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

Over the past year and a bit I've read the four volumes that make up this continuous story of a great friendship, between two Italian women in postwar Italy, Lila and Elena.They grew up in Naples, forming a deep and defining alliance that somehow survived the decades, despite their diverging paths. The books should be read as one narrative (this is not a standalone novel), just as one reads War and Peace, say, or Proust's seven volumes; their appearance in separate volumes is only a publishing convenience. My initial response is one is of unbounded admiration. The books have taken me through a visceral, intensely candid, and at times exhilarating experience that no other narrative that I know of offers.Has friendship ever been anatomised so extensively, at such analytical depth, with so many shades from light to dark? And is there a more complex woman in modern literature than Lila? She is a seer and a shrew, yet profoundly kind-hearted, charismatic, controlling and manipulative, full of pride and courage, clever but modest, with a fearsome reputation in the neighbourhood. We see her only through Elena's eyes, of course, and we see how her constant presence in Elena's life, psychologically if not always physically, shapes her life, her thoughts, her reactions, her sense of self in ways that cannot be untangled. Lila's most essential role in Elena's life is to skewer her with the truth of her situation, that truth that she's been doing her best to hide from herself, and this makes at times for a stormy relationship where hate is mixed with love, where pride is battered, where incomprehensibility and wariness abound. It's never an easy friendship; it transcends any other in their lives; it is more important than that between the women and their parents, their children, their lovers. With one exception, perhaps: Lila's for her daughter Tina.At least, that's how Elena presents it. We always have to bear in mind this caveat and ask ourselves, is this what it was really like for Lila, or is this only what Elena saw and tried to understand? If Lila had written the story it would have been very different.Elena's life dramatises the difficulties of a single mother - whose emotional experiences with the men in her life turn out to be profoundly disappointing, though not disabling - struggling to carve out for herself a career as a novelist and journalist. Drawn back to Naples to be near Lila, living first with her lover Nino in a posher part of the city and thus semi-detached from Lila's life, and then in an apartment above Lila's when the going gets tough, the women draw closer together, share the duties of motherhood, become more like that composite personality we saw in earlier volumes. In the first third or so of the novel it's Lila that appears the most successful and settled of the two, happily living with Enzo, running a successful computer business, pregnant at the same time as Elena with a daughter. It's Elena that is suffering, floundering, apparently awry. But Lila faces two major crises, the first during an earthquake - a marvellous passage when the two women shelter together in their car during the terrifying quake - in which Lila reveals that her deepest fear is that the world that she controls with a fierce determination will suddenly dissolve its boundaries: she has episodes of terrifying disassociation. The second crises is bigger, involving the fate of her child, which nearly unhinges her and destroys all the happiness she has so painstakingly achieved: the clue is in the book's title.Their relationship is the foreground. In the middle are the host of other characters we've met before, and their fates are spun out with consistency, surprise and verve, not least Pietro, Elena's husband; Nino, her chameleon-like lover; her mother who is an emotional monster to the last but with whom she has some kind of reconciliation; her mother-in-law who plots against her reputation as a writer; Antonio (the only gay character in the book, incidentally); the Salara brothers who symbolise the criminal elements in the neighbourhood, and a host of others. (Thanks heavens for the Index of Characters!) In the background is Naples itself, which from time to time intrudes with violence and casts its shadow over the lives of all its inhabitants. By returning to the scenes of her childhood Elena not only hooks up with Lila again on a day to day basis, just as they did as kids, she is able to use her local knowledge and dialect - a dialect which often reflects an alternative identity - in her novels, giving them a flavour of authenticity which proves popular with her critics and readers. Lila, who in some senses represents Naples too - she never leaves it - opens her eyes to the real nature of the city.The narrative, one hardly needs to say, is brilliantly written, with many passages of great power. It is compulsive - but after the long stretches of reading, which it seems to insist on, it's exhausting, emotionally as well as intellectually. But it's a good, a satisfying, exhaustion, giving one the feeling that Ferrante is pushing us to the limits of literary experience while never losing sight of the primacy of narrative and the analysis of character.

Utterly brilliant

Last of the series and maybe I read them all to quick but it was a bit of a drag to get to the end and I felt less bothered about what was going to happen to the narrator. Interesting series though but not many characters to love or even like - is that real life?

It's hard to define exactly what makes the Neapolitan Quartet such an extraordinary achievement, and such a compelling experience for the reader; now sadly at an end with the publication of the final novel in the series (though these are books that demand repeated re-reading). On the face of it an extended bildungsroman, in fact the novels constitute something much deeper and more complex. The genius of Elena Ferrante, however, is to subvert a familiar genre in an utterly naturalistic and unselfconscious way; teasing allusions to previous incidents and elusive insights into things only half-said are weaved in to the relentless narrative with such profound subtlety that suggests the real mystery about Ferrante is whether she is some kind of psychological savant, or simply one of the most skillful novelists there has ever been. Credit must presumably also go to Ann Goldstein for preserving these delicate nuances in the English translation. This, the final book in the quartet, maintains the same position; there is no grand denouement or final twist as might have been expected, and as many novelists would no doubt have employed. For Ferrante, you feel, such a conclusion would be psychologically dishonest, and so the ending is enigmatic and in some ways unsatisfying - another example of her disregarding standard literary tropes in favour of an unflinching realism.Ultimately this is a series of novels about relationship and identity, and how we construct the former in the context of the latter. The friendship between Lenu and Lina is endlessly fascinating; what is the significance of the lifelong symbiosis in which they seem to alternate between the roles of host and parasite, rarely achieving an equilibrium? As a young woman, Elena makes her name assailing the conventional oppressions of gender and class which she believes constrain her ability to forge a different identity. But she is in fact Lina's creation; and throughout their lives Lenu defines herself in relation to Lina's expectations: sometimes striving to meet them; sometimes rebelling against; sometimes able to transcend for short periods; but always returning to the roles established in childhood. Ultimately, it seems that the final, unspoken, question for Lenu is whether she can reconstruct herself in the absence of Lina.Of course, the significance of identity as a central theme is made even more intriguing by the mystery surrounding Ferrante's herself. Personally, I have no difficulty accepting her stated reasons for wishing to preserve her anonymity, and I don't think it's necessary to infer from it that the Neapolitan novels are autobiographical. If Lenu 'is' Ferrante, then the autobiographical element must be pretty loose, otherwise her identity could be easily uncovered. But if there is an element of autobiography, surely it is more likely that Ferrante is in fact Lila? After all, the sentiment "once written, books have no further need of their authors" is heard far more readily in Lila's voice than Elena's. If so,' Lila''s authorship of the novels in the assumed voice of Lenu would represent the ultimate manifestation of their enmeshed identities. But that's the joy of these books; Ferrante disdains neat explanations, so the reader is left with endless possibilities to ponder.

One of the best books I have ever read.

The last of the 4 books in this series. Brilliant from start to finish. No idea what was going to happen from one page to the next. Just think Elena Ferrante is a brilliant writer and look forward to starting the next book !

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.

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.

c'est la première fois que je lisais une livre en anglais, fallait-il que je sois motivée, mais je ne me voyais pas attendre un an pour savoir la fin de l'histoire. Le dernier tome nous entraine dans un tourbillon d'émotions et d'évènements, on est comme pris par la centrifugeuse d'une machine à laver, La vie des deux amies, femmes, voisines, mères, rivales, et complices à la fois, ne nous laisse pas de répit. La fin du livre laisse en suspend plein de questions, on aurait presque envie qu'Elena Ferrante écrive un cinquième tome...

prachtige afronding van deze ijzersterke serie.Enkele zeer verassende wendingen en zoals steeds schitterende persoonsbeschrijvingen.Kandidaat voor een volgende Nobelprijs

It is the fourth volume of a fascinating story which flows continuously without ever boring. Ferrante's way of narrating is magical. It carries to its conclusion the friendship betwwen Lila and Lenù, that started with their childhood in the first volume. A continuous seesaw of preminence and control in the very competitive relationship between these two women, whose destiny, in spite of theri opposite personalities, are joined fot their entire lives. The psychological development of these two characters and of their friendship is analysed in every detail with extraordinary subtleness and sensitivity, and with a very deep insight into the human soul. All characters, actually, created by Ferrante come out vividly from the real world, and they acquire a permanent place in the imaginary of the reader as if they were alive.The world of the main characters - their families, their neighborhood - is then included in the larger portrait of the corrupted political and social scene of Italy, of which Naples is a simple reflection. A microcosmos with a thousand shades of Good and Evil, so entangled that it is impossible to give them a definite individual form.Through the everyday facts and details of the two protagonists, we are involved in the story of a whole city, of a country, of an age; n the problems and crises of our times, with a current of tension and suspense which keeps the reader glued from page to page. The tension increases towards the end, and, if at a certain point the narration seems to drag itself too much, it becomes soon clear that every tessera of this large mosaic is necessary to carry it to its stunning completion and enigmatic conclusion, appropriate for an enigmatic character like Lila, and her complex and intricate friendship with the narrator.This powerful quadrilogy is the result of a deep, intelligent and sensitive insight into human nature and social realities.