MY INVENTED COUNTRY
A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile
Isabel Allende

When I was fifteen, I left the church forever and acquired a horror of religions in general and monotheistic faiths in particular. I am not alone in this predicament; many women my age, guerrillas in the battle for women's lib, are similarly uncomfortable in patriarchal religions--can you think of one that isn't?

Churches are filled on Sundays, and the pope is venerated, although no one pays any attention to his views on contraceptives because it's thought that there's no way an aged celibate who doesn't have to work for a living can be an expert on that subject.

Chiloe's culture is different from that of the rest of the country, and their people are so proud of their isolation that they oppose the construction of a bridge that will join the large island to Puerto Montt. It is such an extraordinary place that every Chilean and every tourist must visit it at least once, even at the risk of staying forever. The Chilotes live as they did a hundred years ago, dedicated to agriculture and the fishing industry, specifically salmon. Buildings are constructed solely of wood, and in the heart of each house there is always a huge wood stove burning day and night for cooking and for providing warmth to the family, friends, and enemies gathered around it.

I did not inherit my grandmother's psychic powers, but she opened my mind to the mysteries of the world. I accept that anything is possible. She maintained that there are multiple dimensions to reality, and that it isn't prudent to trust solely in reason and in our limited senses in trying to understand life; other tools of perception exist, such as instinct, imagination, dreams, emotions, and intuition.

That good woman maintained that we all have psychic powers but since we don't use them they atrophy, like muscles, and finally disappear.

Writer: Emilio Salgari

Chile is possibly the one country in the galaxy where there is no divorce, and that's because no one dares defy the priests, even though 71 percent of the population has been demanding it for a long time. No legislator, not even those who have been separated from their wives and partnered a series of other women in quick succession, is willing to stand up to the priests, and the result is that divorce law sleeps year after year in the "pending" file, and when finally it is approved it will be with so much red tape and so many conditions that it will be easier to murder your spouse than to divorce him or her.

It has often been said that we Chileans are envious, that we are bothered by others' success. It's true, but the explanation is that what we're feeling isn't envy, it's common sense. Success isn't normal. The human being is biologically constituted for failure, the proof of which being that we have legs instead of wheels, elbows instead of wings, and metabolism instead of batteries... We detest it when a countryman rises above the rest of us, except when it happens in another country, in which case the lucky fellow (or female equivalent) becomes a kind of national hero. The person who triumphs locally, however, is less than adored; soon there is tacit accord that he should be taken down a peg or two. We call this sport chaqueteo, "jacketing": grabbing the offender by his coattails and pulling him down.

I have a woman friend who is a gynecologist and has specialized in looking after unmarried pregnant teenagers, and she assures me that unwanted pregnancies are much less common among university students. That happens more in low-income families, in which parents place more emphasis on educating and providing opportunities to their male children than to their daughters. These girls have no plans, they see a gray future, and they have limited education and little self-esteem; some become pregnant out of pure ignorance.

I had a relative who twice won the jackpot in the lottery, but he always said "So-so," in order not to offend. As an aside, it's rather interesting to learn how his good fortune came about. He was a very strong Catholic and as such never wanted to hear talk of contraceptives. After his seventh child was born, desperate, he went to the church, knelt before the altar, and had a heart-to-heart talk with his Creator. "Lord, since you sent me seven children, it would be a kindness if You helped me feed them," he argued, and immediately took a long, carefully prepared list of expenses from his pocket. God listened patiently to the arguments of his loyal servant and almost immediately revealed the winning lottery number in a dream. Those millions lasted for several years, but inflation, which was endemic in Chile during that time, reduced his capital at the same rate he enlarged his family. When the last of his children was born, number eleven, he returned to church to argue his case, and again God came to his aid by sending another revelation in a dream. The third time it was no deal.

When my grandfather grew old, he refused to wear a hearing aid because he thought that the only thing good about his years was not having to listen to the foolish things people said.

...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. I've tried to arrange my thoughts according to themes or periods of my life, but it's seemed artificial to me because memory twists in and out, like an endless Moebius strip.

The victors write history in their own way. Every country presents its soldiers in the most favorable light, hides their mistakes and downplays their atrocities, and after the battle is won everyone is a hero.

Novel: Mario Vargas Llosa: Feast of the Goat
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Autumn of the Patriarch

What I'd done earlier in Chile made little impression, partly because exiles tend to inflate their credentials and in the end no one believes much of anything; there were false doctors who had barely graduated from high school and real doctors who ended up driving taxis.

Maybe the place I'm homesick for never existed. Now when I visit, I must compare the real Chile to the sentimental image I've carried for twenty-five years. Since I've lived outside the country for so long, I tend to exaggerate the virtues of our national character and forget the disagreeable aspects.

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