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    The Invisible Mountain: A Novel
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    The Invisible Mountain: A Novel
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    The Invisible Mountain: A Novel
    Audiobook17 hours

    The Invisible Mountain: A Novel

    Written by Carolina De Robertis

    Narrated by Christine Avila

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    With her distinctive storytelling abilities and indelibly drawn characters, Carolina De Robertis illuminates a dark moment in contemporary Latin America. Intimate with the region, she crafts an emotionally pitch-perfect tale of a young woman who makes a horrifying-but ultimately liberating-discovery about her origins.

    Perla Correa grew up a privileged only child in Buenos Aires with a polished, aloof mother and a straitlaced naval officer father, whose profession she learned early on not to disclose in a country still reeling from the abuses perpetrated by the deposed military dictatorship. Although Perla understands that her parents were on the wrong side of the conflict, her love for her papá is unconditional. But when she is startled by an uninvited visitor, she begins a journey that will force her to confront the unease she has long suppressed and make a wrenching decision about who she is and who she will become.

    This rich human drama is based on the truth of thirty thousand disappeared Argentinean citizens and five hundred babies who were born in clandestine detention centers, torn from their mothers, and secretly given up for adoption. In the years that followed this dark time, some of these children have discovered the identities of their true families, and they continue to do so today. The Invisible Mountain brings history to life as only fiction can, in an intimate, unforgettable portrait of one young woman's explosive search for truth. De Robertis unfolds a gripping and historically resonant tale with keen-eyed compassion, luminous prose, and a startling vision of the incomparable power of love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 25, 2009
    ISBN9780739384473
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Invisible Mountain

    4/5

    66 ratings15 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Carolina de Robertis’ novel is a history of three women, their families, and their country. Each woman perceives an invisible mountain and believes her impassioned climb will contribute to the well-being of her family, Montevideo, and Uruguay. The lives of Pajarita, Eva, and Solome are filled with stories told in their family homes that provide a safe haven for members of all generations to listen. The stories are material that grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter weave to develop an oral tradition that defines themselves and their passion. It does not matter if the stories are true or apocryphal as long as they are preserved as a vibrant record of life.In The Invisible Mountain, the narrative history of the family recapitulates the historical record of Uruguay. The name of the capital city, Montevideo means ‘I see a mountain.’ Folklore has it that the name was a cry of a European seafarer on first sight of the city from a distance. While there is elevation change in Montevideo, it cannot be perceived by any means as a mountain. It is the belief by the people of the small country that the mountain may be part of the cultural identity of the individual.The mythical origins of Uruguay are seen in the life of Pajarita the maternal head of the Firielli family. She develops special healing and nurturing powers that greatly help her family members and friends. The powers come from the earth of Uruguay in the form of plants with unique sustaining effects. She begins her adult life under the rule of a benevolent leader of her country, a time of peace and hope for the poor and the rich.Eva is a woman with a unstoppable energy to create, a renaissance woman in a period of Uruguay history that stretches the boundaries of the old ways. She writes poetry and fills dresser drawers with her words on loose leafs of paper. She returns home from an artist’s flight to Argentina, escaping the artistic oppression of Juan Peron’s government. Greatly influenced by the passion of Evita, Eva influences the literary awakening of Uruguay.Solome’s passion develops during a time of unrest when dictators have come to rule Uruguay with fascist strategies. Solome is moved by stories of maltreatment of people who speak out and fight for social justice. She sees the revolutionary socialist movement as a return to the Uruguay of her grandmother, Pajarita not realizing the dangers of fighting the government controlled military. Solome comes to represent the resilience and procreative strength of the people in the late 20th Century. She is the birth mother of hope, resistance, and victory of the feminine spirit.In this rich narrative, de Robertis creates a wonderful panorama in which women are the story weavers, artistic expressionists, and self actualizing leaders of their family and Uruguay’s enduring culture. This is an excellent work, and I give it an unqualified five star rating.
    • 4/5
      This is a novel about a family history revolving around three strong women. It’s a look at a grandmother, daughter and granddaughter and travels between Buenos Aires Argentina and Montevideo Uruguay. The grandmother Pajarita married the love of her live, Ignazio, who leaves her and the three children penniless. Pajarita survives her life in Montevideo by selling healing herbs. She hopes that her daughter Eva will have a better life and an opportunity for an education. But at 10 Eva is sent off to work in the shoe store of a lecherous friend of her father’s. She hates it and what he forces her to do. Disgusted she ends up waiting tables at a restaurant frequented by poets and ends up following her childhood friend to Buenos Aires, where it looks like she’ll live the charmed life as the wife of a medical doctor. But her political writing puts her on the wrong side of the dictator Peron and she, her husband and two children flee to Montevideo. With the defeat of Peron, her husband deserts her and returns to Buenos Aires. Eva and her two children return to live with her mother and father. Now the hope for a college education lies with the granddaughter of Parajita, Salome. But Salome gets caught up in the socialist movement sweeping the world and lands in prison, but like her grandmother and mother before her, she’s strong and will survive. I had a little trouble believing that two 13 year-olds really were able be such able guerillas and I would have liked a little more background in the political story, but that would have made the book a tome rather than a readable book. I came away satisfied, although I would love to know more about some of the supporting characters.
    • 4/5
      This excellent debut novel tells the story of three generations of women - Pajarita, Eva, and Salome - against the backdrop of Uruguayan history of the 20th century. The structure of a multi-generational family story that tells personal stories with an epic sweep is familiar in Latin American literature, but this novel goes more for gritty rather than magical realism. This is a fascinating novel and I enjoyed learning more about each of the women as their story develops, and sad when they are reduced to background characters when the narrative moves on to the next generation. The final section with Salome imprisoned by the brutal Uruguayan dictatorship is particularly gripping.
    • 3/5
      A family saga.This was an interesting book from the point of view of the historical insights into life in Uruguay and Argentina in the twentieth century. It starts on New Year's Day 1900 and passes through three generations of a family that lived through upheaval and change, dictatorships and eventual democracy. However, as a novel I found it a very slow read and it has taken me months to finish it. Some of the members of my book group loved this book so this is just my own opinion, but I struggled with the cast of thousands, all of whose history we had to digest, and far too many untranslatable Spanish words.The narrative begins with the discovery of a baby, Pajarita, in the top of a tree. No-one knows how she got there or who she is, but she is claimed by Esparanza, whose baby had disappeared a year previously. The end of the book sees Pajarita's death as an old lady. We gradually meet her daughter and granddaughter and all the families and contacts they are involved with along the way.The part that most grabbed my interest was the struggle of the Tupamaros in the 70s and the life inside the prison which the characters watched being built in the early part of the book.I don't know why it should be, but all the books I've read set in South America seem to be strangely inaccessible and this was no exception. This would, however be an interesting read if you are planning to visit this part of the world any time soon.
    • 3/5
      Part of me really loved this book beyond the rating I gave it, but the issues I had with small parts of it just won't go away.

      The story centres around three generations of women in the one family and we get their story one after the other. We start with Parajita, a miracle child who meets a young Venetian gondola maker when he comes to Uruguay and quickly marries him. The two are young and in love and for a while their lives are blissful until real life invades and the spectres from Ignazio's Venetian childhood gets in the way when Parajita falls pregnant. They have children, but soon cracks appear in their marriage as Ignazio starts drinking and gambling and it culminates one night when he hits Parajita and flees the house in shame leaving her to raise the children herself. Parajita starts earning money and having an independent life as she raises her children until one day Ignazio returns, wanting to prove himself to her.

      Once the family is eventually reconciled their daughter, Eva, quits school and goes to work for a friend of her father's. No one is aware at the time that her father's friend has less than pure intentions with the child and by the time that Eva realises what has happened, she has left it too late. The man gives Eva a pair of shoes, and uses them as evidence of her stealing from him when she runs home after the first time he assaults her and tells her parents that that is why she ran home before she could explain anything and making it impossible for her to refuse to go back.

      This section of the book was quite difficult to read and Eva, from a child suffering so cruely, to the adult who is estranged from her father and running away from home with a childhood friend is an interesting character. I must confess though, for much of her section when she arrives in Argentina and then when she returns to Uruguay with her own family, I found her a very difficult character to like and it bothered me her behaviour to her husband who had given up so much for her.

      One of the main things that bothered me about this book was that it seemed impossible for a strong female character to be strong unless it was contrasted by a weak male and this was particularly evident in Eva's marriage. We are met with her husband, a good man, a doctor, someone who went against expectation to provide her a good home that she manipulated into marrying her. She then, in a fit of rebellion, manages to make it impossible for them to remain in their home and then blames him as she starts an affair with the friend she had originally ran away to Argentina with who is now a transexual and refuses to return to Argentina when they are able. It's complicated, but perhaps it was just me, but I just found Eva, for the most part, hard to root for despite her tragic childhood.

      The final part of the story centres on Salome, Eva's daughter who is quiet and studious and suddenly finds her self engulfed in a revolution. She starts full of great ideas and beliefs, but eventually brutal reality catches up and she gets captured, tortured, raped and imprisoned, refusing to flee when the rest of her group does because she's pregnant and thus being imprisoned for years only to come out years later to find out life has moved on. The man she loved and had a relationship with before has moved on and married one of the women who had been imprisoned with her, her friends have all moved on, her family is all older and her daughter is now in America being raised by her brother.

      There was a lot about this book that I loved, the very end few scenes are beautiful and the characterisation is always good and each of the women have a very distinctive character (for better or worse.) My main issue was the way the writer wrote the men in the book. Outwith Ignazio and to a lesser degree Roberto, the male characters in the book were at best one dimensional and inferior and I say this as a woman, but I don't need to have strong women at the expense of strong men - it defeats the purpose for me.

      This book is definite worth a read though. The issues I had with it don't detract from the story or how hard it is to put it down at times.
    • 2/5
      I've previously read two books by Isabel Allende, which appeared to be quite similar to this one: all are long sweeping epics of families in South American countries. I guess I'm not a fan of family histories that go on and on and on, (shrug)De Robertis focuses on three generations of women in Montevideo, Uruguay; each woman has a section of the book telling her story. Parts of each of the sections are compelling, but overall, I think the book is incredibly wordy, terribly overwritten, and fiercely under-edited. Where one or two words or phrases might do, De Robertis uses six words or seven phrases or even seven sentences. In a nutshell, I dislike this author's style.
    • 4/5
      The book starts off with a miracle. In the first day of the twentieth century a baby girl, who disappeared from a village after her mother died giving birth to her, was found on top of a tree, that little girl is named Pajarita (Little Bird) . The narrative spans 90 years or so, following the lives of Pajarita, her daughter Eva and granddaughter (Eva’s daughter) Salomé and follows the women through a personal story which also mirrors the chaotic history of Uruguay through their own personal struggles. The book is divided into three sections, each devoted to one of the women. The first section we learn about Pajarita, how she met her husband, an Italian immigrant, and follows him from her small village to Montevideo and builds a life for them. The second section tells us about Pajarita’s daughter, Eva, a poet at heart who was forced to drop out of school at the tender age of 10 and work at a shoe store for a family friend. Eva is abused by the friend and takes matters into her own hands by running away to Buenos Aires where she marries and has children before being chased out of Argentina and returning to Montevideo. The third section belongs to Salomé, Eva’s daughter, who is encouraged to fulfill the education her mother never got. However Salomé becomes involved in the political turmoil of the time and pays a heavy price for her ideals. A beautiful story exploring the history of South America as a backdrop to the connections between mothers and daughters.
    • 5/5
      The book starts off with a miracle. In the first day of the twentieth century a baby girl, who disappeared from a village after her mother died giving birth to her, was found on top of a tree, that little girl is named Pajarita (Little Bird) and thus the story begins.The narrative spans 90 years or so, following the lives of Pajarita, her daughter Eva and granddaughter (Eva’s daughter) Salomé and follows the women through a personal story which also mirrors the chaotic history of Uruguay through their own personal struggles. The book is divided into three sections, each devoted to one of the women. The first section we learn about Pajarita, how she met her husband, an Italian immigrant, and follows him from her small village to Montevideo and builds a life for them. The second section tells us about Pajarita’s daughter, Eva, a poet at heart who was forced to drop out of school at the tender age of 10 and work at a shoe store for a family friend. Eva is abused by the friend and takes matters into her own hands by running away to Buenos Aires where she marries and has children before being chased out of Argentina and returning to Montevideo. The third section belongs to Salomé, Eva’s daughter, who is encouraged to fulfill the education her mother never got. However Salomé becomes involved in the political turmoil of the time and pays a heavy price for her ideals.The story is not a simple good vs. evil, the characters are flushed out, each has his or hers good side and bad side – shades of gray. The heroines of the story are not depicted as “holier than thou” victims of a cruel life but as normal humans with their own weaknesses, strengths and different sides which take shape throughout their lives.The narrative is complex and beautifully written, very lyrical, deliberate and effective, the storytelling is masterful and the characters are well drawn out – even the minor character each has their own rich history. One of the most important characters in the book is not a human, but a country. The author did a masterful job researching Uruguay, its culture and history. Besides enjoying the story I also felt I learned a lot about this South American country and have gotten a good introduction to its history.
    • 5/5
      Through the eyes of three generations of women, the novel tells the story of the family and the country during the 20th century. It begins with the birth of Pajarita (bird) at the turn of the century and follows her migration to the city as well as her economic and marital struggles.Her daughter Eva is a poet by nature. Encouraged by her father to leave school at age 10 to work in a store belonging to a friend of the family, Eva is unable to complain to her parents of her sexual betrayal by this friend, and makes her own choices about jobs and living arrangements in her mid-to-late teens, running away to Buenos Aires where she eventually marries.Salome', Eva's daughter lives a more protected life in the midst of extended family, and she and her brother are strongly encouraged to pursue the education Eva didn't get. Salome is influenced by a classmate and experiences at her mother's communist cousin's house, and becomes involved with political activists, which results in some seriously unpleasant consequences.I especially liked the way various points of view were espoused by different members of the family during Salome's portion of the story. (I found her unquestioning acceptance of her assignment to forgo college and work as a secretary a bit hard to believe, but it is probably realistic for the time period.)The "invisible mountain" has multiple references. Literally, it refers to the capital city, Montevideo (monte vide eu - I see a mountain, supposedly what the first Portuguese said when spotting the coastline), although the city is not on a mountain.It also points, via a quote from Dante at the beginning of the novel, to the "delectable mountain" that Dante tries (and fails) to climb at the beginning of the Inferno. It is also referenced by a quote from Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector.This novel is complex and nuanced, and I highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Really, quite a beautiful book (with a beautiful cover, too), about three generations of women. I found that as the generations went on the women became more unlikeable, until the last woman was someone I didn't really care much about, but the previous two women certainly made up for that pitfall. A great historical fiction piece.
    • 5/5
      The Invisible Mountain by Carolina de RobertisCarolina de Robertis writes with a passion as deep and intense as the tango, the thread that holds so much of South America together. The Invisible Mountain is a lyrical narrative on the tides of life in Uruguay throughout the twentieth century. As symbolic as the traditional shared cup or gourd of mate, Ms. de Robertis has a unique talent that embraces everything within the lives of three generations of women and their families. She conveys imagination and imagery exquisitely.The novel begins with the introduction of the main characters' origins prior to 1900 to set the background for the story to come. A young man escaping a brutal life in Italy, and an infant girl whose mother dies in childbirth and is blamed by her father for the death. A miracle happens New Years Eve at the turn of the century which saves her life. From this point on the real story begins. This is the first generation, and the baby, Pajarita, will become the glue that binds the generations.The book is divided in three sections: Pajarita, Eva, and Salome. Separate yet intertwined, these three women, grandmother, mother, and daughter, live through the turbulence of coups, revolutions, despair, hope, passion, and always the rhythm of life and country. Three very distinct women. Pajarita keeps her family fed when her husband disappears by selling the herbs and treatments she has learned at the local butcher shop, along with her personality and advice. Though set primarily in Montevideo, Uruguay, Eva, a poet, moves and marries in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the regime of Peron, before fleeing with her husband and family in the night back to Uruguay. Salome, in her teens, wants nothing more than to save her country and becomes a Tupamaro, a revolutionist.This book is inspirational, historical, powerful and passionate. I became deeply invested in it, even feeling the music running through the background as if to say I am here, I will not be forgotten. Listen. Feel.
    • 4/5
      This is an excellent debut novel. It addresses so many different family issues in each generation. Namely three generations spanning 90 years. The book is in three parts. Part one is Pajarita, part two is her daughter Eva, and part three is Salome, Pajarita's granddaughter. Pajarita's tale takes place in Uruguay in the early 1900s. She is a "miracle child" that disappears as a baby and suddenly reappears in a tree much later. When she becomes a young woman, she marries Ignazio, who is a gondola maker from Italy (he has his own unique story, but does not take too much of the book to tell it) now traveling with a carnival. Their whirlwind romance takes them to Montevideo where things start to sour as they deal with financial difficulties, gambling problems, and alcoholism. Pajarita deals with it all, raises her children, supports her family, and throughout the novel, appears to be a shelter in the storm. Eva's life is a bit more difficult. Her life introduces issues like child labor, child sexual abuse, and mental trauma. Things turn bad for her at home and she runs off to Argentina with a friend. She suffers much heartache before marrying a doctor and beginning a "perfect" life, only to end up exiled from the Peron's country. Eva's story tells a lot of Argentina's politics and the rise and fall of the Peron family, including the much revered Evita. After returning to Monetvideo with her husband and two children in tow, readers are introduced to more issues, including affairs, divorce, and even sex changes. Salome's story is the worst. It will be noted at this point that each generation has it worse than the last. I enjoyed this part much less than the others as it is mostly about Revolution and politics. Salome gives up school to join an underground revolution and of course, ends up arrested and imprisioned for ten years. I scanned over much of Salome's story. The life she leads in prison is rough and unpleasant, but it was the political details that bored me. The ending was absolutely stunning. A great debut novel. Would have warranted 5 stars except for the last part. I will be keeping an eye out for more by this author.
    • 5/5
      This extraordinary debut novel tells the recent history of Uruguay through the lives of three generations of women and their friends and families. Pajarita, born the youngest child of a small rural family, vanishes mysteriously while still an infant. On the first day of the 20th century, she reappears in a tree—the miracle child who heralds the change of centuries. Her daughter, Eva, is forced to leave school when she is only ten to work in a family friend’s shoe store. Suffering years of abuse at the hands of this supposed friend, Eva finally escapes the store to work as a waitress in a bohemian café where she makes the acquaintance of the poets who congregate there and finds her own creative aspirations soaring. Eva’s daughter Salomé, raised in the ground-breaking 1960s and inspired by the revolution of Ché Guevara, finds herself recruited into a cell of Tupamaros, extreme revolutionaries seeking to overthrow the oppressive regime now in power in Uruguay. Captured eventually, Salomé is tortured and imprisoned for over ten years before being released into a new and very changed Uruguay.Enchanting, with touches of the magical realism so characteristic of South American literature, “The Invisible Mountain” is also funny, heartbreaking, and beautifully written. These generations of women come alive on the page and, through them, so does the history of an entire country and its diverse peoples. Highly recommended. This book stands with the finest of South American literature, rivaling Allende, Cisneros, and Alvarez for lyricism and power.
    • 5/5
      Carolina de Robertis’ novel is a history of three women, their families, and their country. Each woman perceives an invisible mountain and believes her impassioned climb will contribute to the well-being of her family, Montevideo, and Uruguay. The lives of Pajarita, Eva, and Solome are filled with stories told in their family homes that provide a safe haven for members of all generations to listen. The stories are material that grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter weave to develop an oral tradition that defines themselves and their passion. It does not matter if the stories are true or apocryphal as long as they are preserved as a vibrant record of life.In The Invisible Mountain, the narrative history of the family recapitulates the historical record of Uruguay. The name of the capital city, Montevideo means ‘I see a mountain.’ Folklore has it that the name was a cry of a European seafarer on first sight of the city from a distance. While there is elevation change in Montevideo, it cannot be perceived by any means as a mountain. It is the belief by the people of the small country that the mountain may be part of the cultural identity of the individual.The mythical origins of Uruguay are seen in the life of Pajarita the maternal head of the Firielli family. She develops special healing and nurturing powers that greatly help her family members and friends. The powers come from the earth of Uruguay in the form of plants with unique sustaining effects. She begins her adult life under the rule of a benevolent leader of her country, a time of peace and hope for the poor and the rich.Eva is a woman with a unstoppable energy to create, a renaissance woman in a period of Uruguay history that stretches the boundaries of the old ways. She writes poetry and fills dresser drawers with her words on loose leafs of paper. She returns home from an artist’s flight to Argentina, escaping the artistic oppression of Juan Peron’s government. Greatly influenced by the passion of Evita, Eva influences the literary awakening of Uruguay.Solome’s passion develops during a time of unrest when dictators have come to rule Uruguay with fascist strategies. Solome is moved by stories of maltreatment of people who speak out and fight for social justice. She sees the revolutionary socialist movement as a return to the Uruguay of her grandmother, Pajarita not realizing the dangers of fighting the government controlled military. Solome comes to represent the resilience and procreative strength of the people in the late 20th Century. She is the birth mother of hope, resistance, and victory of the feminine spirit.In this rich narrative, de Robertis creates a wonderful panorama in which women are the story weavers, artistic expressionists, and self actualizing leaders of their family and Uruguay’s enduring culture. This is an excellent work, and I give it an unqualified five star rating.
    • 5/5
      It's difficult to believe that this is a debut novel. The prose is exquisitely rendered but never overdone, and the characters seem to come to life on the pages. Covering the lives of three generations of women: Pajarita, Eva, and Salome, the novel moves from Uruguay to Argentina and back again, tracing wars, revolutions and history as it traces the lives of these three fascinating women. It is well-researched and effectively transports the reader to South America. This is a book that you can truly disappear into; I found myself almost disoriented when it was time to put the book down. To me, this is the mark of a great writer-- when the reader can truly live inside the story. A very highly recommended novel.