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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
”The secret rage I harbored against myself I turned on her.”
I plucked The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante from my TBR Tupperware container and I was immediately thrilled when I saw the title and author on the slip of paper. Ferrante’s work has previously moved me in ways that I couldn’t imagine, so I was eager to climb back into one of her novels. Leda’s early admission of the liberty she felt once her daughter’s moved to Canada to live with her ex-husband set the tone for the novel, and also felt very similar. It’s easy to draw a comparison between this novel and Ferrante’s other works, but it seems to possess its own unique spirit. In this story we follow Leda, a forty-seven year English professor, who becomes fixated on a Neapolitan family (but primarily a young mother, Nina) she encounters while vacationing on the beach.
I love the way Ferrante is able to capture such an intense interior dialogue. Her approaches to what it means to be a mother or to be a daughter are raw and honest, and while these are realms that I don’t inhabit, Ferrante’s strength is forcing you to recognize and acknowledge these existences in all of their complexities. With her stories, she isn’t afraid to create a bruise and then spend the entirety of the work pressing against that bruise. She also isn’t afraid to make her characters harsh and seemingly unlikable. In the character of Leda I quickly identified the same issues I initially had with Elena in the Neapolitan Quartet. Her superiority often causes her to come across as abrasive and judgmental, but that is only a surface reading and perhaps a reflection of my own blind spots.
Leda’s expression of pleasure at the liberty she feels from the absence of her daughters is held in constant tension with the guilt she feels. Not much happens in this story, but not much needs to. As Leda encounters new sights and people she makes associations, through these associations memories and Leda’s character are revealed. The Lost Daughter works as an excellent character study and raises important questions about the suffocation of motherhood with carefully crafted juxtapositions that don’t feel forced or overwritten. The story allows the characters to be defined against one another, while avoiding any sort of sweeping judgment (narratively, at least — Leda is full of judgment.) Even as Leda seeks to shed her identity as a mother and disrupt the relationships around her, maternal ambivalence (and occasionally rejection) remain the central struggle of the novel (with a side dish of aging and sexuality!)
There’s an undercurrent of violence throughout the novel that also drives you to push through the pages. It is hinted that Nina’s husband is a bad man, although we never see any direct evidence of this except perhaps for some terse words exchanged at the beach (but even these we aren’t privy to.) Leda has her own “attack” and there were moments I was genuinely concerned the story could take a dark turn. Wounding imagery is repeated throughout the story and reinforced in the conclusion in a way that I cannot get out of my mind. I may not like her, but I want Leda to be okay. I want her wounds to be healed.
I loved this book. Leda isn’t someone you want to befriend, but she is someone who not only captures your attention, but seems to demand it as well. She is an unreliable narrator and it is often easy to get lost in her observations without considering what they say about her, even as she turns the magnifying glass on her own life and experiences. The symbolism with the doll and Leda’s theft is layered and rich, but I found myself reflecting more on the tension between escape and containment within the text. Like the doll we can be loved, cared for, stolen, cleaned, but we’ll still be full of that brown stuff.
I plucked The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante from my TBR Tupperware container and I was immediately thrilled when I saw the title and author on the slip of paper. Ferrante’s work has previously moved me in ways that I couldn’t imagine, so I was eager to climb back into one of her novels. Leda’s early admission of the liberty she felt once her daughter’s moved to Canada to live with her ex-husband set the tone for the novel, and also felt very similar. It’s easy to draw a comparison between this novel and Ferrante’s other works, but it seems to possess its own unique spirit. In this story we follow Leda, a forty-seven year English professor, who becomes fixated on a Neapolitan family (but primarily a young mother, Nina) she encounters while vacationing on the beach.
I love the way Ferrante is able to capture such an intense interior dialogue. Her approaches to what it means to be a mother or to be a daughter are raw and honest, and while these are realms that I don’t inhabit, Ferrante’s strength is forcing you to recognize and acknowledge these existences in all of their complexities. With her stories, she isn’t afraid to create a bruise and then spend the entirety of the work pressing against that bruise. She also isn’t afraid to make her characters harsh and seemingly unlikable. In the character of Leda I quickly identified the same issues I initially had with Elena in the Neapolitan Quartet. Her superiority often causes her to come across as abrasive and judgmental, but that is only a surface reading and perhaps a reflection of my own blind spots.
Leda’s expression of pleasure at the liberty she feels from the absence of her daughters is held in constant tension with the guilt she feels. Not much happens in this story, but not much needs to. As Leda encounters new sights and people she makes associations, through these associations memories and Leda’s character are revealed. The Lost Daughter works as an excellent character study and raises important questions about the suffocation of motherhood with carefully crafted juxtapositions that don’t feel forced or overwritten. The story allows the characters to be defined against one another, while avoiding any sort of sweeping judgment (narratively, at least — Leda is full of judgment.) Even as Leda seeks to shed her identity as a mother and disrupt the relationships around her, maternal ambivalence (and occasionally rejection) remain the central struggle of the novel (with a side dish of aging and sexuality!)
There’s an undercurrent of violence throughout the novel that also drives you to push through the pages. It is hinted that Nina’s husband is a bad man, although we never see any direct evidence of this except perhaps for some terse words exchanged at the beach (but even these we aren’t privy to.) Leda has her own “attack” and there were moments I was genuinely concerned the story could take a dark turn. Wounding imagery is repeated throughout the story and reinforced in the conclusion in a way that I cannot get out of my mind. I may not like her, but I want Leda to be okay. I want her wounds to be healed.
I loved this book. Leda isn’t someone you want to befriend, but she is someone who not only captures your attention, but seems to demand it as well. She is an unreliable narrator and it is often easy to get lost in her observations without considering what they say about her, even as she turns the magnifying glass on her own life and experiences. The symbolism with the doll and Leda’s theft is layered and rich, but I found myself reflecting more on the tension between escape and containment within the text. Like the doll we can be loved, cared for, stolen, cleaned, but we’ll still be full of that brown stuff.
dark
reflective
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
saw this at the library and thought it would be a good introduction to elena ferrante until I can finally read the Neapolitan novels.
I somehow keep stumbling upon books about unhappy mothers of varying ages. they also often have dark and selfish thoughts. I appreciate this genre (sure hope so if I’ve read so many), but now I’m getting more and more particular on what I look for in such a specific plot theme.
this had amazing writing; there were many passages I felt were beautifully constructed. the main character was full of weird decision-making and thoughts, but there was still a self-awareness to her that I appreciated. ending was quite abrupt, but I know it was purposeful. so while the book was good, I don’t know if there was really any enjoyment I got out of it. and that’s okay! because it still made me think and reflect.
I somehow keep stumbling upon books about unhappy mothers of varying ages. they also often have dark and selfish thoughts. I appreciate this genre (sure hope so if I’ve read so many), but now I’m getting more and more particular on what I look for in such a specific plot theme.
this had amazing writing; there were many passages I felt were beautifully constructed. the main character was full of weird decision-making and thoughts, but there was still a self-awareness to her that I appreciated. ending was quite abrupt, but I know it was purposeful. so while the book was good, I don’t know if there was really any enjoyment I got out of it. and that’s okay! because it still made me think and reflect.
quotes!!
I hadn’t been able to open a book for months; I was exhausted and angry; there was never enough money, I barely slept.
Reading, writing have always been my way of soothing myself.
In the first year of Marta’s life I discovered that I no longer loved my husband. A hard year, the baby barely slept and wouldn’t let me sleep. Physical tiredness is a magnifying glass. I was too tired to study, to think, to laugh, to cry, to love that man who was too intelligent, too stubbornly involved in his wager with life, too absent. Love requires energy, I had none left. When he began with caresses and kisses, I became anxious, I felt that I was a stimulus abused for his solitary pleasures.
The last thing she said to me, some time before she died, was, in a fractured dialect, I feel a little cold, Leda, and I’m shitting my pants.
I needed to believe that I had done everything alone. I wanted, with increasing intensity, to feel myself, my talents, the autonomy of my abilities.
Males always have something pathetic about them, at every age. A fragile arrogance, a frightened audacity. I no longer know, today, if they ever aroused in me love or only an affectionate sympathy for their weaknesses.
“They think they know more than we do,” Giovanni confirmed.
“Sometimes it’s true,” I said, “because to what we’ve taught them they add what they learn outside of us, in their time, which is always different—it’s not ours.”
The creature trapped in their womb seemed a long illness that changed them: even after the birth they were no longer the same. I, instead, wanted my pregnancy to be under control.
“I know nothing and I’m worth nothing. I got pregnant, I gave birth to a daughter, and I don’t even know how I’m made inside. The only true thing I want is to escape.”
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is a Poe-like story diving into the depths of the dark sides of motherhood. While on vacation, the main character, a middle-aged divorceé becomes obsessed with a young mother that is a part of an overbearing family.
This book dives into the selfishness that resides in everyone and the consequences that can occur when you give in to your deepest desires.
I gave this book a 3.5 because I don’t think I’ll ever visit it again, but if you are into the horror thriller genre, I’d definitely give it a try.
This book dives into the selfishness that resides in everyone and the consequences that can occur when you give in to your deepest desires.
I gave this book a 3.5 because I don’t think I’ll ever visit it again, but if you are into the horror thriller genre, I’d definitely give it a try.
The film follows the book closely. The book gets into the head of the central character and provides insight that the film misses.
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes