Zorro (novel)

Zorro
1st edition cover
Author(s)	Isabel Allende
Original title	El Zorro
Translator	Margaret Sayers Peden
Country	Chile
Language	Spanish
Series	Zorro
Genre(s)	Adventure, Historical Novel
Publisher	HarperCollins
Publication date	May 1, 2005
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback) and (audio-CD)
Pages	400 p
ISBN	ISBN 0-06-077897-0

Zorro is a 2005 mock biography and the first origin story of the pulp hero Zorro, written by Chilean author Isabel Allende. It is a prequel to the events of the original Zorro story, Johnston McCulley's 1919 novella The Curse of Capistrano. It also contains numerous references to earlier Zorro-related works, especially the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro.

Plot summary

Allende's story is split into six parts, each part dealing with one stage of Diego's life, with the last part serving as the epilogue. The novel chronicles Diego's formation as well as his origins as Zorro. He goes to America to find his dream.

First Part (California, 1790–1810)

In the first part of the novel, Captain Alejandro de la Vega, a seasoned Spanish soldier, is sent to the San Gabriel mission run by Padre Mendoza, an experienced Franciscan priest, due to a series of savage attacks at other missions. Led by a warrior chief named Chief Gray Wolf, the Indians have set their sights on the San Gabriel mission, the most successful mission in Alta California. Alejandro, aided by Padre Mendoza and a few Indian converts, defeat the Indians, and are successful in hurting Chief Gray Wolf. However, as they contemplate the chief's fate, they find out she is a woman.

She is Toypurnia, a young Indian woman. She recuperates in the mission with Alejandro's help. Alejandro then goes to Pedro Fages, the governor of California. Here he decides to allow Toypurnia to be a lady - in - waiting to Eulalia de Callis, Fages' rich and stubborn wife. After three years, Alejandro meets Toypurnia, who was renamed Regina, at a lavish party to celebrate the arrival of Pedro Fages, who has earlier resigned from his post and was on his way to Mexico with Eulalia. He proposes marriage to Regina and she accepts. The two are wed by Padre Mendoza, and Fages then bequeaths a large acreage of land to Alejandro. He then retires from the military and becomes a hacienda owner, and later an alcalde.

Regina befriends Ana, a young convert who is assigned to care for Regina. Surprisingly, the two become pregnant at the same time, and delivers their babies at the same week. Though Ana's birthing was smooth, Regina was not, as the baby was crosswise in her womb. The pregnancy was so complicated that she spent fifty hours in labor, and required Padre Mendoza to deliver the baby, whom Regina names Diego, and who is baptized on the spot.

Diego and Bernardo, Ana's son, become close friends. Since Ana breastfed Diego while his mother was convalescing from her pregnancy, as well as Bernardo, the boys became milk brothers. The rest of the chapter deals with significant events in Diego and Bernardo's life, and the early formation into what they are today.

At an early age, Diego and Bernardo share an unusual childhood. They capture a live bear using the sleeping potion of White Owl, once used to amputate a wounded priest, and a frightened, bullied, obese boy named Garcia. Together, Diego and Bernardo undergo Indian training, while Alejandro teaches fencing to Diego, who passes it on to Bernardo. When the de la Vega hacienda is attacked by pirates, the boys have their own traumatizing experiences: Diego and his mother attempt to defend the house, but are defeated, and Bernardo, hidden in the servants' room, is forced to watch his mother be brutally raped and murdered by the pirates. This causes Bernardo to be mute, as a sign of mourning. Bernardo is sent to the Indian tribe of Regina to recover, and soon strikes a friendship with Light - in - the - Night, which blossoms into a romance, and Diego is forced to remain at home to recover after suffering a few broken ribs during the attack.

Diego and Bernardo then undergo a test to prove their maturity and to find their spirit guide, a totemic animal which would guide the boys' future. Bernardo's spirit guide is a horse, in the form of Tornado, a motherless colt which Bernardo encounters and cares for. Diego's is a fox or 'zorro' in the form of a fox who saves his life.

After the events in the forest, Alejandro, oblivious to the Indian training Diego has been receiving, receives a letter from Tomas de Romeu, an old friend of Alejandro and currently residing in France - occupied Spain. He invites Alejandro to let Diego go to Barcelona, to receive a more formal schooling, and to learn fencing under the famed maestro Manuel Escalante. Alejandro reluctanly allows Diego to go, and Diego takes Bernardo with him. They leave after their fifteenth birthday, where Regina surprisingly organizes an extravagant party, given her own aversion to parties, and Bernardo has an intimate moment with Light - in - the - Night.

Part 2 (Barcelona, 1810–1812)

This part needs more info. Where is it?

Characters

Allende uses a mix of fictional characters borrowed from earlier Zorro works and invented for the novel, along with a smattering of historical characters.

Fictional

Traditional

• Diego de la Vega aka Zorro, the protagonist of the novel. His origins, as well as the origin of Zorro, are shown. The novel explains Diego's dual personalities, as well as his turbulent love life.
• Bernardo was Diego De La Vega's milk brother, because they were fed from the same breast. He is the second protagonist of the novel. He is the son of Ana, an Indian maid who works in the De la Vega Hacienda. After he witnesses the rape and murder of his mother, he chooses to act like a mute. He and Diego can still converse through sign language and twin telepathy. The rare instances when he speaks aloud are significant. In the novel, he has a wife, Light-in-the-Night, and a son.
• Lolita Pulido, whom Diego will later court in The Curse of Capistrano, appears as a young girl who falls in love with the disguised Zorro without realizing that he is her childhood friend Diego. She is Zorro's later love interest, replacing Juliana de Romeu.

Original

• Lechuza Blanca ("White Owl") is the maternal grandmother of Don Diego de la Vega (Zorro). She is a shaman and the spiritual leader of an insurgent Californian native tribe, As Diego's spiritual mentor, she leads him into the vision quest through which he discovers that the fox (which in Spanish is "Zorro") acts as his totem or guardian spirit. Her daughter Toypurnia is Diego's mother.
• Toypurnia ("Daughter of Wolf") is the mother of Don Diego de la Vega. Her father was Diego Salazar, a Spanish renegade. Her name means "daughter of the wolf," because she was fostered by wolves briefly during her childhood. She had other names, including Grey Wolf and Regina de la Vega. Toypurnia/Regina figures prominently within the plot of the 2007 serial Zorro: La Espada y la Rosa. The historical Tongva Indian woman Toypurina, a Mission Indian living near the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, when 25 years old plotted against the Spaniards' cultural genocide and invasion of her native homeland, and was a model for the book's character struggling with the California mission clash of cultures.

Historical

• Pedro Fages: The famous feud of the California Governor and his wife Eulalia figure into Diego's family background. He is the intercessor of Alejandro de la Vega, bequeathing to him his vast hacienda.
• George Sand: The famed French novelist makes an appearance as a young girl in love with Diego. In the novel, she has an alternate history compared to the real George Sand.
• Jean Lafitte: Diego and his companions are captured by the notorious French pirate of the Louisiana bayous. His all - black attire is the inspiration for Zorro's current suit. He is the lover, and later husband, of Diego's first love Juliana.
• Marie Laveau: The voodoo queen of New Orleans makes a brief appearance, during the time Diego and his companions spend as "guests" of Jean Lafitte. She is the one who attempts to cure Catherine Villars, the sick wife of Jean Lafitte. When Catherine dies, Marie interprets Catherine's wish for Juliana to be the new wife of Jean.
• Estanislao Yokuts Indian who led a revolt against the Mission San Jose in 1827.

Continuity

Zorro contains numerous explicit references to Zorro works created before but taking place after Allende's tale. Most of the novel seems to correlate with most of the original Zorro tales. It even mentions Esperanza, Diego's wife in The Mask of Zorro. The epilogue states that Diego lived a comfortable old age after Esperanza's death, which The Mask of Zorro clearly contradicts, though this is just a hopeful thought of the future from Isabel during the time she narrated the story. Also, Lolita Pulido meets Zorro well before their previously-established first sexual encounter.

In the 1920 silent film and Disney's television series, Bernardo is Diego's manservant, confidant and co-conspirator, the only person at first to know Diego's secret. Unable to speak, he uses gestures to communicate and pretends to be deaf as well as mute, the better to overhear the plans of Zorro's enemies. He also plays the fool, adopting clownish behavior so as to seem harmless. Although Bernardo is sometimes portrayed as a little silly even when no pretense is required, he is also a capable and invaluable disciple for Zorro and Diego, even wearing the mask himself occasionally when the need arises. This character had appeared in the original stories as both deaf and mute; giving him hearing in this iteration helped to make Bernardo more integral to the series as Zorro's spy. It also helped to advance the plot by giving Diego a partner with whom he could confide feelings, plans, and intended actions, while also communicating these things to the viewers.

In McCulley's work, Diego de la Vega was born in the late 18th century to a Spanish mother whose name is never reported consistently. the 1940 version of The Mark of Zorro lists her name as Isabella and the Disney television series gives her maiden name as de la Cruz. Sometime after her death, the young man left California and was educated in Spain, before returning to don the Zorro mask. A speculative attempt to fuse together these disparate accounts is found in the on-line article Legacy of the Fox.

A young adult novel, Young Zorro: The Iron Brand, was published at around the same time as Allende's novel. It was written by young adult author and illustrator Jan Adkins, a technical advisor for Allende's story. It is the story of how Spanish Alta California, Pueblo de Los Angeles, and the Californio vaquero heritage at the beginning of the 19th century shaped fifteen year old Diego de la Vega and his mute brother Bernardo to create their eventual shared identity as el Zorro, advocate and protector of the people.

Other Mentions

Allende contributed an essay on the writing of the Zorro novel to Tales of Zorro, the first-ever anthology of original Zorro short fiction edited by Richard Dean Starr and published by Chicago-based Moonstone Books.