Fluttering eyelashes.

There is a moment that occurred during my high school Honors English class junior year—a moment that I’m sure stuck only with me, and none of my other classmates—that I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget.  We were explicating aloud some centuries old poetry, and there was a particular stanza, a love scene, that alluded to fluttering eyelashes.  When we reached that point in our analysis, my teacher gave us all a knowing look and said something along the lines of, “And I’m sure you all know what that means.”  Except I didn’t, which I did not hesitate to tell him, me being the zealous classroom participant that I am.  But rather than unravel that twisted prose for me, all he said was, “Come visit after you’ve graduated, and I’ll explain it to you.”

Granted, I did return to my old stomping grounds during my summer and winter breaks from college, and I even saw my old English teacher a few times during those visits, but I always forgot to have him explain that line of poetry to me.

But now, as I wrap up my junior year of college four years later, I realize that I don't need his assistance anymore.  I know what those fluttering eyelashes mean.  And so does Chilean author Isabel Allende, which she clearly demonstrates in her evocative work, Of Love and Shadows.

What's interesting about this novel is the areas in which you can determine what's important to the author, and what information is arbitrary.  I know, for example, that the protagonists (Irene Beltran, a beautiful and gutsy journalist born into the high class, and Francisco Leal, a sensitive psychologist-turned-photographer who comes from a family of hard-working intellectuals...oh, and obviously he's in love with her, but she's engaged to an equally-classed army captain) live somewhere in South America during the early-ish 20th century, and that a revolution against the newly established dictatorship is boiling in the pressure cooker, but nothing more detailed than that. At the same time, I can practically see Irene's long hair cascading down her back, and I get a lump in my throat every time Francisco's mother expresses her love for her youngest son. These are the things that matter to Allende, and as a self-proclaimed romantic (and a self-proclaimed Romantic), I don't hate her for that.

But there's more going on in this almost-300-page read than a south-of-the-equator Romeo and Juliet remake (although I must say, I literally cheered, out loud on the train no less, when "the moment of fluttering eyelashes" finally took place--it was poetic and emotional beyond articulation). Having dabbled in journalism herself, Allende injects the book with captivating mysteries that Beltran and Leal set out to uncover, including a young girl consumed by what can only be described as supernatural epilepsy; the numerous deaths of civilians suspected of resisting the dictatorship; and the ultimate price of seeking to reveal the truth and bring justice. One of my biggest pet peeves is a review or synopsis that gives away the ending, so I'll stop right there with the plot. All I'm going to add is that for me, reading Of Love and Shadows is the literary equivalent of those first moments of getting to know someone intimately. Every movement flows seamlessly into the next, but because it's all so new you absorb and store everything accurately and carefully into the banks of your memory. Her language is rhythmic, illustrative, and quite academic (I felt like I was studying for the GRE in some phrases!), but nonetheless a pleasurable, fantastical story that I can't wait to revisit.