The Story of the Lost Child
Ratings50
Average rating4.4
15
Ratings50
Average rating4.4
OVER 14M OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE Nothing quite like this has ever been published before."— The Guardian "This is high stakes, subversive literature."— The Daily Telegraph "With the publication of her Neapolitan Novels, (Ferrante) has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy—and the world."— The Sunday Times "An unconditional masterpiece . . . I was totally enthralled."—Jhumpa Lahiri "An extraordinary epic."—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "To the uninitiated, Elena Ferrante is best described as Balzac meets The Sopranos and rewrites feminist theory."— The Times "Ferrante's writing seems to say something that hasn't been said before, in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep."— London Review of Books "Stunning. An intense, forensic exploration of friendship."— The Times Literary Supplement The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women— the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up—a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. In this final novel she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city's obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood. Proximity to the world she has always rejected only brings her role as its unacknowledged leader into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, Elena Ferrante tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women with unmatched honesty and brilliance.
Reviews with the most likes.
What a brilliant first half of the book. I would have given it 5 stars. Everything is fluid, everything is so well written. And then there is this plot twist and everything changes. Everything had to change, but here the story looses itself. I no longer recognize the characters, all their behaviors and words feel fake or exaggerated, the events are narrated one after the other like a distant enumeration. People grow old, ‘this is what happens to x, this is what happens to y'. Lenú's daughters plot feels rushed, stereotypical or simply not interesting. It feels like the rushed summary of each character's lives is only there to please the ready or to delay the moment when the writer will have to end the book. Starts chapters of descriptions of the city's monuments, Lenú older talking about the plot of this exact same book, more of Lenú rambling and describing her daily routine...The last quarter of the book feels completely unedited and ends with a somehow feel-good moment, so different from the previous style of the book.
In the end, I love this full series, but the ending of each book disappointed me deeply and often made me forget the brilliance of the rest of it. Then I remember why those books are part of my classics, and I let their brillo comfort and change me.
When i got to the second half, i just couldnt bare it anymore. I didnt enjoy this one as i did with the first three, i dont know maybe it was me and not the book but still, 3 stars sound great
Featured Series
4 primary booksL’amica geniale is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2011 with contributions by Elena Ferrante and Ann Goldstein.
