Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “The Story of the Lost Child (The Neapolitan Novels, #4)” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

The Story of the Lost Child (L'amica geniale #4)

Elena Ferrante,

Ann Goldstein (Translator)

4.39 · Rating details · 41,871 Ratings · 3,700 Reviews

Here is the dazzling saga of two women, the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults; life’s great discoveries have been made, its vagaries and losses have been suffered. Through it all, the women’s friendship has remained the gravitational center of their lives.

Both women once fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up— ...more

Get A Copy

Or buy for

Paperback, 480 pages

Published September 1st 2015 by Europa Editions (first published October 29th 2014)

More Details... edit details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about The Story of the Lost Child, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Goodreads Picks For Tournament of Books 2016

281 books — 1,343 voters

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

Man Booker International Prize: Eligible Books 2016

152 books — 86 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30)

Rating details

Sort: Default

Filter

Aug 06, 2015 Diane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobooks, italy, modern-fiction

This novel nearly broke me.

The Story of the Lost Child is beautifully heartbreaking. It is the culmination of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series, and it wraps up the story of two friends, Elena and Lila. I spent my summer with these two women. I read the first book, My Brilliant Friend, just to see what all the Ferrante Fever fuss was about, and I didn't expect to read any more of the series. But I ended up intrigued and wanting more, and I gobbled up Books 2 and 3 as quickly as I could.

In this ...more

flag 275 likes · Like · see review

Jan 21, 2016 Maxwell rated it it was amazing

Shelves: translated, 2016, i-own-it

I'm done. I'm actually done. The journey is over, and what a wonderful journey it was. Maybe soon I will be able to write a better review, but for now I can only say that this series is truly unlike anything I've read. It's a modern masterpiece, and Elena Ferrante is one of the greatest living authors. I'm sure to revisit these books again and again and again. In the mean time, goodbye Lila & Lenu. It's been a pleasure.

flag 254 likes · Like · see review

Aug 09, 2015 Julie Christine rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-of-2015, italy-theme-setting, read-2015

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land

Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

~The Doors, "The End"

Nothing about th

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land

Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

~The Doors, "The End"

Nothing about the way the Neapolitan Novels has captured and held me spellbound makes sense. Pages of expository text barely broken by a paragraph indent; characters relentlessly bashing their heads against poverty and violence, returning again and again to the places and people that have caused them the greatest misery; periods of hope and redemption brought to bitter ends by poor choices and slashing domestic acrimony. And yet. And yet. I know that by reading Elena Ferrante's bildungsroman, I have partaken in one of the greatest literary journeys, feasts, dreams, accomplishments of the 21st century. It isn't so much that the Neapolitan Novels, built on the simple premise of a female friendship from childhood to old age, breaks new ground. It's that Ferrante returns us to the best of what we can be as readers: thoughtful, patient, introspective, willing to dig deep into layers of meaning, to see beyond the cold surface of quotidian events to the simmering magma of emotion beneath. In eras past, Eliot, Mann, Tolstoy, Woolf, Hardy demanded the same and the rewards of Ferrante are as great.

This final installment brings Elena Greco full circle, back to the neighborhood she fled as a young woman—first to the towers of academe, then to literary acclaim, spending her young adulthood and her early years as a wife and mother in the orderly, civilized north of Italy. But as her friend Lila had done years before, Elena throws propriety and security to the winds and follows her passion back to Naples, the scene of so much crime in the streets, so many crimes of the heart. That passion is the fickle Nino, the man-boy to whom both women sacrifice their burgeoning self-determination. I'm just full of lyrics today—as I think of Nino, of young Lila's and not-so-young Elena's obsession with his empty soul, I hear Paul Simon lamenting: "I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest, hmmmm".

We know from the very beginning—hundreds of pages ago, when we embarked on this political and personal Odyssey—that Lila has disappeared as an elderly woman, at the twisted and burnt end of her rope. But where has she gone? The legacy she leaves behind is that molten lava roiling beneath the surface, and in The Story of the Lost Child, the hard, black earth is rent open, letting the impossible heat burst forth. Elena seems more curious than concerned by Lila's disappearance. Her friend's presence hovers, thick and insistent, over every aspect of her life; Lost Child illustrates how and why this friendship has endured despite the psychological damage each woman inflicts on the other.

The title, The Story of the Lost Child, can be taken for its literal meaning, as the plot bursts with tension and tragedy. But the entire collection speaks to children lost in this Neapolitan ghetto, the children we met pages and heartbreaks ago. We witnessed their twisted paths to adulthood over the course of four novels, until at last we npw stand with them at a reckoning place. The great loss is the reader's, knowing we must bid our final goodbyes to the Grecos, Cerullos, Carraccis, Pelusos, Sarratores and so many others, with so much left unsaid and unknown.

And undone. Oh, how our hearts are utterly undone. ...more

flag 197 likes · Like · see review

Oct 29, 2016 Violet wells rated it it was amazing

Shelves: faves, italy, 21st-century

I’ve never read a series before. Finally I understand why people sleep outside bookstores the day before the next instalment is due to be published. Were there to be a book five I might well zipper myself inside a bag outside Feltrinelli the night before release. Except there will be no next instalment here. I’m done. Lila has left my life and I will never know anything more about her. I feel horribly bereft.

Book Four has less of a feel of fictional memoir about it; it reads more like a novel. I’ve never read a series before. Finally I understand why people sleep outside bookstores the day before the next instalment is due to be published. Were there to be a book five I might well zipper myself inside a bag outside Feltrinelli the night before release. Except there will be no next instalment here. I’m done. Lila has left my life and I will never know anything more about her. I feel horribly bereft.

Book Four has less of a feel of fictional memoir about it; it reads more like a novel. It contains some clever post-modernist tricks, most notably the book within a book theme. Elena Greco finally writes about Lila, except it isn’t these books (these books play no part whatsoever in her story); it’s a seventy page novella called Friendship. Meanwhile she has the suspicion that Lila is writing secretly about Naples. In spirit, these have always been Lila’s books. Now Elena lets slip the possibility that maybe they really are Lila’s books. Vanity is probably the central theme of this book but authorship is also a prevailing theme. Ferrante asks many probing questions about the nature of authorship. And we end up asking, who is the author of the Neapolitan series?

Elena becomes rather more disagreeable in this book. She becomes vain and a bit petty. Especially in contrast to Lila, who seems to live without any recourse to vanity, which is why perhaps she’s such a compelling and deeply fascinating character. The only other author I can recall who attempted to create a character free of vanity was Dostoevsky with The Idiot and, brilliant as that was, I'd have to say Ferrante did a better job than he did. It began to bother me how disagreeable I was finding Elena and her vanity. I wasn’t at all sure this was what Ferrante intended. Then I realised that what Ferrante intended was probably exactly the confusion I was feeling. This isn’t one of those run of the mill novels where every character is morally and emotionally consistent and so has a clearly designated and manipulative charge and endgame. It’s a novel that constantly springs surprises, that constantly makes you stop and question lazy emotional and moral assumptions you realise you harbour. One thing Ferrante does so well is get at the anatomy of every strong emotion. Emotions aren’t single and straightforward. Every emotion carries the charge of its opposite. Emotion in fact is often us arguing with ourselves. She shows how hate can be simultaneously present with love, jealousy with aspiration, admiration with resentment, conviction with doubt. I don't think any writer has done arguing better than Ferrante. You could say the books are one protracted argument – everyone is constantly arguing, romantically, domestically, politically, socially - and you come to realise that this what life is, a long protracted messy argument. Lila is almost like some magical touchstone creature. Even when she appears to be wrong she turns out to be right. I don’t think she’s wrong once in the entire novel and yet she’s far from some simplistic Obi Wan Kenobi; she’s hugely complex, volatile, divisive, contradictory, spontaneous, calculated, adorable, obnoxious. She bristles with lived life on every page. In contrast, the more of Elena’s vanity we see the more we doubt that Elena Greco could have written these novels. You begin to feel only Lila could have.

For me Lila is up there with Anna Karenina, Molly Bloom and Mrs Ramsey as one of the great female characters of literature. No question in my mind Ferrante will be on the classics shelf in two hundred years.
...more

flag 142 likes · Like · see review

Jan 22, 2016 Hadrian rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, italian

Slum, Naples, Italy, 1947

In reading the 'Neapolitan series' of Elena Ferrante, I am constantly reminded of the clear influence of 19th-century realism - description of ordinary or familiar events as they are, with digressions into political events or societal norms to fill in the background. But the ordinary or real does not mean the banal.

One could reasonably say that this is series of war novels. It speaks without bombast or pretensions, and describes, with precise and subtle prose, a war of attrition. This war is one of slow-burning family arguments with no real end even after long bouts of shouted insults, of the slow suffocation social roles telling you what you must and must not be. There is a code word spoken very early in the first volume which tipped me off to the later developments of the rest of the book, when the two girls talk about Little Women. But how would it be possible for one of them to be both a woman and a writer?

This volume, as all the others, deals with social aspirations and the cycle of poverty - how dare you want to be like them, to go to university, to write a book, do you think you're better than us? Elena's mother, with her crooked leg and frail body, is a driver for her to escape, a shambling phantom behind her, a symbol of the deformations of the past.

Each of the four volumes has an established theme: the development of resentment and friendship in childhood, the limitations of social boundaries, the compromises and confinements of marriage, and the establishment of regrets in old age. Of course these are not four discrete topics, but they build upon each other, as one's life builds upon experiences of the past. Little elements or details which might not seem like much in the beginning are the foundations of emotional triumphs and resentments. And of course the author is not so blunt as to just tell you such a thing happened, but to show individual reactions, facial expressions, choices in words, who talks to who and who avoids who. The implications are the thing.

I feel like I've said too much and too little already. I very seldom say this, but this is a series I will read again. ...more

flag 116 likes · Like · see review

Aug 25, 2017 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: italian-21st-c, fiction, novels, series, favorites

[UPDATED - SEE BELOW]
I can't believe it's over! I mean really, after finishing Ferrante's riveting tetralogy, I feel a sense of loss. The fourth volume was fast-paced and full of reveals (no spoilers!). It was hard to read at several points, but always entertaining and thought provoking. If you have not read it yet, please do so this year. Definitely a journey to Naples that you do not want to miss.

One thing that struck me with this series is the similarities and differences with another classic [UPDATED - SEE BELOW]
I can't believe it's over! I mean really, after finishing Ferrante's riveting tetralogy, I feel a sense of loss. The fourth volume was fast-paced and full of reveals (no spoilers!). It was hard to read at several points, but always entertaining and thought provoking. If you have not read it yet, please do so this year. Definitely a journey to Naples that you do not want to miss.

One thing that struck me with this series is the similarities and differences with another classic story which crosses four decades in as many books: the Rabbit Tetralogy by John Updike. I have reviewed all four Rabbit books here in GR, but if you are not familiar with them, Updike follows Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom from the 50s to the 80s with one book per decade. The Ferrante series is similar even if the boundaries are not drawn as clearly between books as in Updike and covers roughly the same period as the Neapolitan series. Similarly, the character of Rabbit is deeply developed like that of Lena and Lila. Where Rabbit is quintessentially American in his own unique and depraved way, Lena and Lila are quintessentially Neapolitan. I think that rural Pennsylvania and metropolitan Naples are quite different geographically, but both serve as a evolving canvas backdrops upon which the central dramas play out. I just think that if you read the Updike books, you'd probably enjoy the Ferrante ones and vice versa in terms of a look a slice of life from the middle to the end of the 20th century seen on two different continents and from the perspective of the two sexes.

[SPOILER SECTION - STOP HERE OR BEWARE!]
I really enjoyed the allegory of the doll which brought the story full circle from the beginning of the relationship between Lena and Lila and was a beautiful reminder of that first wonderful book. Further, the disappearance of Tina (for which I enjoyed the ambiguity, almost dreamlike, in not knowing definitively her fate) was also a beautiful allegory for the lost innocence (and sanity to a degree?) of Lila and the loss of intimacy between here and Lena.

In all four books, it was wonderful to feel Naples like a character in the book (much like Paris in L'Education Sentimental). There are moments when you feel like you are overhearing Lena and Lila in a café or crossing them in a park. The city evolves around them in colors, smells, and great differences in wealth and power.

There is a Proustian feel to Ferrante's writing, although as one of my friends pointed out, the male characters (Enzo, Piero, Nino, etc) here are not as three-dimensional as the female characters (whereas in La Recherche, Odille, Gilberte, and Albertine are all much more profound). But still there is a nice on-ne-sais-quoi in her phrasing, her descriptions, and her unique female sensibility that lends a limpidity and beauty to her prose that is just so pleasurable to read. ...more

flag 126 likes · Like · see review

Jul 19, 2015 Elyse rated it it was amazing

Book Four....The Final Conclusion to the Neapolitan novels:

And so this story begins.....-[page 1]:
"From October 1976 until 1979, when I returned to Naples to live, I avoided resuming a steady relationship with Lila. But it wasn't easy. She almost immediately tried to reenter my life by force, and I ignored her, tolerated her, endured her. Even if she acted as if there were nothing she wanted more than to be close to me at a difficult moment, I couldn't forget the contempt with which she had trea ...more

flag 86 likes · Like · see review

Nov 06, 2014 Francesca Marciano rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

There is a terrible sense of loss once you reach the last line of the last volume of Ferrante's saga, her writing is so addictive, it has kept me company for over a year now and waiting for the next installment of the story has been a delightful suspense.I feel abandoned to my own device now that the curtain fell on this wonderful story. The last volume "La bambina Perduta" has just been published in Italy,so I've devoured it in three days and it's not a disappointment. It has a somehow slow sta ...more

flag 85 likes · Like · see review

Oct 27, 2014 Orsodimondo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: italiana

IL CERCHIO SI CHIUDE

description

Diventare amiche: …mi diede la mano. Questo gesto cambiò tutto tra noi per sempre.

Per il primo paio di pagine ho fatto un po’ fatica a riannodare il filo: benché il racconto riprenda esattamente dal punto dove era stato interrotto la volta precedente, alla fine del terzo romanzo, Storia di chi parte e di chi resta, è comunque passato un anno da allora.
Ma è stata una sensazione di breve durata: in poco tempo Elena Ferrante mi ha preso e portato via, mi ha trascinato con sé, al ...more

flag 84 likes · Like · see review

Apr 24, 2017 PorshaJo rated it really liked it

Shelves: audio, challengereads, challengereads-2017

What can I say about this book that has yet to be said. This is the fourth and final book in The Neapolitan Novels. It is the culmination of the lifetime of two dominate, strong women. It is the story of one lost child and the impact it has on so many lives. But it's also so much more. It is the final story of many of the characters that lived in this town and came in and out of Lila and Elena lives.

I'm not sure how to feel about this one. On one hand, I'm happy to hear more of the story of thes What can I say about this book that has yet to be said. This is the fourth and final book in The Neapolitan Novels. It is the culmination of the lifetime of two dominate, strong women. It is the story of one lost child and the impact it has on so many lives. But it's also so much more. It is the final story of many of the characters that lived in this town and came in and out of Lila and Elena lives.

I'm not sure how to feel about this one. On one hand, I'm happy to hear more of the story of these two women and all the wonderful characters in the neighborhood. But then, I'm sad as this is the final installment and I will no longer be able to hear more of them. Their life stories have been told. I will say, of all the books, this is my least favorite. Elena was so self-indulgent and selfish. She seems to thrive almost on the tension of her friendship with Lila. She seems obsessed about what Lila is doing and that she is better than Lila. Lila on the other hand, at times, I found her very mean. But is she stronger than Elena even though she has never left the neighborhood? I think through the love-hate relationship these two have, it pushes them to strive to find their better selves. And I would have thought by the fourth book I would remember who everyone is...but nope. There were times I still had to look someone up and figure out who they were. I also felt towards the end of the book, it seemed to move through 'life' rather quickly. All of sudden you got glimpses of things...Elena children/grandchildren, Lila's disappearance. I wanted more, I wanted the full details of the story.

This is a wonderful series of books that I would tell anyone to read. But be aware, there is murder, adultery, crime, death, drug abuse, violence within. After all these books, I still can't put my finger on why these books are so captivating. Perhaps it's the hope that this IS a true story, that it's based on real people. I listened to this entire series via audio narration and the narrator, Hillary Huber, is wonderful and gives life to these two amazing characters. ...more

flag 80 likes · Like · see review

Feb 24, 2018 Manny rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: french, strongly-recommended, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, transcendent-experiences

[From Celle qui fuit et celle qui reste]

Whenever you read a book that the author seriously cared about, you realise after a while that in fact it's two books: there's the book that got written, the one you're holding in your hands, and there's the other book, the one the author wanted to write but couldn't, due to the problems inherent in being a mortal human being. Sometimes the distance between the two books is close enough that you can believe they're the same. (I don't know how one would i [From Celle qui fuit et celle qui reste]

Whenever you read a book that the author seriously cared about, you realise after a while that in fact it's two books: there's the book that got written, the one you're holding in your hands, and there's the other book, the one the author wanted to write but couldn't, due to the problems inherent in being a mortal human being. Sometimes the distance between the two books is close enough that you can believe they're the same. (I don't know how one would improve Candide or Alice in Wonderland; maybe Voltaire and Carroll did). But in other cases, it's clear that the two books are different. The authors of the New Testament would have liked to set down a clear and complete account of the life of Jesus Christ and the events it inspired, but, since the four Gospels contradict each other on numerous points, they must have fallen short of their ambition. For similar but slightly more complicated reasons, it seems that Plato's Dialogues also fail to report accurately the teachings of Socrates. Moving on to more recent cases, Wittgenstein famously apologised for not being able to write a better book than the Philosophical Investigations, which nonetheless is often cited as the twentieth century's most influential work of philosophy; and, a personal favorite, Jan Kjærstad's Jonas Wergeland trilogy gives you numerous clues about the nature of the true, ideal version of the book, and how it differs from the imperfect copy you have received.

I think Elena Ferrante's L'amica geniale also belongs to this distinguished club. On the surface, the novel is straightforward. It appears to be a minutely detailed, ultra-realistic account of the narrator's life, starting with her childhood in a poor quarter of Naples and showing how she becomes a famous author who, in particular, has written this book. The unifying theme, which gives the novel its title, is her friendship with Lila, a woman she has known since they were both small children. If you read it in this way, it's easy to see why it's often been compared to Knausgård's Min kamp, another long and ostensibly autobiographical ultra-realistic novel. I did indeed start reading both Knausgård and Ferrante from this obvious point of view, and I'm not trying to convince you that there's anything wrong with that. Perhaps both novels are just what they appear to be on the surface. But, at least from my perspective, they diverged more and more as they progressed. What Knausgård wants to do, it seemed to me, is to show you how suspect the whole notion is of being a novelist. You take your life and the lives of the people around you, and you turn them into a story which you sell for money. There's a certain amount of this in Ferrante too, and some of the moral disgust that Knausgård so effectively inspires. But I don't think that's the core of the book.

Knausgård is, or at least pretends to be, an egotist, and his book is all about ego, and in interviews he sticks to the line that everything in it is true. But Ferrante has gone to great lengths to stay anonymous, and no one knows who she is. She drops hints in her novel, which contains numerous novels-within-the-novel, that at least some of it is true. Evidently the narrator, who's also called Elena and who also claims to have written the book, could to a certain extent be her. But it's also clear that Elena Greco can't be the same person as Elena Ferrante. And at the same time, she drops contradictory hints that the book may not really have been written by either Elena. Maybe it was written by Lila. But finally she denies this too.

The thing that makes the book so unusual is that it manages to keep the ambiguity between truth and fiction all the way through. We don't know if Elena really exists; all we know is that someone who calls herself Elena exists, that she wrote L'amica geniale, and that, in some unspecified way, it is inspired by real events. But more and more, one feels that the identity of the author is irrelevant. The important character isn't the vain, superficial, and not overly bright Elena. It's her friend Lila, who comes across as a truly admirable person; a person one could compare with Socrates, whom Plato says was, of all the men of his time he had known, "the wisest and justest and best". Lila is sometimes described in similar terms, by people who are surprised to hear themselves say it. Elena is ultimately disappointed with her novel, because she knows she has failed. She has lost Lila, and despite all her work she hasn't been able to tell us what she was really like.

Did Lila exist, in some sense? I assume we will never find out. But at least we have this account of her life, distorted and imperfect and incomplete as it is. It's a completely stunning achievement. ...more

flag 72 likes · Like · see review

Feb 16, 2018 Candi rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, european-literature, book-i-own

3.5 stars

"I’ve been writing for too long, and I’m tired; it’s more and more difficult to keep the thread of the story taut within the chaos of the years, of events large and small, of moods. So either I tend to pass over my own affairs to recapture Lila and all the complications she brings with her or, worse, I let myself be carried away by the events of my life, only because it’s easier to write them."

Gosh, relationships - particularly those of the ‘girlfriends’ variety - are quite complex, are 3.5 stars

"I’ve been writing for too long, and I’m tired; it’s more and more difficult to keep the thread of the story taut within the chaos of the years, of events large and small, of moods. So either I tend to pass over my own affairs to recapture Lila and all the complications she brings with her or, worse, I let myself be carried away by the events of my life, only because it’s easier to write them."

Gosh, relationships - particularly those of the ‘girlfriends’ variety - are quite complex, aren’t they? Never before have I ever read about a friendship in such microscopic and candid detail as that of Elena and Lila. Never before have I been forced to examine my own friendships with such excruciating rigor. I’m honestly worn out! Yet, this series will stay with me forever. Having started Book 1, My Brilliant Friend, over a year ago, I have finally made my way through to this last in the series. I know, you’re probably thinking it took me a rather long time to get through a relatively short series; after all, there are only four books total. Personally, there’s no way I could have devoured these books one after the other, although many did just that.

I’ve reviewed the first three Neapolitan books, so I’m going to keep this relatively brief. Truly, the entire series feels like one long, epic novel, simply divided into four parts. Each builds on the previous installment in a linear fashion, therefore making it necessary to read them in order. I get the feeling that the entire collection is autobiographical in nature, although this last book has me really questioning exactly whose story is this – is it Elena’s, as I originally assumed, or is this truly Lila’s story? It is written from Elena’s first person point of view. Her character is that of an author; she has the fame from her books, has travelled and is formally educated. Lila on the other hand never left Naples, never finished high school. She remained in the violent neighborhood of her childhood, yet acquiring her own large degree of influence and success. In one sense, I have a difficult time separating Lila from the city of Naples itself, maybe even from the volatile mass of Mount Vesuvius, towering over all, sometimes explosive, other times merely smoldering, but always present. In any case, Lila is a fascinating character. "However much she had always dominated all of us and had imposed and was still imposing a way of being, on pain of her resentment and her fury, she perceived herself as a liquid and all her efforts were, in the end, directed only at containing herself. When, in spite of her defensive manipulations of persons and things, the liquid prevailed, Lila lost Lila, chaos seemed the only truth, and she – so active, so courageous – erased herself and, terrified, became nothing."

This novel is not only about the strength of a friendship, despite its changeability, but also an intelligent and thought-provoking discourse about motherhood, marriage, feminism, and the craft of writing. How is a woman’s identity shaped by education, culture, and her relationships with her children, her parents, her spouses, her lovers and her friends? It’s a tribute to Naples as only Lila can voice so passionately: "… what a splendid and important city: here all languages are spoken, here everything was built and everything torn down, here the people don’t trust talk and are very talkative, here is Vesuvius which reminds you every day that the greatest undertaking of powerful men, the most splendid work, can be reduced to nothing in a few seconds by the fire, and the earthquake, and the ash, and the sea."

Having closed the last page in The Story of the Lost Child, I have to make a small confession: I am relieved. I was overwhelmed by the time I reached the two-thirds point in this novel. It’s truly a mental exercise of Olympian proportions to examine in such detail the inner workings of a friendship to such length. You couldn’t pay me to do that with my own relationships – I may in the end have nothing left! Yet, I am quite pleased to have read these – Ferrante’s skill is indisputable.

"Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity."
...more

flag 67 likes · Like · see review

Jul 15, 2015 Kelly rated it really liked it

Shelves: cultural-meetings, 21st-century, coming-soon-to-a-blog-near-you, examined-lives, fiction, grande-dames, identity-crisis, owned, shes-quite-an-original-my-dear, its-the-quiet-ones

This review originally appeared on my blog, ShouldaCouldaWoulda Books.

I’ve been writing for too long, and I’m tired; it’s more and more difficult to keep the thread of the story taut within the chaos of the years, of events large and small, of moods…What to do then? Admit yet again that she is right? Accept that to be adult is to disappear, is to learn to hide to the point of vanishing?

It’s been a few weeks, but I’m finally able to deal with this. This is the last novel in Elena Ferrante’s celeb ...more

flag 65 likes · Like · see review

Apr 03, 2018 Warwick rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, italy, naples

The tunnel on the edge of the neighbourhood, beyond which Lila couldn't pass.

When I arrived in Naples I had just read the Claudio Gatti article which claimed to expose Elena Ferrante's real identity. I remembered being amazed, when it had come out back in 2016, by the fury it had provoked. People were outraged! Not just readers but literary editors too had lined up to condemn the piece – putting across, in the process, a lot of wrong-headed ideas about ‘the death of the author’ which should real ...more

flag 61 likes · Like · see review

Sep 06, 2015 Malia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-of-2015, favorites, literary-fiction, women-s-fiction

Brilliant, though I'm feeling a bit bereft now. Better review to follow, but for now I'll just say that this has been a year of great reads for me, highlighted boldly by Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels. Read them, trust me.
Find more reviews and bookish fun at http://www.princessandpen.com

flag 52 likes · Like · see review

Oct 04, 2015 Margitte rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015-read, drama, family-sagas, fiction, italy, reviewed

After reading all four books in the series, I am still unsure whether this is a fictional memoir, or a story based on the truth. It probably is a little of both. There is a showcase full of people involved: the Grecos, Cerullos, Carraccis, Pelusos, Sarratores , and the path of tragedy and heartbreak is as difficult as it can get for all of them, no matter how well veneered their lives seemed to be.

Lila and Elena completed their journey in this final book in the series. The first book started out After reading all four books in the series, I am still unsure whether this is a fictional memoir, or a story based on the truth. It probably is a little of both. There is a showcase full of people involved: the Grecos, Cerullos, Carraccis, Pelusos, Sarratores , and the path of tragedy and heartbreak is as difficult as it can get for all of them, no matter how well veneered their lives seemed to be.

Lila and Elena completed their journey in this final book in the series. The first book started out with Lila disappearing. Elena wrote down their story to explain Lila's disappearance, on the one hand, but on the other hand also figure out where she could have gone.

In this book they both return to their childhood neighborhood through circumstances, and remain the two friends in a love-hate relationship. At one point the one loves the other's guts, and in the blink of an eye it changes to hate (annoyance) In the end nobody knows who came out the strongest. That's the mystery in this saga. The ending,when a package is delivered, explained it all. What a powerful ending for a book!

Two strong young girls defied the rules of their neighborhood: the chauvinism, cruelty, violence and poverty. They went against the grain. This element in the book is the mainstay, the foundation, of everything that happened to them.

Both of them became successful women in their own rights. Both were married in the Catholic church but lived, and had children, with other men, outside of marriage in longterm relationships. There was no conformity as far as these two young ladies were concerned. They had the houses and the kids, but refused the enslavement, symbolized by the wedding ring.

“Aunt Lina has a husband just as you do, and that husband is Rino’s father, his name is Stefano Carracci. Then she has Enzo, Enzo Scanno, who sleeps with her. And the exact same thing happens with you: you have Papa, whose name is Airota, but you sleep with Nino, whose name is Sarratore.” I smiled to reassure her. “How did you ever learn all those surnames?” “Aunt Lina talked to us about it, she said that they’re stupid. Rino came out of her stomach, he lives with her, but he’s called Carracci like his father. We came out of your stomach, we live much more with you than with Papa, but we’re called Airota.”

Elena became a successful writer and Lila took on, and won, the IT world. True to her curious intelligence, she conquered every challenge she ever set for herself. The one thing Lila never did though, was write a book, in competition with Elena. Yet, her story was the one being told in the end ...

So much detail, so much love and pathos. Even the bad guys knew how to protect their hearts against the cruelty of poverty. Nothing about their lives were beautiful. It was all about survival of the fittest. Yet, the undercurrent that glued them all together was love, friendship and loyalty. They were not only loyal to each other, they were also loyal to their city Naples, even though it was the place they wanted to escape from with all their might.

Elena summarizes the story herself very well:

"Today, as I write, I’m embarrassed at the way fortune continued to favor me. The book immediately aroused interest. Some were thrilled by the pleasure of reading it. Some praised the skill with which the protagonist was developed. Some talked about a brutal realism, some extolled my baroque imagination, some admired a female narrative that was gentle and embracing. In other words there were many positive judgments, but often in sharp contrast to one another, as if the reviewers hadn’t read the book that was in the bookstores but, rather, each had evoked a fantasy book fabricated from his own biases. On one thing, after the article in Panorama, they all agreed: the novel was absolutely different from the usual kind of writing about Naples."

It was difficult to come back into the story after waiting so many months for the forth book to surface. There were too many characters to be remembered and too many events that shaped the story. However, the story slowly filtered back into the memory.

Reading this last book was like looking at the monitor in ICU. For several days it fluctuated enormously as the daily events in their lives ran up and down between good and bad, between happy and tragic, while the pendulum of time was bringing changes to all of them. Some made the transition effortlessly, and others simply refused to embrace it without excruciating pain.. However, change did come, for all of them.

In the end, when everything is said and done, the beeper on the monitor flat-lined for Elena and Lila's story. It was inevitable. Closing the book was a sad experience. It felt like losing my family all over again.

...more

flag 45 likes · Like · see review

Jan 21, 2016 Teresa Proença rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: n-italia, 5e

No jornal Público há um texto intitulado O Pêndulo Ferrante no qual várias pessoas falam sobre A Amiga Genial. Uns dizem bem, outros dizem mal. É normal...
Do longo artigo retirei a penúltima frase, de António Lobo Antunes: ("...enquanto lia pedaços de página, sem ordem, para trás e para a frente):
- Não é má. Estava agora a ver. Não é má, é o que posso dizer."
Se um homem (genial), que diz, quase sempre, mal dos outros escritores, afirma que Ferrante não é má, poderemos deduzir que é muito boa? Eu ...more

flag 43 likes · Like · see review

Nov 20, 2014 Ilenia Zodiaco rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: italiana

Posso esimermi dal dare un commento lucido e ragionato? Ho appena chiuso il volume. Ciò che sento è di aver lasciato una storia cattiva, smarginata, insalubre. È stato come guardare un pozzo nero, con qualche riflesso di luce appena che però mi ha abbagliato.

flag 43 likes · Like · see review

Jan 02, 2016 Doug Bradshaw rated it it was amazing

I want to thank Elena Ferrante aka Lenu, for writing such an excellent and complete story of the lives of herself and her soulmate-crazy and brilliant best friend, Lila. The four books are chronological and start when the two girls are about 8 years old and continue into their sixties. I don't want to tell the story here but here are some of my observations about reading such a poignant, emotionally honest and complete story:

1. Life is hard and then you die. There is nothing easy about relations I want to thank Elena Ferrante aka Lenu, for writing such an excellent and complete story of the lives of herself and her soulmate-crazy and brilliant best friend, Lila. The four books are chronological and start when the two girls are about 8 years old and continue into their sixties. I don't want to tell the story here but here are some of my observations about reading such a poignant, emotionally honest and complete story:

1. Life is hard and then you die. There is nothing easy about relationships, marriages, having and raising families, living on tight budgets, deciding what career path to take, dealing with family members on drugs, raising kids who are young and becoming sexual, and in this particular environment in Naples, Italy in the 50's, friends and families with a lot of influence who are basically mobsters. Elena takes us through all of these type of issues along with her high strung, highly opinionated and beautiful friend, Lila, who is the opposite of Lenu, never a compromiser, always aggressive and pushy, highly opinionated and willing to put her life at stake to stand up for herself and Lenu. Some of the situations are hilarious and amazing, others are depressing and life threatening.

2. I think the author has been willing to admit many personal thoughts and reactions to various ultra personal situations that are eye openers as to how relationships actually work. The submissive girl can so easily yield to the thoughts and opinions of the dominate girl, that her whole life is changed not necessarily for the better. The one with low self esteem or less confidence can become overly ready to do almost anything for love or approval. It's so true and yet so painful to watch. And yet the friendship endures and each is successful in working their way through a world, especially in this era, so dominated by the desires and customs of parents and the men that they end up having relationships with.

3. There is interesting history of the politics of Italy of the era, facists, communists, the fight for labor unions and equality, the opinions of the liberal professors in the universities of the era, the disdain each group has for the other and the two girls, each in totally different settings, becoming part of this whole politically morphing time. Some of each of their friends become very involved in the mess, which includes murder, friends dragged off into the chaos in real danger.

4. There is a lot of realistic and sometimes difficult to handle marriage and relationship situations, adultery, abandonment, way too much forgiveness of one particular womanizing fellow who affects the life of each of the girls who are becoming women. However, it is written in a way that almost makes some of their stupid and immature decisions totally understandable, while each of them try to help the other get through horrible and sometimes almost funny and pathetic situations occur. There is one sexual description of what one of the girls walks in on that nailed me, so real and yet a ridiculous eye opener, almost as if I had to see it to understand what a dope this guy really was. This was another example of how Elena was able to make us walk in her shoes. I'm guessing she had to be chuckling as she finished writing this particular scene, maybe too much for some readers.

5. And then there is the never ending worry and difficult time raising the 5 kids that the two of them had, both stepping in to help the other from time to time. Not wanting to tell the story, there is an event involving one of the kids that almost devastates one of the mothers.

In the end, we have watched in great detail the full lives of two ordinary and yet both extraordinary women, and I will miss them both, always hoping that maybe, a fifth book will show up. ...more

flag 41 likes · Like · see review

Aug 04, 2017 Bianca rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, audiobook, female-author, first-person-narrator, italian, italian-author, literary-fiction

I am saying a very sad farewell to the Neapolitan Novels. To say that Lenu and Lila's story gripped me it would an understatement. I was consumed by these books. I have never read anything like this before. It's hard to put into words what I felt when listening to these books. The thing is these novels are not perfect. But all the good, scratch that, all the great things far outweigh their imperfections, uncannily, making the novels feel more authentic, more impactful.

These books will have a sp ...more

flag 37 likes · Like · see review

Sep 12, 2015 Justin Evans rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction

This is a two part review of the Neapolitan Novels as a whole: one about how good they are, the other about the series' very deep flaws. The other review, about how good they are can be found here.

I am, I realize, pissing into the wind here, but someone has to do it. Ferrante deserves much of the praise, but, like any serious author, she also deserves criticism, because these are some deeply, deeply flawed novels.

In Story of the Lost Child, Elena publishes an MS that she'd written some years be ...more

flag 37 likes · Like · see review

Jul 23, 2017 William1 rated it really liked it

Shelves: 21-ce, fiction, italy, translation

No meager summary I might give here can conjure the astonishing ferocity of these books—unabated over four volumes. If you read closely there are some aphorisms buried here. One that struck me particularly hard: “A woman without love for her origins is lost.” But there are other home truths as well: “Love and sex are unreasonable and brutal.” and “It was a good rule not to expect the ideal but to enjoy what is possible.” and “How many words remain unsayable even between a couple in love?” Most m No meager summary I might give here can conjure the astonishing ferocity of these books—unabated over four volumes. If you read closely there are some aphorisms buried here. One that struck me particularly hard: “A woman without love for her origins is lost.” But there are other home truths as well: “Love and sex are unreasonable and brutal.” and “It was a good rule not to expect the ideal but to enjoy what is possible.” and “How many words remain unsayable even between a couple in love?” Most moving here for me have been the stories of Alfonso, a gay man; of Lenù’s mother, Immacolata; and Lennucia's difficulty with her first love, Nino.

We remember the terrible violence and sourness of Mrs. Greco, along with her hideous limp, from the first three novels in the series. In this fourth, she becomes gravely ill and in that illness all her previous pretensions to dominance over her first child, Lenù, our narrator, fall away. She begins to talk frankly to her daughter for the first time. Lenù, it turns out, is her favorite child, perhaps because she was born first. The others children, her mother admits to not wanting and never even loving. The reader is astonished that Ferrante can peel back the persona of this brutal, violent mother, and let us see what she has long been obsessed with. And this is the beautiful part. She and Lenù now draw close, for the first time in the lives of either. It's a stunning change in both the direction and velocity of the story and a tremendously exciting piece of writing.

Alfonso is also in danger, but in another way. As a gay man Alphonso has seduced the Cammorist, Michele Solara, one of the two Solara brothers. Alfonso has done this by passing in drag for Lila. Lila has rejected Michele who's gone quite made over her. So Lila has cruelly sets Alfonso up with Michele. If Michele can’t have Lila, he can at least have this remarkable lookalike who evens fits into Lila's dresses. The cruelty is multidimensional. It’s cruel on Lila’s part to use Alfonso in a way that tortures Michele and has his brother, Marcello, in a near murderous rage. Alfonso’s stuck, loving Michele, even fucking him, for all the wrong reasons. He’s putting himself at terrible risk, but then that’s part of the thrill.

Then there’s Nino. One of the tetralogy’s most persistent themes is first love. First love is, often though not always, about learning that you can’t have who you want, or that there are sudden surprising limitations on who you thought the wonderful love object was. I've just finished Andre Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name which deals with this theme in a manner both brilliant and eviscerating. Nino Sarratore is loved by Lennucia from early grade school days. When she becomes a feted author, Nino—after having an affair with Lina years before that was absolutely gut wrenching for Lenù—miraculously shows up. She leaves her husband for him. At the same time he won’t leave his wife for her because she’s got money, being the daughter of an industrialist. So after much agony Lenù resolves to share Nino. Add to that the fact that Nino’s father, whom he hates, has instilled in his son a model of the philanderer that not even Nino realizes he fervently emulates to a fair-thee-well. Women, Lenù finally realizes, after having his child, are Nino’s giddy enablers. They swoon over him. Always have. The realization equals heartbreak for our heroine but also much personal growth. Funny, how we all have to make our own mistakes when it comes to love.

The aspect most striking in this fourth volume—although Ferrante's done it throughout the series— is her ability to animate the cognitive split in her characters, their dualism or knack for self contradiction. That’s what makes them so alive! They are each living minds assessing the daily the clashing inputs, which often cloud their wants and compromise their actions. This novel like the others is angst-ridden. There’s a tremendous agitation. In that sense it’s consistent with the other three volumes. The book at times almost trembled from my grip, not from boredom, but because of the intensity of the drama. I could hardly bear to read what’s coming next. I have to think more about this. For my reaction points to something unique in this fourth and final volume. Ciao. ...more

flag 36 likes · Like · see review

Jul 02, 2015 Teresa rated it really liked it

Those who haven't enjoyed the first three books of this series will like this one even less; but that's irrelevant, isn't it: if they haven't made it this far, they're not likely to read this last installment. Upon starting it, I immediately thought of my brilliant friend Karen's review of Dept. of Speculation, which contrasted that slim novel with "blowsy baroque behemoths" and their "telling and telling and telling, spewing out words and more words and yet more words" -- yep that's the Neapoli ...more

flag 33 likes · Like · see review

Oct 22, 2017 Skorofido Skorofido rated it it was ok · review of another edition

«…Όποιος νιώθε ταμένος στις τέχνες και κυρίως στη λογοτεχνία, κρύβει μέσα αυτή την αλαζονεία: δουλεύει θαρρείς και έχει αναλάβει μία αποστολή, μα στην ουσία κανείς δεν του έχει αναθέσει το παραμικρό, ο ίδιος εξουσιοδότησε τον εαυτό του να γίνει συγγραφέας και παρόλα αυτά πικραίνεται όταν οι άλλοι του λένε: Αυτό το βιβλιαράκι που έγραψες δεν με ενδιαφέρει, η αλήθεια είναι ότι το βρίσκω βαρετό, ποιος σου έδωσε το δικαίωμα;…», τάδε έφη Λενού δια χειρός Έλενας Φερράντε, άρα αφού εγώ που δεν είμαι πα «…Όποιος νιώθε ταμένος στις τέχνες και κυρίως στη λογοτεχνία, κρύβει μέσα αυτή την αλαζονεία: δουλεύει θαρρείς και έχει αναλάβει μία αποστολή, μα στην ουσία κανείς δεν του έχει αναθέσει το παραμικρό, ο ίδιος εξουσιοδότησε τον εαυτό του να γίνει συγγραφέας και παρ΄όλα αυτά πικραίνεται όταν οι άλλοι του λένε: Αυτό το βιβλιαράκι που έγραψες δεν με ενδιαφέρει, η αλήθεια είναι ότι το βρίσκω βαρετό, ποιος σου έδωσε το δικαίωμα;…», τάδε έφη Λενού δια χειρός Έλενας Φερράντε, άρα αφού εγώ που δεν είμαι παρά ένας ταπεινός αναγνώστης μια χαρά μπορώ να κρίνω το τελευταίο βιβλίο της τετραλογίας της Νάπολης.
Η Φερράντε ξεκινάει ή μάλλον συνεχίζει την αφήγηση από κει που την είχε αφήσει με το ίδιο ύφος κι εγώ συνέχιζα να την διαβάζω μαγεμένο σαν να παρακολουθούσα την αφήγηση της ζωής μιας γερασμένης κυρίας που μιλάει για κάποια ωραία νοσταλγικά και παλαιικά.
Η Λενού επιστρέφει στη Νάπολη, και μένει κολλημένη με το Νίνο, τόσο εμμονικά κολλημένη που ο τύπος την κοροϊδεύει ασύστολα και κείνη ‘γαμώ τη μόρφωση και την παιδεία της και τη φήμη της, κολλάει σαν γραμματόσημο πάνω του. Κι αρχίζει και φλυαρεί και φλυαρεί και φλυαρεί κι εκεί αρχίζω και χασμουριέμαι ολίγον αλλά είπαμε η αφήγηση είναι αρκετά μαγευτική (είπαμε είναι η ιστορία της γηραιάς κυρίας) και παρά τη φλυαρία, μισοκλείνω τα μάτια, μισοκοιμάμαι, μισοχασμουριέμαι αλλά την παρακολουθώ.
Έχω φτάσει στη μέση του βιβλίου, έχω ήδη αποφασίσει πως θα βαθμολογήσω και τούτο το βιβλίο μ’ένα τεσσαράκι στο Goodreads, μέχρι που τα πράγματα αρχίζουν και περιπλέκονται.
Μπαίνει τώρα και η ιστορία της χαμένης κόρης (όουπς! κάνω εδώ και μένω ολίγον κάγκελο)…
Όμως τα γεγονότα αρχίζουν και τρέχουν γρήγορα, τη Λενού – Φερράντε την έχει πιάσει μια μανία να περνάει τα χρόνια και τις δεκαετίες ασθμαίνοντας, μια αποστασιοποίηση από τις κόρες της, η εμμονή με τη καριέρα της, η φιλία της με τη Λίνα που είναι πάντα εκεί για εκείνη αλλά η Λενού διαπράττει κατ’εμέ τελικά τη μέγιστη προδοσία αδιαφορώντας για την έκκληση της φίλης της… και πλέον έχω φορτώσει τόσο πολύ και το βιβλίο με έχει εκνευρίσει και πλέον δεν έχω καμιά διάθεση να το αγαπήσω…
Προσωπικά, σε όλη την τετραλογία δεν μπόρεσα ποτέ να κρύψω την αδυναμία μου στη Λίνα. Ήταν η ηρωίδα που λάτρεψα. Όμως η Φερράντε φρόντισε να αφήσει με τρόπο απαράδεκτο (δήθεν συγγραφικό τρικ) όλα τα θέματα που αφορούν τη Λίνα ξεκρέμαστα, δίχως να μας δώσει απαντήσεις… του στυλ, σκεφτείτε μόνοι σας τι έγινε… όχι ρε φιλενάδα, δεν θέλω να σκεφτώ μόνο μου… εσύ ξεκίνησες να μου λες μια ιστορία, πες την μου τουλάχιστον σωστά…
Κι επειδή ακούστηκαν πολλά εάν η Φερράντε έγραψε την αυτοβιογραφία της ή ένα επιτυχημένο μυθιστόρημα της Νάπολης, και στις δύο περιπτώσεις είναι φάουλ…
1. Εάν ήταν αυτοβιογραφία, δεν με ενδιαφέρει να διαβάσω την αυτοβιογραφία ενός ανθρώπου που δεν ξέρω ποιος είναι (γράψτην ρε φίλε – φιλενάδα, ότι είσαι τέλος πάντων) με το αληθινό σου όνομα…
2. Εάν γράφεις μυθιστόρημα, φρόντισε να δώσεις απαντήσεις και μην αφήνεις τόσα κενά…
Τέλος πάντων, ακόμα ο θυμός δεν μου έχει περάσει… Αισθάνομαι πως η Λενού – Φερράντε καπηλεύτηκε τη ζωή της ηρωίδας Λίνας και μαζί μ’αυτήν και τις αναγνωστικές μου προσδοκίες…
Κρίμα, γιατί το τέλος αυτής της υποσχόμενης τετραλογίας ήταν απίστευτα λίγο…
Βαθμολογία: 5/10
http://skorofido.blogspot.gr/2017/10/... ...more

flag 31 likes · Like · see review

Apr 27, 2016 Ms. Smartarse rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Ms. Smartarse by: Manny

Shelves: friendship, translated_into_english, slice-of-life, part_of_a_series, mid-xx-century, rave

They said there would be sadness and pain. Yet I doubted.
They said this would be the best of 'em all. Yet I stalled.
They said I would be crying. Yet I was unconvinced.

All in all, I was doing great in my quest to overcome even the tiniest bit of susceptibility to peer pressure. But then Manny had to go all logical on me, so I gave in... in less than 5 minutes.

I don't need this

Sssso about The Story of the Lost Child...

Lenu gives up her comfy but unhappy life, for a difficult and miserable one. While she does occas ...more

flag 33 likes · Like · see review

Jul 26, 2016 Perry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: stela-eða-láni

The Neapolitan Novels, #1-4: Literary Experience Unlike Any Before in Connection or Syncopation of my Mind to the Female Author's

Ms. Ferrante has intrigued me in my reading experiences as has no other female author and just about any male writer. I imagine Charlotte Bronte would have written such brilliant, introspective, perceptive and at times sexually provocative prose if the style had been around way back then. For some reason, I've just not connected on such a personal, human level with Woo The Neapolitan Novels, #1-4: Literary Experience Unlike Any Before in Connection or Syncopation of my Mind to the Female Author's

Ms. Ferrante has intrigued me in my reading experiences as has no other female author and just about any male writer. I imagine Charlotte Bronte would have written such brilliant, introspective, perceptive and at times sexually provocative prose if the style had been around way back then. For some reason, I've just not connected on such a personal, human level with Woolf or superb female authors out there, past and present.

Ms. Ferrante struck me so personally (though not necessarily so profoundly) that I can't help but thinking again of a sentence I read in the reviews of this book that I wished I'd first written to describe the Neapolitan novels :

"The depth of perception Ms. Ferrante shows about her characters' conflicts and psychological states is astonishing.... Her novels ring so true and are written with such empathy that they sound confessional." Wall Street J.

I'll also add these 2 blurbs as really fitting from my point of view:

'If you haven't read Elena Ferrante, it's like not having read Flaubert in 1856...Incontrovertibly brilliant." National Post.

‘The older you get, the harder it is to recapture the intoxicating sense of discovery that comes when you first read George Eliot, Nabokov, Tolstoy or Colette. But this year it came again when I read Elena Ferrante’s remarkable Neapolitan novels." New Statesman.

I was dazzled and allured by the female intelligence and wit of Ms. Ferrante's writing, which never surrendered to the"sappers of suspended disbelief": the syrupy, overly sentimental, melodramatic, overdramatic, verbose, obscure, esoteric, arcane, pleonastic or the plain hogwash.

I think this was a fitting conclusion to the 4-part novel. Though I'm mystified by the human psyche: here, (view spoiler)

Her prose is so refreshingly honest and real and compelling. I felt at times as if Ms. Ferrante was my friend telling me her story and I kept wanting her to talk and talk. More more... go on,.... uh huh, and?... what about....

...more

flag 30 likes · Like · see review

Mar 28, 2016 Helene Jeppesen rated it liked it

This fourth and final book in The Neapolitan Novels was good, but not as good as the other three novels. In this book, the narrator Elena becomes a lot more reflective, and the story is more about her children and their struggles than it is about Elena's and Lila's friendship. I liked how this implies that Elena is growing up and starting to care more about the people around her, but at the same time this book just didn't click as well with me as the other ones.
Another reason why I think this i ...more

flag 32 likes · Like · see review

Oct 11, 2016 Robin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, audio-book, translation, 2016, booker-prize-nominated, italian

So ends the final part of the Neapolitan series in which I have been immersed, one after the other. I feel I have lived alongside Lena and Lenu, have experienced their many trials and tribulations, have gazed up at Mt Vesuvius and heard the clatter of the neighbourhood. And now it is over! I wonder if I will ever read another epic story of friendship and rivalry that will compare.

I enjoyed it just for the story's sake - as in, what will happen NEXT? But I also enjoyed its self-reflective and cer ...more

flag 31 likes · Like · see review

Dec 28, 2016 Carmo rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: italia, bib-l

"Só nos romances feios é que as pessoas pensam sempre a coisa certa, dizem sempre a coisa certa, cada efeito tem a sua causa, há os simpáticos e os antipáticos, os bons e os maus, e no fim tudo te consola."
Pág.399

Não, não é um romance feio; é um livro de uma honestidade cruel, é um livro que nos fala de uma amizade magnífica e tenebrosa, de rivalidade e competição, de gente pobre, gente rica, gente corrupta, gente corajosa, de uma cidade onde reina a miséria física e moral, de um país a braços ...more

flag 30 likes · Like · see review

Jun 12, 2015 Karen rated it really liked it

So... The end of the story of Lila and Elena... this last book had a lot of happenings..we have been with these woman since young girls growing up in Naples. Sad to see it end.

flag 27 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Goodreads Librari...: Add reciprocal edition information	1	9	Jun 22, 2018 09:07AM
Goodreads Librari...: Page count correction	3	209	Jun 22, 2018 09:03AM
Goodreads Librari...: Correct language	2	12	Jun 22, 2018 08:58AM
Goodreads Librari...: Combine editions	3	15	Jan 04, 2018 01:31AM
Dolls (possible spoilers)	2	66	Sep 06, 2017 07:02PM

Readers Also Enjoyed

Genres

Fiction

722 users

Cultural > Italy

228 users

European Literature > Italian Literature

129 users

Historical > Historical Fiction

118 users

Novels

76 users

Contemporary

75 users

See top shelves…

About Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante

4,656 followers

Elena Ferrante is a pseudonymous Italian novelist.

Ferrante is the author of a half dozen novels, including The Lost Daughter (originally published as La figlia oscura, 2006).

In 2012, Europa Editions began publication of English translations of Ferrante's "Neapolitan Novels", a series about two perceptive and intelligent girls from Naples who try to create lives for themselves within a violent and ...more

More about Elena Ferrante