Blog written by Sally
This a compelling story of a childhood in Naples in the 1950s. Elena narrates the story of her relationship with her best friend Lina – starting from her first impressions of Lina as a rebellious first grader, up to their 16th year, when Lina gets married to a local boy and the two childhood friends appear to be set to live very different lives. It is the first novel of a trilogy and from the prologue we learn that Elena is writing the story in her sixties, when it appears her friendship with Lina has taken another dramatic turn.
I really enjoyed reading this one! Elena tells a very vivid tale of what seemed to me to be a very foreign place and period of time. I felt she was writing just as much to understand herself as to present the story of Lina, and her perception of herself seems to be shaped from the contrasts she sees in Lina. The relationship of these two girls drawn together despite their very different personalities is certainly complex and often unsettling. There is a strong sense of foreboding about the future for Lina despite her apparent effortless brilliant intellectual and creative ability and drive as a child. While Elena, who seems to be pushed by a need to prove herself and fear of failure, seems to have a future that will be much more secure. Her hard work at school earns her the title of “my brilliant friend” from Elena.
Overall our group enjoyed the book scoring it between 7 and 8. I think we all agreed the writing style was masterful. The negatives included getting started was difficult with many different similar sounding Italian names to get used to. The index of characters at the front of the book is definitely useful. Most of us found the level of violence in the community which pervades the whole book from the first encounter between Elena and Lina to be disturbing. It doesn’t really offer relaxing reading. A few of us found the tale of childhood as told by the adult Elena perhaps a bit affected. Some were not satisfied by the abrupt ending. Despite these shortcomings, it was a very intriguing and stimulating tale for discussion and we all agreed we wanted to read the next book in the series.
Our next book is The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls and we will be meeting at Meredith's on June 16.
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