Los Angeles is painted as a virtual paradise with clear running streams, fields of grassland and clear skies that helps you understand why the Spanish came there. It is with the descriptions of the environment and understanding of the culture that Isabel Allende shines in her story telling.
I do not want to give too much away, but the story reads like a grand travelogue of adventure, peopled with the famous and not so famous of the period. Parts four and five deal with his escape from Spain and the return to Alta California. It is here that he receives his instruction with the sword by the finest teacher in Europe and also joins a secret society bound to help the disposed and oppressed (the fact that these are years of the Napoleons invasion of Spain only helps with these ideals). Parts two and three of the book deal with the years 1810 to 1814 and his further education in Barcelona. His mother, grandmother and best friend all enhance his life lessons and he begins to establish a personality that will lead to the establishment of Zorro. This is not to say that Diego’s instruction in life is only along the Spanish line. His marriage is to a woman of a socially unacceptable strata, but his position and popularity as Alcalde supersedes this “problem.” With the birth of his son, Diego, his father starts to educate him in the ways of a Spaniard of his class, through Padre Mendoza of Mission San Gabriel. There he acquires a large land grant, marries and becomes Alcalde of the pueblo of Los Angles. You are first introduced to his father, Alejandro de la Vega, a soldier of the Hidalgo Class who comes to Alta California and settles in the Los Angeles basin. This story is told in six parts that encompass the years 1790 to 1815, with a brief epilogue in 1840. But, how did Zorro become Zorro? What prompted him to lead this life of altruistic values? Well, Isabel Allende has created the answer with her usual literary style plus a dash of panache. That is the picture many of us have had enhanced by the three movies and one TV show that has dealt with the subject. We think of a 19th century Robin Hood in early Spanish California with great swashbuckling capabilities. Zorro – the name conjures up a man in a black hat, mask and cape swooping in with sword in hand, stepping from the shadows or galloping in from the countryside to help the oppressed and downtrodden right the wrongs done to them.
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