Trueba the Terrible

I find it very hard to enjoy anything about the “House of the Spirits”. I guess this isn’t totally a bad thing because I don’t believe this book was meant to convey warm cozy feelings to the readers. One of the biggest things that frustrated me is the class system and its affects on the un-named country in the book. The book is partly told from Estaban Trueaba’s viewpoint and therefore it makes it kind of hard for him to be the villain. On the other hand, Estaban Garcia is portrayed as evil clear through even though he didn’t really do anything more than Trueba did. It seems crazy that Trueba would be able to narrate the book like he did after seeing the evil that his actions spawned. I believe Trueba is the main villain in the book and the fact that he seems to be ignorant of evilness only makes me dislike him more. He is so conceited and full of himself that he is able to justify all of his evil deeds by paying money or writing off the victims of his deeds as meaningless peasants. It is frustrating that he didn’t seem to think anything was wrong with what he did. At the end of the day, though, this is just a book. It’s easy to point fingers at others and tell them their problems, but sometimes it isn’t as easy to see our own. I guess Trueba’s issues are overly transparent and somewhat easy to point out, but I think a valuable lesson can be learned from his life. Sometimes when I make mistakes or my attitude isn’t right I find myself making excuses and trying to justify my behavior as being alright. I have to make sure that I exceed the standards that I set for other people, or else risk being conceited and deceived like Trueba… So even though the book itself is a drag, it made me think of some way to try improving my life. Therefore I can’t call this book a total epic failure…