THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - ELANA FERRANTE

She fucking did it. This, the final volume of the ~1,600 page Neapolitan Novels quartet, sticks the landing. In fact, I’d argue that due to the accrued weight of the previous volumes, since every action in this book is seen in the light of the previous 3, this is the best of the series. A capstone that shows us how much can be done when an author takes the time to slowly set up and reveal an entire human life and the lives of an entire neighborhood. It’s frankly insane that the first volume of these books is the one that’s on all the best of lists. I actually think it’s because that is the least political of the 4 books and reviewers, especially American reviewers, are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the political content of the later books. It is true that the book is about the friendship between two women, but it’s equally true that the book is about the history of Italy since WWII and especially the Years of Lead era and the political violence that NATO brought to that country. You have to know something about the Red Brigade and Propaganda Due in order to get everything that’s going on in the novel, since this aspect of the book isn’t foregrounded. A more conventional book would have centered the characters who are more directly involved in this struggle, but that isn’t the reality of most people’s lives and Ferrante is too good of a writer to do something conventional. As a result, I think lots of Amerikan reviewers miss this stuff or gloss over it or don’t really understand it (not to say that I’m an expert of Italian politics and history, but I do know what Gladio was and is) and focus on the non-political aspects of the novels. But, the book takes on a whole new resonance when you take these things into account, the connections between drugs and organized crime and anti-communist terrorism is at the heart of this volume now characters react to it, tells us so much about them and calls into question how we are living our lives now. Now, looking back at everyone’s life, who made the right choices? The militants? Those who tried to take on the gangsters more obliquely? Those who tried to work inside of the system? Those who tried to stay out of the fray? Where were mistakes made? Because in the end, the hope for a freer and fairer Italy is crushed. Some people’s lives improve, some don’t, but the gangsters who control the country at the beginning of the books are in charge at the end. Silvio Berlusconi is Prime Minister when the book closes. This volume also really dives into motherhood in a way I’ve never seen done so well before. The characters we’ve been following for so long have daughters and sons at this point and we’re shown how they handle this and the mistakes they make and the ambivalence some of them have, which, from where I sit, is a real taboo. Motherhood isn’t redemptive here, maybe it’s even a mistake. The portrait of what losing a child does to someone in this book is almost too painful (now that I actually have a kid) to dwell on. Like all the other books in the series, the writing is really tight and moves quickly, it’s so readable and the pacing settles into a wonderful groove. I’d say the last 50-100 pages compresses more time than any other section of the book, which could feel jarring in lesser hands but Ferrante manages to make it work and seem earned and natural. However, now I’ll get a little spoiler-y: The natural ending, where the narrator betrays their friendship by publishing a book similar to the one that we are reading and causes Lila to never speak with her again is wonderful to me and hits the exact right note. The book we are reading destroyed the friendship we are reading about. The epilogue, where Lenu discovers the dolls of their childhood, returned to her mysteriously, presumably by Lila, is a bit trite to me, seems a little too pat. But these are quibbles, the books are perfect. They sit comfortably right below 2666 as the greatest novels of the 21st century.