The Story of the Lost Child: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 4)

How do I write about my reading of The Neapolitan books and their completion in “The Story of the Lost Child” with unemotional clarity? I have been obsessed with these books ever since I began them some months ago yet in the final book, almost daily, I had to stop, put it aside, and steel myself to read the next chapter because I was so emotionally invested in the story and so distraught. Each new page brought a new experience of emotional disaster. These stories, in four volumes, about the life of two little girls who form a friendship while living in a poor neighborhood in 1950’s Naples Italy, to their matricuation as women in the time of now, are not happy stories. Yet, I think, Elena Ferrante is the best living writer on Earth today.I finished the book on an evening when my wife was away visiting her parents. I wish I wouldn’t have. You need someone to cuddle with, to recover with, after you finish this story. I spent the night and into the morning questioning everything about my life and how I’ve lived it. I questioned my family, my education, my work, my children, my relationships, my motivations, my past, and my future. But mostly I questioned my friendships and the state of them and their failures. I am a 61 years old male, essentially the same age as Lenu, the narrator of the story. Certainly if I’d read these books at age 30 I would read them with a completely different perspective then when I read them now. But now is when I read them and, like the author telling the story of her life, with the good and very directly the bad, I can’t help but form a related assessment of my own life. It’s a very scary thing to do.The cover and end plates of the book with recommendations from authors and critics describe these books very well. In my own words they are devastating, demanding, direct, unrelenting, fascinating, horrific, emotional, unsympathetic, visceral, lucid, loving, hateful, explosive, and all consuming. What they are clearly not is fiction. These stories seem incredibly real and that’s because every analysis says that for the most part these are real experiences.I have read Game of Thrones and watched the television series and enjoyed them immensely. They are a horrific and highly memorable fantasy. The Neapolitan series is every bit as fraught with danger, duplicity, and deviousness as Game of Thrones except that they are not fantasy and that makes them, at times, almost unbearable. When I read the first two books I thought to myself that the only entertainment franchise who could put this on the screen is HBO. So I looked it up. HBO is bringing the series to television. From my assessment it will be the next “Game of Thrones” style global phenomenon.I highly recommend these stories. They contain sentences and descriptions of life that many times made me stop and consider whether that sentence, which I had just read, wasn’t one of the most beautiful and evocative sentences ever written. That kind of experience is extremely pleasurable to me, but give yourself time to recover. The life and relationship of Lila and Lenu is not a kind one.Note: Although I have the physical books for reference I “read” all of these books in audio format from Audible. The narrator, Hillary Huber, is so incredibly good that, in my mind, she will forever be the voice of Lila and Lenu.

Never have I read four books by the same author with such speed. Now that I think of it, I have never read four books by the same author, ever! But I could not put the Neapolitan Novels down. I read in the middle of the night, in the line at the grocery store, in between sets at the gym, and yes, even in traffic. It’s difficult to pinpoint what made this series so compelling for me. From a distance, it seems to be a story of neighborhood gossip and intrigue. But the stories go so much deeper. Ferrante creates a web of intriguing relationships, a story of the ebb and flow of life, pushed forward by the characters as they go along through their lives from childhood to old age. The characters become yours. You love them. You will not want the story to end.Each story is told from inside the mind of Elena Greco. Her every thought is laid out for you to examine. Most of her thoughts were not pretty. Since she was 6 years old, she has been obsessed with and is in competition with her best friend, Lila. In every thought she has, every move she makes, she wonders if Lila will do better than her. She lives her life every day comparing herself to Lila, defining herself by Lila, denying her own feelings to impress Lila. As she matures, she relies on Lila to provide inspiration for her career as a writer. But she never shares her feelings with Lila. In fact, she expends a great deal of energy denying her true feelings to Lila.Growing up in an impoverished neighborhood in Naples, Italy in the 1960’s, we follow the girls as they develop, from scrawny and awkward girls to beautiful women. Lila is brilliant, but her parents do not allow her to go to middle school. Middle school is a luxury only for the few who can afford it. Elena goes to middle school, high school and college, with the financial assistance of her professors. Lila goes to the library, she studies alone, she learns Latin and Greek and even tutors Elena. As she grows, Lila becomes the object of every man’s obsession. It first appears that her life will be charmed, that she will have all the things money can buy and great happiness.As time goes on, we see how their circumstances and their decisions define their hardships and successes throughout life. We follow the women as they become estranged, then intensely close. Never is anything steady in this relationship. Elena writes constantly about Lila, yet many times through her life she wants to avoid her.These books address many of the issues present during these times in Italy, from the ‘60’s to the beginning of this century. Politics and corruption, violence and poverty, the abuse of the workers, the advent of technology and the personal computer.Marriage and motherhood suppress the talents of women. All men misbehave in these stories. Each one proves himself to be a disappointment in one way or another. One man physically abuses, another sexually abuses, one abandons his responsibility to his children, another is a philanderer and deceiver.Elena has a successful career as a writer, but her husband minimizes her career. She is “just” a fiction writer, while he is an important university professor. He torments her nightly with his sexual demands, never thinking of pleasing her. She must carry the responsibility of the children herself. She raises the children alone. Her three girls believe she thinks only of herself. They complain that she thinks only of her own career, and not of them. Yet they do not hold their father to the same standard. In fact, even though the father was largely absent in their lives, they idolize him.The Story of the Lost Girl is the most poignant of the four stories. I will not spoil the story by revealing the plot. I will only say that Elena Ferrante nails human nature in this story. She nails what is the normal and often very hurtful response to tragedy. She has great insight into human nature, and the nature of relationships. I hope that she will continue the series with the lives of the children of Elena and Lila. I want more from this wonderful writer.

One of the better book series I’ve read

Genial.

Writing this close to the truth of how we feel in our heads is rarely voiced. I haven’t yet read anything like this quartet.. an amazing tale of Lenu & Lila’s childhood friendship through the years till their twilight years. A must read.

Spannend und nicht trivial. Eine nicht allzu high-brow unterhaltsame Literatur. Alle 4 Bücher lassen sich in einem Atemzug lesen. Empfehlenswert!

The book is about the friendship of two women, from childhood to old age, in the context of violence and degradation of the outskirts of Naples from the 1950s to our days.I couldn't take my eyes off the pages. I was totally captured by the story of Lenù (the first person narrator) and Lila and I could identify myself with them both.The author has a great psychological insight into the female mind and the ambiguousness and two-facedness of a female friendship: love and hate, admiration and envy, imitation and rivalry. Morbid feelings that hardly a woman can confess even to herself. And always that disturbing and enthralling impression that there is something more hiding between the lines. Something like a cathartic confession of unsayable feelings.The two characters are so alive that you feel that you are reading a true story and you want to get to know more about them.Who is actually the bad one of the two? Who is really the intriguing and fascinating Lila? Which of the two is the brilliant friend of the title? And how much of all this is based on reality? Does Lila really exist? All this escapes the final grasp of the reader.Great job Elena Ferrante, whoever you are.