale focuses on a young girl’s self-survival. This teen age protagonist’s life has involved many things, such as, incidents of drug and alcohol abuse and problems of parental rejection. If that were not severe enough, we find out, as the story progresses, she is also pursued by various sectors, such as, the F.B.I., Interpol, and drug gangs. Luckily, her grandmother, who is a loving and quite innovative person, manages to send her to a faraway place called Chiloé, an island off the coast of Chile. As her stay there lengthens, she starts to journal. It is through this activity that the long ago past somehow merges with the recent past. Quiet and solitude finally give her a clearer sense of what exactly her present is and will be comprised of in the future.
Yet, this is not just a story about a young girl, her escape from harm, and various forms of entangling violence. Within the narrative’s true elements of history, such as Pinochet’s regime, there is a mixing of this historical reality with the book’s fictional elements. This is evident with the episodes regarding her grandmother’s personal life as well as other members of the extended family.
It is especially important to keep in mind that metaphors play important roles here connecting historical and literary information, One essential metaphor in this text is that of a border or boundary. In the book, Maya crosses many geographical borders from California to Chile. But this is not the only example of boundary crossing. Think about her entering some of the novel’s more complex situations. These are more complicated instances of border crossings, involving psychological and physically challenges. It is also essential to recall that many times borders lead to exiles and/ or sanctuaries not just the acts of crossing, trespassing or transgressing.
Wendy Faris in her book, Ordinary Enchantments, has stated the following about Isabel Allende. “Allende’s works open female spaces in several different directions, toward the political, the sexual, the sacred, and through narrative powers, toward the imaginary…In addition, she speaks very often of the house, as a place of feminist struggle against patriarchy.”
These thoughts are demonstrated very much in notions of May being a character who occupies spaces of the in between. The in-between is liminal, occupying space on both sides of a threshold. This threshold could be like a door or a window. Remember she is a teenager, nether child nor adult. She is viewing the world in an evolving manner, trying to make sense and derive meaning as she goes. This journey has a chronological feel, a before and an after. But for most of the tale she is in the middle, in between the beginning and the ending.
Another liminal person is Manuel Arias. He is the person Maya is staying with in Chile. As the novel progresses, his past surfaces and we realize that it is not pretty. As the months go by in Chiloé, we see that violence is not just confined to one place or time. It does not have boundaries but is able to go and stay where it pleases, harming people while wreaking havoc in its path. He also is between two things, life and death.
You may wonder why this novel focuses so much on Maya’s violent past and present in the United States. Perhaps it is important to reflect once more on the fact that violence is a force which is never situated in only one place. Another thought to keep in mind is that the narrative structure is composed of the interweaving aspects of past and present. Maya’s overwhelming encounters with violence in the United States in her present life seem to counterbalance her family’s past. These moments or episodes relate very much to the military dictatorship of General Pinochet. That military regime touched and hurt her family deeply, as well as, many other Chileans. It is necessary to remember the film, “Missing.” Although Charlie was American not Chilean, he had knowledge of the involvement of the United States in the military coup which brought Pinochet to power. So, he had to be eliminated. He was a victim of unbridled violence.
These ideas are fully explored within the text. Maya’s grandparents were Chileans and were cruelly affected. As Maya learns more and more about these nefarious events occurring before her birth, she understands the patterns which indirectly influenced her present life. She becomes a sort of bridge. She is the past and the present; the here and there; the north and the south. Questioning, searching, struggling, seeking, she enters into a universal human community, examining life up close and seeing vividly how near death is at every minute of the day and night.
Maya and the story’s plot highlight all this. Her present life has the shadows of a past encompassing domination and oppression. These structures do not have limits or borders. They are free floating and may settle anywhere and surround anyone. pain, suffering and death can so easily transcend time, and reside comfortably in different geographical spaces. This book should also the fact that violence does not only pertain to one country or nationality. It is a force which travels and stays anywhere, affecting many.
Maya’s notebook, as any diary, is a reflection of this. It is a testimony to what is now and what was then. It is part of her memory. It is perhaps necessary at this juncture in the lecture to recall that this work is fictional, having originated in the mind of its author, Isabel Allende. I will take the liberty and repeat again what I have previously written about her then attempt to tie this in with the novel’s overall content.
Allende comes from Chile and is a member of the extended family of the slain democratically elected Chilean President, Salvador Allende. She fled her country after his death when General Augusto Pinochet assumed power and instituted a reign of dictatorship. Pinochet’s take on power was to threaten those who opposed him. If they disagreed or refused to follow orders, he or his military henchmen would use various disgusting methods of torture leading to horrible forms of death. Since Isabel bore the same last name as the last democratically elected president, it would appear that her life would be put into peril. Although President Allende was now deceased, it seemed obvious that she and her last name would never adhere to Pinochet’s beliefs or conceptions. So Isabel Allende had no choice but to flee from Chile into exile. Yet even in her new conditions, her body and her work did not stop. Although she could no longer reside physically in her homeland, her selfhood would become the center of her writing. She knew a body contains many sides and diverse perspectives other than mere physicality, so all of these components would come to play a part in her writings. Her texts would provide power, which she believed came from deeply sharing her pursuits in the field of storytelling. She might no longer share geographical boundaries with her fellow citizens, but she could share passages of joy, anger, hate, and love. Whether physical, emotional, psychic or intellectual, her literary texts would build bridges of understanding for readers no matter which country they lived in. Even though her presence in Chile might be threatened, her literary lines, filled with overwhelming words and images, became spaces for all sorts of practices and rituals. Behind every scene, even ones portraying violence, such as revenge, rape or killing, there exists an exquisite message. It is evident that freedom of expression and an ability to be creative transcends and transforms national and global politics and oppressive and patriarchal thought structures.
Many of these thoughts are reflected in the novel. Maya also had to flee. Although she was not involved in a dictatorship, she was being pursued by extremely powerful authoritarian structures and figures, whether of an illegal or legal nature. Although reluctantly choosing to abide by the guidance of her grandmother, she decides she should flee to Chiloé. She might not have undertaken this trip with joy but she soon realized she was free to write. It was through her journal, that her selfhood finally emerges and takes a more definite shape. She ultimately finds her individual power and how best to use it. It is at this time that she starts to see the patterns behind her own life, her family’s, and even history itself. Past and present take on new meanings as do love, knowledge, faith and hope. Please remember that although fiction may be considered as stories that are actually "lies" originating from the universe of the author's mind, they usually tell a much greater truth, more linked to reality and the actual world than strictly the surrounding narrated events.
