Zorro and the Zahir.

• Author: Mujica, Barbara
• Position: Zorro - Book review

Zorro, by Isabel Allende. Trans., Margaret Sayers Peden. New York: HarperColllns, 2005.

If you're planning a fall vacation and want to take along some light reading, by all means pack a copy of Zorro. This new novel by Isabel Allende is fun and, for the most part, lively, although the plot occasionally becomes mired in wordiness.

Allende's book is an account of the youth and formation of the fictional character Zorro, created in 1919 by Johnston McCulley. The original author introduced Zorro in a novel called The Curse of Capistrano, which appeared in installments in a pulp magazine. McCulley's book became enormously Successful, and his hero inspired films and a television series, as well as new characters, such as Batman, created by Bob Kane. Allende now enriches the legend by filling in the blanks regarding Zorro's upbringing, education, and early exploits. Set in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the book reflects Allende's interest in California history, evident in earlier novels such as the first-rate Portrait in Sepia and Daughter of Fortune.

Allende's Zorro is the son of Alejandro de la Vega, a landed aristocrat, and Toypumia, a mestiza Shoshone warrior. When Indians attack San Gabriel Mission, Alejandro, the Spanish captain charged with defending it, wounds Toypumia, who is disguised with a wows head. (Her name means Daughter-of-Wolf). Upon discovering she is a woman, he nurses her back to health and takes her to Eulalia de Callis, the governor's wife, who teaches her European ways. In spite of the taboo against marrying non-whites, the smitten Alejandro takes Toypurnia as his bride and settles her on his splendid hacienda. However, he cannot destroy her strong attachment to her people, and when their son Diego is bona, the boy learns Indian lore from his mother as well as Spanish culture from his father. His ties to the Shoshones are strengthened by his intimate friendship with Bernardo, an Indian servant born the same day as he, who is as close to him as a brother. In an elaborate Indian rite of passage in which the boys participate, they learn the significance of the zorro (fox). Diego's antagonist is Carlos Alcazar, the spoiled, cruel son of an overbearing Spanish rancher. Over the years Diego observes terrible abuses of Indians by Spaniards, in particular, by the elder Alcazar, and appeals to his father to deal with the Injustices. However, the system is stacked irremediably against the Indians.

When Diego is...