The New Netflix Mini-Series Production Of "La Casa de Los Espiritus" (The House of the Spirits)... And A Free, Well-Formatted PDF of Allende's Spanish Language Novel

 

Queridos,

Cynthia and I were riveted by this new Netflix production of "The House of The Spirits" which we finished last night.

It is notable that the combined forces of Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons,  Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Winona Ryder, and Antonio Banderas could not save their 2016 production of "The House of The Spirits." https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_house_of_the_spirits

This megastar failure may be attributable to the reconfiguration of the modern mentality so that we can no longer tell meaningful stories in 2 to 3 hours.

From now on, the mini-series may be the only palette large enough to tell big stories.

*****

Be forewarned.

There are a number of extraordinarily harsh images in this Netflix mini-series.

Clearly, it is not for the faint-hearted.

In the final episode of this new Netflix production, I was moved to fact-check one such "horror" frequently mentioned while working at the Managua Medical School in 1988-89. The grotesque substance of my inquiry was confirmed: Yes, Somoza's dictatorship routinely used helicopters to drop left-wing political prisoners into the crater of the Masaya Volcano about 30 miles from Managua.  Not a trace of evience. The ultimate "disappearance." https://share.google/aimode/7RsjnJuFofhjpNvpL  (N.B. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for whom I have high esteem, was famous for his appraisal of the Somoza family dictatorship: "Somoza may be a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch.")

If you think that Truth deserves deep contextualization, and a high degree of fidelity to the political realities or our time, I see no alternative but to include these elements. Harshness may be the only way to awaken America's many "sleepers."

How Conservatives Tell Big Lies By Shunning The Fullness Of Truth Found Only In Rich Contextualization

https://newsfrombarbaria.blogspot.com/2025/03/how-conservatives-tell-big-lies-by.html

Notably, reviews in the Catholic press are positive, albeit reluctant to entirely approve the series' touchy-feely approach to New Age "syncretic" religiosity and spirituality. (I too found the production's approach to religion frequently facile.) 

https://share.google/aimode/wS9Oh04uOKWTEQuYY

In any event, here are some useful links for Netflix' new 8 part mini-series, "The House of The Spirits."

Rotten Tomatoes Review: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_house_of_the_spirits

IMDb Review: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33022938/

And here is a PDF of Allende's Spanish language novel: https://www.libri.it/image/data/didattica/La_casa_de_los_espiritus.pdf

"The House of The Spirits" in English language translation: https://archive.org/details/houseofspirits0000alle_g6h0

Who is Isabel Allende? https://share.google/aimode/u3MhVprXLNo8HkY1P

Pax et amor

Alan