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hiagovinicius's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
jub's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
sonia_panico's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
caamx's review against another edition
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
spenkevich's review against another edition
4.0
‘A child, yes, is a vortex of anxieties.’
A vacation at a blissful Italian beach under the sun seems an unlikely setting for a dark, psychological tale of familial abuse and wrestling with your inner demons, but Elena Ferrante excels in The Lost Daughter at pulling back the curtains on comforting ideas to expose a darkness lurking underneath. This is a gripping look at the dark side of motherhood, with a portent plot that builds such a tension you feel might tear you to pieces, not unlike the inner tensions that undid the narrator, middle aged Leda, when she was a young mother. Ferrante looks at the ways homelife and a career can tug someone in opposite directions and strain them emotionally, but more importantly she examines how giving oneself to the care of others might make you feel you are disappearing and suddenly want yourself all back. The Lost Daughter elusively twists through the timeline as it juxtaposes mothers and daughters and Ferrante delivers a dark, gritty, and very psychological exposition about struggling to live up to maternal norms and the abuse we can bestow upon one another.
‘When had Nina chosen me, on the beach. How had I entered her life. By pushes and shoves, certainly; chaotically.’
The novella (it tops out at 140 pages) begins as Leda, her daughters grown and out of the house to live near their father, finds herself living her best life. Feeling rejuvenated and free, she takes a month-long vacation to spend time at the beach before she will return to her university position at the start of term (I was quite charmed to read she was planning to teach the Strachey’s Olivia). There she observes Nina, a young mother playing with her daughter Elena, and Elena’s doll, which sparks memories of her own children. After Elena briefly goes missing, Leda begins to spiral into assessing her transgressions and actions as a mother and in a moment bursting with psychological implications, steals Elena’s doll.
What works best about this book is how Ferrante manages to unpack a multitude of themes and ideas so succinctly, carefully balancing a minimum amount of examination to its maximum effect. Nothing feels excess and singular moments imply more than an isolated incident. As when Leda’s daughters criticize her behavior saying that ‘the unspoken says more than the spoken,’ Ferrante allows vagueness to enhance the tension and feelings of uneasiness. Nina’s husband and his family, for example, are described as hard and cold people with the only mention of their livelihoods coming from the beach attendant who says they are simply ‘bad people.’ While it is hinted there is a mafia angle, not knowing for sure has a stronger effect of unease than knowing, which would ultimately be unnecessary in this tightly-wound story. Ferrante has a very unique cadence to her writing (wonderfully translated here by [a:Ann Goldstein|183680|Ann Goldstein|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]) that enhances the sense of unease.
‘I looked at her in terror, how far could I go, I frightened myself.’
How often we re-examine our lives and see our actions differently when they aren’t drenched in the emotion of the moment. ‘The hardest things to talk about are the ones we ourselves can't understand,’ Ferrante writes in the opening pages, and even when questioned about motherhood, Leda finds she has ‘composed my answers to [Nina’s] anxious questions as exercises in reticence.’ There is a sharp critique of the expectations of mothers in society, particularly with implications of self-sacrifice. ‘I suspected she was playing her role of beautiful young mother not for love of her daughter,’ Leda thinks watching Nina with her daughter, ‘but for us, the crowd on the beach.’ It is a performance, playing the role of a mother, much like the role Leda found she either couldn’t, or was unwilling, to commit to and the shame imposed upon her because of it. ‘[O]ne wants a child with the animal opacity reinforced by popular beliefs,’ Leda thinks, and it is a role women are shoved into or assumed they must shoulder even if they do not think themselves right for the role or would rather retain themselves than give themself away to others as Leda felt.
‘Everything in those years seemed to me without remedy, I was without remedy.’
Not that this forgives Leda for her actions, as we learn she treated her children with disdain and violence, often lashing out or striking them in ways that were ‘not a possibly educational act but real violence, contained but real,’ but Ferrante shows that it is still something important to examine. ‘What had I done that was so terrible, in the end,’ Leda thinks, and Ferrante keeps the reader cloistered in her head so we only view her memories through her rationalizations of them. ‘I was overwhelmed by myself. I, I, I: I am this, I can do this, I must do this,’ she thinks, fully admitting she was thinking of restoring herself to herself when she abandoned her children for 3 years and each confrontation with her past is met with her reasoning for it.
This is mirrored in Nina, who confesses feeling similarly, which evokes sympathy and a desire to help in Leda.
Escape seems to be a major theme in this book, such as Leda wanting to escape the legacy of abusive mothers that she sees in looking back through family history (her daughters, too, wanting to be different than their mother for the same reason), wanting to escape the town of her childhood, Nina wanting to escape a sinister husband, and wanting to escape becoming merely a function of motherhood in place of a Self. Leda wants from her daughters ‘to be seen by them as a person and not as a function,’ only feeling herself again when they are away from her. When she cares for the stolen doll, she is able to perform a motherly function such as dressing it and cleaning it without having to actually give anything of herself.
Ferrante’s character analysis is quite brilliant here, relying on their juxtapositions to define multiple characters with the same brushstroke. Nina and Leda serve as excellent foil characters, though Leda also identifies with both Elena and the doll as well. ‘You keep your liquid darkness in your stomach,’ she thinks when pouring the dirty beach water from the doll, identifying with it as ‘I, too, was hiding many dark things, in silence.’ She observes that Elena has regressed due to the sadness over losing her doll, but finds she too is regressing both emotionally and physically when she measures and weighs herself: ‘Among my most dreaded fantasies was the idea that I could get smaller, go back to being adolescent, child, condemned to relive those phases of my life.’ And despite her hatred of her mother, she finds herself falling into the same patterns of abuse, except worrying she is worse since her mother ‘never left us, despite crying that she would; I, on the other hand, left my daughters almost without announcing it.’ Her own daughters, it seems, are likely to get trapped in a similar fate as Leda fixates on how much her daughter’s seem to wish to identify themselves apart from their mother and her actions.
The Lost Daughter is a dark, gritty and rather uncomfortable novel that is undeniably gripping and intelligent. It packs a lot for such a short book. Ferrante ends it with quite the shock, and the commentary on abuse seems to be one not of redemption but simply acknowledging it is a problem before it is too late. This was my first Ferrante and I am disappointed in myself for not reading her sooner because I was instantly hooked and plan on devouring book after book by her now. This hits hard and while it may leave you feeling ugly inside, you’ll still want to thank Ferrante for it.
4/5
‘The moment arrives when your children say to you with unhappy rage, why did you give me life.’
A vacation at a blissful Italian beach under the sun seems an unlikely setting for a dark, psychological tale of familial abuse and wrestling with your inner demons, but Elena Ferrante excels in The Lost Daughter at pulling back the curtains on comforting ideas to expose a darkness lurking underneath. This is a gripping look at the dark side of motherhood, with a portent plot that builds such a tension you feel might tear you to pieces, not unlike the inner tensions that undid the narrator, middle aged Leda, when she was a young mother. Ferrante looks at the ways homelife and a career can tug someone in opposite directions and strain them emotionally, but more importantly she examines how giving oneself to the care of others might make you feel you are disappearing and suddenly want yourself all back. The Lost Daughter elusively twists through the timeline as it juxtaposes mothers and daughters and Ferrante delivers a dark, gritty, and very psychological exposition about struggling to live up to maternal norms and the abuse we can bestow upon one another.
‘When had Nina chosen me, on the beach. How had I entered her life. By pushes and shoves, certainly; chaotically.’
The novella (it tops out at 140 pages) begins as Leda, her daughters grown and out of the house to live near their father, finds herself living her best life. Feeling rejuvenated and free, she takes a month-long vacation to spend time at the beach before she will return to her university position at the start of term (I was quite charmed to read she was planning to teach the Strachey’s Olivia). There she observes Nina, a young mother playing with her daughter Elena, and Elena’s doll, which sparks memories of her own children. After Elena briefly goes missing, Leda begins to spiral into assessing her transgressions and actions as a mother and in a moment bursting with psychological implications, steals Elena’s doll.
What works best about this book is how Ferrante manages to unpack a multitude of themes and ideas so succinctly, carefully balancing a minimum amount of examination to its maximum effect. Nothing feels excess and singular moments imply more than an isolated incident. As when Leda’s daughters criticize her behavior saying that ‘the unspoken says more than the spoken,’ Ferrante allows vagueness to enhance the tension and feelings of uneasiness. Nina’s husband and his family, for example, are described as hard and cold people with the only mention of their livelihoods coming from the beach attendant who says they are simply ‘bad people.’ While it is hinted there is a mafia angle, not knowing for sure has a stronger effect of unease than knowing, which would ultimately be unnecessary in this tightly-wound story. Ferrante has a very unique cadence to her writing (wonderfully translated here by [a:Ann Goldstein|183680|Ann Goldstein|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]) that enhances the sense of unease.
‘I looked at her in terror, how far could I go, I frightened myself.’
How often we re-examine our lives and see our actions differently when they aren’t drenched in the emotion of the moment. ‘The hardest things to talk about are the ones we ourselves can't understand,’ Ferrante writes in the opening pages, and even when questioned about motherhood, Leda finds she has ‘composed my answers to [Nina’s] anxious questions as exercises in reticence.’ There is a sharp critique of the expectations of mothers in society, particularly with implications of self-sacrifice. ‘I suspected she was playing her role of beautiful young mother not for love of her daughter,’ Leda thinks watching Nina with her daughter, ‘but for us, the crowd on the beach.’ It is a performance, playing the role of a mother, much like the role Leda found she either couldn’t, or was unwilling, to commit to and the shame imposed upon her because of it. ‘[O]ne wants a child with the animal opacity reinforced by popular beliefs,’ Leda thinks, and it is a role women are shoved into or assumed they must shoulder even if they do not think themselves right for the role or would rather retain themselves than give themself away to others as Leda felt.
‘Everything in those years seemed to me without remedy, I was without remedy.’
Not that this forgives Leda for her actions, as we learn she treated her children with disdain and violence, often lashing out or striking them in ways that were ‘not a possibly educational act but real violence, contained but real,’ but Ferrante shows that it is still something important to examine. ‘What had I done that was so terrible, in the end,’ Leda thinks, and Ferrante keeps the reader cloistered in her head so we only view her memories through her rationalizations of them. ‘I was overwhelmed by myself. I, I, I: I am this, I can do this, I must do this,’ she thinks, fully admitting she was thinking of restoring herself to herself when she abandoned her children for 3 years and each confrontation with her past is met with her reasoning for it.
‘I had been a girl who felt lost, this was true. All the hopes of youth seemed to have been destroyed, I seemed to be falling backwards towards my mother, my grandmother, the chain of mute or angry women I came from. Missed opportunities.’
This is mirrored in Nina, who confesses feeling similarly, which evokes sympathy and a desire to help in Leda.
‘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.’
Escape seems to be a major theme in this book, such as Leda wanting to escape the legacy of abusive mothers that she sees in looking back through family history (her daughters, too, wanting to be different than their mother for the same reason), wanting to escape the town of her childhood, Nina wanting to escape a sinister husband, and wanting to escape becoming merely a function of motherhood in place of a Self. Leda wants from her daughters ‘to be seen by them as a person and not as a function,’ only feeling herself again when they are away from her. When she cares for the stolen doll, she is able to perform a motherly function such as dressing it and cleaning it without having to actually give anything of herself.
Ferrante’s character analysis is quite brilliant here, relying on their juxtapositions to define multiple characters with the same brushstroke. Nina and Leda serve as excellent foil characters, though Leda also identifies with both Elena and the doll as well. ‘You keep your liquid darkness in your stomach,’ she thinks when pouring the dirty beach water from the doll, identifying with it as ‘I, too, was hiding many dark things, in silence.’ She observes that Elena has regressed due to the sadness over losing her doll, but finds she too is regressing both emotionally and physically when she measures and weighs herself: ‘Among my most dreaded fantasies was the idea that I could get smaller, go back to being adolescent, child, condemned to relive those phases of my life.’ And despite her hatred of her mother, she finds herself falling into the same patterns of abuse, except worrying she is worse since her mother ‘never left us, despite crying that she would; I, on the other hand, left my daughters almost without announcing it.’ Her own daughters, it seems, are likely to get trapped in a similar fate as Leda fixates on how much her daughter’s seem to wish to identify themselves apart from their mother and her actions.
The Lost Daughter is a dark, gritty and rather uncomfortable novel that is undeniably gripping and intelligent. It packs a lot for such a short book. Ferrante ends it with quite the shock, and the commentary on abuse seems to be one not of redemption but simply acknowledging it is a problem before it is too late. This was my first Ferrante and I am disappointed in myself for not reading her sooner because I was instantly hooked and plan on devouring book after book by her now. This hits hard and while it may leave you feeling ugly inside, you’ll still want to thank Ferrante for it.
4/5
‘The moment arrives when your children say to you with unhappy rage, why did you give me life.’
jsdana's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
josmrrs's review against another edition
5.0
Beautiful, as with the other books of Ferrante’s I have read. Some of it didn’t resonate for me as I’m not a mother but that didn’t mean I liked it any less. A book I would probably reread to get more from as I get older, and to further understand the literary metaphors and symbolism. The perfect length. Maybe more 4.5 but feeling generous anyway.