Redemption and Esteban Trueba

This is my first post about a book and I'm actually a bit nervous to write it. It's silly but it kind of feels strange to write about a book, especially a book that I don't have in front of me, in this informal, electronic kind of space. I'm going to keep it pretty loose and free form.

I've been reading a lot recently and the book that I got the most emotionally invested in was Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. If pressed, and if I had the book in front of me, there are tons of different things that I could write about it but the one idea that provoked the most thought for me, was whether or not Esteban Trueba found redemption.

I don't think that there's always a clear distinction between being redeemable and irredeemable and different people probably have different and valid opinions on whether or not a character can find redemption.

What makes one irredeemable; that no amount of good can make up for the bad? Is there a tipping point when it comes to redemption, is there some point when your good deeds outweigh your bad ones, that when reached brings you redemption? Or, is at the moment that you realize that you have done a lot that you need to make up for and you start doing good that you have been redeemed? Do you need to continue to do good for as long as you can once you make that realization?

Is it what, and how much good you do, or is it the fact that your intentions have changed that makes you redeemable?

Various thoughts and spoilers for those who haven't read the book after the jump.

Towards the end of the book Esteban did help his daughter Blanca and granddaughter Alba, more or less saving their lives. However, it was only after he caused them to suffer directly and indirectly. He was one of the people responsible, if not the person most responsible, for putting their lives in danger in the first place. He helped bring about the coup which led to the capture, rape, and torture of Alba. The same would have happened to Blanca had she been caught.

He also fathered the father of the man who tortured and raped Alba once she was captured, Esteban Garcia. By not being involved in the lives of the child he fathered and through the way he treated the people at Tres Marias, the village where he had his country house, he helped to create an environment where this unrecognized grandson, Garcia, became the monster he devolved into.

In addition to the pain he caused his children and grandchildren Esteban Trueba raped pretty much every woman in Tres Marias. The only thing that kept his character in murky territory, as opposed to black and white evil, was how much he loved his granddaughter, and perhaps his biggest step towards possible redemption was using what was left of his connections to save her.

Those connections, however, were virtually nonexistent when it came to issues of real power in the government and he resorts to going to a loyal friend and brothel owner in order to save Alba. Would he have even helped Blanca or Alba if he had not been old, feeble, and no longer influential politically? Does that matter?

He was always going to reach a point where he'd no longer be powerful physically as well as politically, living as long as he did. Does the inevitability of the circumstances that softened him take away from the goodness of the choices he made?

If redemption occurs at the moment that you decide to start atoning for the things you've done wrong then it is possible that Esteban Trueba found redemption. However if you need to fully counterbalance everything that you've done wrong in order to be redeemed than Trueba fell far short.

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Behind on Internet Memes: 25 Random Things (aka The Final Post In My Half-Assed-List-Post Trilogy)

1. I can’t stand the bottoms of my feet touching or rubbing together, I kind of get over it for yoga.2. I have really high arches in my feet.
3. I have really short fingers, like when I worked at an elementary school, 4th graders had longer fingers than me.
4. I can’t use chopsticks. I’ve tried really hard many times but I just can’t do it. I worry that when I ask for a fork people will think that I’m some assy ethnocentric person that just refuses to use them.
5. Certain loud noises really bother me; vacuum cleaners, my grandmother’s television.
6. When I’m in a closed in space (usually some form of train) and someone stinks I put on hand cream and smell my hands until I can get out of there.
7. I’m vegetarian.
8. I’m definitely one of those people who don’t know what their real hair color is. I imagine it’s darker now than it was when I started dyeing it, but I’m not entirely sure.
9. I hardly wore any makeup when I was in high school but now I LOVE it and spend way too much money on it.
10. Drinking too much too strong coffee has more of an effect on me than actual stimulant drugs.
11. I started watching tennis again for the same reason I started watching it when I was in middle school: male tennis players are hot, they’re strong but not too muscle-y looking.
12. I probably watch TV more on the internet than on actual TV. This is probably because I watch a lot of UK TV shows.
13. I really miss living in London and being in Europe in general and I wish I had enough money to go back and forth between New York and London/Europe more often.
14. I miss being in college but I can’t decide what to go to grad school for (or if I even want to go because it seems like an insane amount of work and is ridic expensive)
15. I’ve recently decided that instead of dress pants I’ll only wear skirts and dresses. Jeans, of course, are ok.
16. I think I decided to wear skirts and dresses instead of dress pants as an excuse to buy more cute dresses.
17. I always take way too much stuff with me whenever I go anywhere and usually have a way too big bag that annoys me at the time but that in the end I’m happy I had with me.
18. My writing style tends to be confessional, possibly a vestige of Catholicism.
19. I like to read bad reviews of books before I buy them because I think it's important to know why the people who hate them feel that way.
20. I consider myself nerdy and cool and I can’t decide whether I’d be considered a hipster or not. I don’t consider myself one.
21. I tend to wear clothes inappropriate for the weather. I generally dress as if it’s a warm fall day and the actual days that are warm fall days are very small in number.
22. I love to be barefoot and if I’m home or at someone's home I usually am barefoot.
23. I worry about whether people think I’m copying them or copying some famous person but I own up to it if I am deliberately taking inspiration from copyingsomeone.
24. I usually respond to emails right away unless I’m feeling depressed and then I take forever to respond or don’t respond at all.
25. I don’t wash my hair as often as I should and it’s gotten used to the fact that it’s not washed as often as it should be (doesn’t get greasy for a really long time).

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Twitter

So I didn't think that I was going to join Twitter but I've had an exceptionally bad day and needed to do something that would occupy my mind but at the same time not require too much actual thought, like writing on here about Southland Tales, which I've been meaning to do and probably will do soon unless my day (and days in the near future) manage to get even worse which is a distinct possibility. See that was an extremely bad run-on sentence that I'm not going to even bother fixing because it would require too much thought. Anyway here's my twitter address:
www.twitter.com/ambivlentalumna. I couldn't spell ambivalent properly because it would have been too many letters so I deleted the a so it would still more or less work phonetically.

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Random Grammy Thoughts

• Why did Kanye start out American Boy and why did Estelle come out after he started?* They made it seem like it was his song that featured her when it was really the other way around. SO WRONG!
• Of those nominated, I'm glad Adele won best new artist. I'm not the biggest fan but I think slightly watered down Winehouse should beat blonde, whiny, Winehouse copycat.
  
• Why did M.I.A. not get to perform her whole song alone? I think I've heard more of her music while watching the BAFTAs. She's awesome, she's super pregnant, her song was everywhere, she should get her own spot. It's nice to get lots of different people together at big events sometimes but I really wish she'd performed solo. Maybe she was offered a solo spot but said she'd rather do a group performance, but I kind of doubt it. Her performance was the only reason I was watching. At least it wasn't too far into the show so I could switch to the aforementioned BAFTAs.
  
• I was visiting my grandmother when Katy Perry came on. My grandmother's awesome reaction to Katy Perry: "Asshole."

Well that's pretty much all the thought that the Grammy's inspired. I don't usually watch but like I said I wanted to see M.I.A. At least A.R. Rahman won a BAFTA for his music from Slumdog Millionaire so someone good got an award for their music tonight.
Also, one random BAFTA thought: Is every presenter going to say "a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude"? It's getting so old I almost feel bad recreating it in print here.

*Ok, I do know why but it still pisses me off...

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Hooray!!

We FINALLY have a new president. I got chills the first time he was referred to as President Barack Obama. Sometime around the 2004 election I realized that if he won again George W. Bush would be president until I was 25. It was incredibly depressing. I spent all day yesterday (with the exception of some Australian Open coverage), watching the inauguration ceremonies and balls.

The whole inauguration was really nice to watch, even though I tend to dislike stuff like that. I don't really like parades. I didn't watch that much of the concert the other day. I think I needed to watch the whole spectacle yesterday because all that ceremony and formality finally made it sink in for me. We were actually getting a new president. A president I, more or less, liked. A president I voted for in the primary

I teared up a whole lot. Stuff that has to do with voting, especially formerly disenfranchised people voting, tends to make me to cry. A lot. Every time I watch Iron Jawed Angels (which I think is ridiculously underrated, all those other HBO movies (usually about men) get so much recognition but seem so boring) I don't just cry, I weep and sob and other synonyms for cry a whole lot.

I don't think Obama is going to be perfect. He's already done some things I don't like a whole lot. I am, however, cautiously optimistic. There's a chance that a lot of good will come out of his presidency. I've already written more than I planned to so I'll just stop now.

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