Zorro (novel)
Zorro (Spanish: El Zorro: comienza la leyenda) is a 2005 novel by Chilean author Isabel Allende. Its subject is the pulp hero Diego de la Vega, better known as El Zorro (The Fox), who was featured in an early 20th-century novel.
_cover.jpg.webp) First edition cover | |
| Author | Isabel Allende |
|---|---|
| Original title | El Zorro: Comienza la leyenda |
| Translator | Margaret Sayers Peden |
| Country | Chile |
| Language | Spanish |
| Series | Zorro |
| Genre | Adventure, Historical Novel |
| Published | 2005 (Sudamericana) |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) and (audio-CD) |
| Pages | 382 p |
| ISBN | 0-06-077897-0 |
The novel takes the form of a biography and was the first origin story for this legendary character. It is a prequel to Johnston McCulley's 1919 novella The Curse of Capistrano, which first featured the character of Zorro. The story incorporates details from a variety of works that have featured the pulp hero, including the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro.
Plot summary
Captain Alejandro de la Vega, a Spanish soldier, marries a Native American woman named Regina. He retires from the military and becomes a hacienda owner, and later an alcalde. The two have a son, Diego. While Regina is pregnant with Diego, she befriends Ana, a young convert assigned to care for her during her pregnancy. Diego and Ana's son, Bernardo, grow up together and become close friends. As teenagers, Diego and Bernardo undergo a test to prove their maturity and to find their spirit guides. Bernardo's spirit guide is a horse and Diego's is a fox (zorro in his native Spanish).
Alejandro receives a letter from his old friend, Tomas de Romeu, who resides in French-occupied Spain. Tomas urges Alejandro to send Diego to Barcelona, where he can receive more formal schooling, and learn fencing under the famed maestro Manuel Escalante. Alejandro reluctantly allows Diego to go, with Bernardo accompanying him.
Upon arriving in Barcelona, Diego and Bernardo live with de Romeu and his two young daughters, Juliana and Isabel. Diego is immediately struck by Juliana and decides to pursue her romantically. Diego's main adversary for her affections is Rafael Moncada, whom Diego humiliates in a duel. At Escalante's invitation, Diego joins La Justicia, a secret organization devoted to justice, and takes the name Zorro.
The political landscape changes as Napoleon is exiled. Escalante and de Romeu are arrested for being French sympathizers. Diego convinces La Justicia to rescue Escalante. Juliana goes to Moncada and asks him to use his influence to release her father, Don de Romeu. He agrees on the condition that she marry him. She agrees, but Moncada is unable to secure a release and de Romeu is executed for treason. Moncada offers protection to Juliana in the hope that she will either marry him or become his mistress. She demands that he provide compensation for the loss of her father. He attacks Juliana but Diego and Isabel intervene, subduing Moncada.
The girls and Diego decide to leave the city and head for the Americas. After months of traveling on foot, dressed as religious pilgrims, they reach the port and board a ship captained by Diego's old friend, Santiago de León. When the ship reaches Cuba, it is attacked by a pirate crew led by Jean Lafitte. Diego and the girls are taken hostage. Lafitte takes them to his home in Louisiana, where they await a ransom from Alejandro de la Vega. Juliana becomes smitten with Lafitte, until she learns that he is married to a Creole woman named Catherine.
Diego begins gambling in New Orleans in an attempt to win enough money to buy their freedom. The girls use jewels they obtained before leaving Spain to buy their freedom. Lafitte returns the jewels back to Juliana, an indication of his love for her. Catherine's mother tells Juliana that Catherine had chosen Juliana to marry Lafitte and raise Catherine's child, Pierre. Juliana agrees to marry Lafitte and Diego and Isabel are freed.
Diego returns to California with Isabella and her chaperone, to find his father in prison and his lands confiscated by his arch-enemy, Moncada. Diego frees his father from prison, and gives him in to the care of the natives and his wife Regina to convalesce. Diego is captured and arrested, and freed by not one, but two Zorro figures. Zorro confronts Moncada, forces him to sign a confession of treason, and sends him back to Spain. Diego clears his father's name and has the charges dropped by the governor.
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
- Juliana de Romeu, Diego De La Vega's (Zorro's) first love interest. In the story she is a very beautiful women whom captures the attention of many men especially Moncada
- Isabel de Romeu, Juliana de Romeu's younger sister and at the end of the story she is revealed to have been the author of the book all along.
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 nursed by the same woman. He is the second protagonist of the novel. He is the son of Ana, a Native Californian maid who works in the De la Vega Hacienda. After he witnesses the rape and murder of his mother, he acts like a mute. He and Diego 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. Her name and role are taken from the 1997 cartoon The New Adventures of Zorro.
- Toypurnia / Regina de la Vega ("Daughter of Wolf") is the mother of Don Diego de la Vega. Her father was Diego Salazar, a Spanish renegade. She was fostered by wolves briefly during her childhood. She had other names, including Grey Wolf. Toypurnia/Regina figures prominently within the plot of the 2007 serial Zorro: La Espada y la Rosa. The historical Tongva 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: A Yokuts who led a revolt against the Mission San Jose in 1827.
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.