A North American Tale : THE INFINITE PLAN, <i> By Isabel Allende (HarperCollins: $23; 380 pp.)</i>

Like any well-brought-up woman of a certain age, Isabel Allende has often practiced the time-honored trick of acting the disciple to revered mentors, and then turning that trick around to do her mentors one better. Her “The House of the Spirits” was greatly indebted to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” but, for some readers at least, “The House of the Spirits” began to glow and hum and take off under its own speed, putting the fear of God and Literature into anyone who might have thought of Allende as anyone’s disciple. To have written that novel, filled as it is with magic and wit and unforgettable images and an aching social conscience, is to have perfectly lived the literary life.

Of course, there’s a downside to that kind of luminous triumph. You have to go on living and writing. In “The Infinite Plan,” Allende seems to have adopted a new set of literary relatives. These might include Bryce Courtenay, who wrote the South African-Australian “The Power of One”; Ayn Rand, whose brooding American hero strode around through “The Fountainhead”; and even James T. Farrell, who gave us those Studs Lonigan books. This novel, set in America, belongs to the tradition in which a larger-than-life white man seeks his fortune against incredible odds.

Strange! Why would she want to take that course? But we live in a free country. Isabel Allende can do what she wants. She can write about an obscure youth growing up in Los Angeles and living out his adulthood in San Francisco. She can take characters made dull by living through American history in this century. She can banish her “Spirits” and go for social realism if she wants to. But the nagging question still remains: Why on earth would she want to? Even if we are to look at this narrative as an allegory, we’ve seen this allegory a few times before.

The novel opens at what appears to be the tail end of the Great Depression. Young Gregory Reeves travels with his family hither and yon through the American West in a truck laden with everything nomads might need. His father, Charles Reeves, has had some kind of dubious mystical experience: “The Infinite Plan” has been revealed to him, and he preaches powerful sermons on the subject to a small but devout group of followers.

Although it isn’t spelled out, the infinite plan seems to owe a lot to Midwestern “New Thought” so popular at the end of the last century. It appears to have something to do with the unique American notion of creating one’s own reality, thinking positively, thinking “good thoughts.” Charles Reeves always preaches with a serpent twined around his feet, but this potent symbol of evil is a tame and torpid boa constrictor who’s never done anyone any harm.

Charles Reeves has two children: our hero, Gregory, and a feisty sister Judy. Reeves pere also travels with his wife, Nora, who is pale, spiritual and wan. He has another woman with him, Olga, who is colorful, spirited and energetic. Olga spends plenty of time in Mr. Reeves’s tent. (This purveyor of higher truths also molests his daughter Judy, so he can be said to travel with every kind of female physical gratification.)

After some plot twists, the Reeves family ends up in the barrio of East Los Angeles, where they are taken in by the indigenous population and treated very kindly, particularly by the Morales family. Young Gregory will make two fast friends in this loud, noisy, welcoming group: Juan Jose, his own age, his Latin mirror image; and the earthy Carmen.

So here we have a palette full of characters who look more than a little familiar: that pale Reeves mother who cares little for sex or things of this world, the sensual Olga who cares everything about sex and things of this world. Or, over in the Morales family, a mother who, in the words of the old Chinese proverb, “obeys, obeys and does what she likes,” and the patriarch with a gruff outside and a soft inside. We also have that best friend Juan Jose, and that other best friend, the earthy Carmen. Allende has set her stage; she should be ready to go.

The next 40 years of the novel follows these characters as they (and America) grow up. Young Gregory is taught about the nature of the world by a Communist elevator operator in a public library. Gregory’s natural entrepreneurship is encouraged by the earthy Carmen, who drags him across town to juggle and shine shoes for white folks. Gregory learns, to his dismay, that he is “poor,” and vows to become “rich.” He graduates from law school. He serves in Vietnam. Juan Jose perishes in this meaningless war.

You can predict that Gregory is going to take a wrong postwar turn, just as America can be said to have taken a wrong postwar turn. Our hero thinks only about money. He quickly marries a vapid blond tennis player. They have a daughter who becomes a heroin addict. He marries another vapid woman who has a son so hyperactive and badly brought up that he licks his food off the floor instead of forking it up off a plate. Well, what can you expect? “The entire nation,” Allende reminds us, “was on a spending binge, deep in a bacchanal of conspicuous consumption and noisy patriotism directed at recovering the pride lost in the humiliating defeat of Vietnam.”

Now, let’s pause to consider Isabel Allende and her usually brilliant writing style, her usually stylish narrative sweep, her trademark images that flame out in your mind and won’t ever go away. The mistreated wife in “The House of the Spirits,” for instance, who has her front teeth knocked out by her husband, purchases a bridge, but instead of putting these artificial teeth back into her mouth, wears them around her neck on a long ribbon, where their little gopher grin offers a silent commentary on all that occurs from then on.

Allende has thrown away images, style and magic in this new book. She has obviously created Gregory Reeves as a “hero.” He should be able to determine his own fate. He certainly does mirror the fate of his own country, but Allende can’t think of a thing for him to do. Bryce Courtenay’s hero could change his world. Ayn Rand’s hero certainly could change his world. Allende’s hero manages to marry those two throwaway wives, has those two problem children, serves in a stupid war, makes a lot of money at a job he can’t stand, loses a lot of money at a job he can’t stand, then ends up penniless but happy. His life is tiresome, predictable and dull. He manages only to survive, without fanfare or dash or fun.

I hope that I’m wrong about this book. I hope the magic is there, but that I just haven’t been able to recognize it. If, on the other hand, Allende has chosen a literary road closer to Theodore Dreiser or James T. Farrell than to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, we can only wish her well. Allende is a genius. She did write “The House of the Spirits.” She must know what she’s doing.