Book Review: Zorro

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

Zorro     Amazon US TPB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada TPB Amazon Canada HC
Isabel Allende
Class/Genre:   Fiction   Historical   Adventure
Harper Collins; $32.95 hardcover; 390 pages

Born in California in the late 18th century, Diego de la Vega is a child of two worlds. His father, Alejandro, is a hidalgo, a pure-blooded Spaniard, a military man of honour and bravery; his mother Regina is a mestizo, the daughter of a Spanish sailor and a Shoshone woman. From his Shoshone grandmother, Diego learns the ways of his mother’s tribe, while from his father he gets lessons in fencing and cattle-branding. He witnesses the injustices the Spanish colonists visit upon the natives of California, which ignites in him a passion for justice.

That passion is only inflamed when he is sent to Barcelona for his education and he is introduced by his fencing master to the concepts of justice, honour, and courage. Maestro Escalante inducts Diego into La Justicia, and so Zorro, defender of the weak and righter of wrongs, is born. Zorro’s chronicler lays the facts, embellished somewhat perhaps, before the reader because “[h]eroism is a badly remunerated occupation, and often it leads to an early end.”

Zorro is one of my all-time favourite crime fighters, along with Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood. He was the Caped Crusader long before Batman cruised the streets of Gotham City. In her novel, Allende adds to the legend, making a playful pastiche of the original Johnston McCully characters and those from various television and film versions of the story. Yet she does much more, examining how a man can be two people in one body. Which is the act: the effete Don Diego or the stupendously brave Zorro? And where does the real Diego de la Vega lie? Allende doesn’t answer these questions, leaving them to the reader to decide.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM