Zorro: A Novel [Hardcover]

Isabel Allende plucks a fictional character and present him centre stage in her latest novel. Perhaps this trend began with the dazzling disinterment of an intriguing minor character in Jean Rhys’s 1966 novel, The Wide Sargasso Sea. The Caribbean-born Rhys made a whole generation take a second look at the woman she called Antoinette Cosway, the “mad woman in the attic” from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Rhys’s portrait was not only dangerous and exciting; it also engendered a re-examination of the colonialism that had shaped Mr. Rochester’s Creole wife, the creature he locked away in England like a dirty secret.
Zorro is an adventure tale, based on the 1919 pulp fiction classic about an American Robin Hood figure. Allende portrays the wide world of the Spanish empire in California, the open and dangerous seas, the grand houses and grander canvas of Spanish, American and European history. Yet irony is in the very air we breathe, and this novel about the altruistic swordsman called Zorro is at once a joyful rendering of a Boy’s Own Adventure and an ironic commentary on soul-stirring romance. As Allende’s anonymous narrator dryly comments, “Heroism is a badly remunerated occupation and often it leads to an early end.” This witty narrator would doubtless agree that without irony this bildungsroman about a sword-toting acrobatic idealist would soon become unbearable.
Who is that “mysterious masked man astride his magnificent steed”? That description of the adult Zorro doesn’t appear until page 381, Part Five. The novel unfolds in episodes that trace the growth of this captivating do-gooder. Diego de la Vega, the dashing offspring (except for his large ears-a typical Allende touch) of a Spanish administrator and his rebellious American-Indian wife, was born in late 18th century Alta, California. Allende seems to be having much scholarly fun writing her post-colonial variation on machismo heroics; her Zorro takes his name-Spanish for “fox”-from the animal that appears as his spirit guide during an Indian initiation ceremony.
Allende presents her tale as a series of high-spirited adventures starring Diego and Bernardo, his “milk brother” (they shared the same breast as infants), a full-blooded Indian. Starting in the San Gabriel Mission and the town of Pueblo de los Angeles, Allende eventually takes us to Barcelona, where the French under Napoleon are running the show; then back by ship to the Americas, stopping in Cuba and New Orleans; and finally home again to California. Along the way there are encounters with admirable priests, nasty bullies who grow into villains, wild bears, beautiful girls, smart but not-so-beautiful girls, gypsies, pilgrims, bandits, pirates, a voodoo priestess, and African slaves. Allende’s challenge is to balance her portrait of a romantic avenging hero with what we now know of the cruel realities of the time. She partially addresses this problem by making her Zorro an idealistic boy well into middle age, one who is “obsessed with dispensing justice, in part because he has a good heart but more than anything because he so enjoys dressing up as Zorro and stirring up his cloak-and-dagger adventures.” Meanwhile, his Indian milk-brother manages the estate and improves both of their fortunes.
Allende never fails to emphasize the suffering of colonized indigenous peoples during this period, while offering some heroic native figures-grandmother White Owl and her daughter (Diego’s mother) are both shamans-as figures of hope. The sacred caves where the boys find refuge more than once, the magical healing and sleeping potions, all stem from Indian tradition. Similarly, in Europe, where the boys spend several years, help comes from the oppressed Roma people whom Diego and Bernardo befriend in Barcelona. This friendship later saves their lives. Although Zorro’s early years tend to follow the arc of most adventure tales, Allende leavens the story’s predictability with her gentle wit. Bernardo’s Indian love, Light-in-the-Night, is described thus: “She was small for her age and she wore the pleasant expression of a squirrel.” In a sterner judgment, Diego’s mother tries, but fails to adjust to her husband’s “language of harsh consonants, to his chiselled-in-stone ideas, to his dark religion, to the thick walls of his house.” The oppressive walls of houses form an ongoing motif in the novel; Allende paints many a scene with Zorro making his way along pitch-dark corridors and through dank secret rooms to free the prisoners within.
When the adventures start, inevitably, to pall, the narrator slips us slyness and humour that match the power of White Owl’s potions. More secret even than Zorro’s, the narrator’s identity is eventually unmasked-though as Allende writes, “unless you are very inattentive readers, you have undoubtedly divined” this chronicler’s name. Just as Zorro and his friends rescue the suffering and the unfairly imprisoned, the narrator rescues the narrative whenever it seems at risk of sinking under the weight of heroic predictability. For instance, the introduction to Zorro’s adolescence contains these observations: “Childhood is a miserable period filled with unfounded fears…from the literary point of view it has no suspense, since children tend to be a little dull.” Of course Diego’s childhood has been anything but dull-among other things, he and Bernardo capture a bear and survive a brutal attack by pirates-but the postmodern irony is more than welcome to readers jaded with the pure-heartedness of it all. “I am encouraged to continue. I do so with a light heart since you have read this far.” Allende knows just when to give us a wink, as it were, across the centuries, ensuring our continuing commitment to her revisionist version of an old, but never tired, tale of heroism and the pursuit of justice.
Nancy Wigston (Books in Canada)

Starred Review. Allende's lively retelling of the Zorro legend reads as effortlessly as the hero himself might slice his trademark "Z" on the wall with a flash of his sword. Born Diego de la Vega in 1795 to the valiant hidalgo, Alejandro, and the beautiful Regina, the daughter of a Spanish deserter and an Indian shaman, our hero grows up in California before traveling to Spain. Raised alongside his wet nurse's son, Bernardo, Diego becomes friends for life with his "milk brother," despite the boys' class differences. Though born into privilege, Diego has deep ties to California's exploited natives—both through blood and friendship—that account for his abiding sense of justice and identification with the underdog. In Catalonia, these instincts as well as Diego's swordsmanship intrigue Manuel Escalante, a member of the secret society La Justicia. Escalante recruits Diego into the society, which is dedicated to fighting all forms of oppression, and thus begins Diego's construction of his dashing, secret alter ego, Zorro. With loyal Bernardo at his side, Zorro hones his fantastic skills, evolves into a noble hero and returns to California to reclaim his family's estate in a breathtaking duel. All the while, he encounters numerous historical figures, who anchor this incredible tale in a reality that enriches and contextualizes the Zorro myth. Allende's latest page-turner explodes with vivid characterization and high-speed storytelling.
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