3.98/5
Author: Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein
Publication Date: Mar 1, 2008
Formats: PDF,Paperback,Kindle,Audible Audiobook,MP3 CD
Rating: 3.98/5 out of 9367
Publisher: Europa Editions
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Apr 14, 2009
This is going to sound strange -- I loved this book, but I didn't enjoy it. The story involves a mother of grown daughters who is dealing with her own ambivalence at what she gave up to assume that role. The author manages to take the flicker of lost independence that every mother feels and magnify it and state it in a brutal and unflinching way. I hated the narrator, but I couldn't look away.Aug 24, 2019
Its been awhile since I read - and obsessively enjoyed Elena Ferrantes Neapolitan series. ( especially loved book 2 and 3).....Nov 05, 2014
After four read books, I can conclude that I experience an unconditional devotion to Ferrante's novels and emphatically place her amongst my favorite authors. I simply admire the frankness and the brutality of her thoughts and celebrate eagerly the woman's manifest in each sentence. Ferrante's struggle is to shatter the assumed, especially in conservative societies, image of the woman - the mother, the wife, the housekeeper. This is the similarity I find in each novel - the endeavor to redeem After four read books, I can conclude that I experience an unconditional devotion to Ferrante's novels and emphatically place her amongst my favorite authors. I simply admire the frankness and the brutality of her thoughts and celebrate eagerly the woman's manifest in each sentence. Ferrante's struggle is to shatter the assumed, especially in conservative societies, image of the woman - the mother, the wife, the housekeeper. This is the similarity I find in each novel - the endeavor to redeem past presumption for the sake of the womanhood. Elena Ferrante possesses one of the most elegant and precise literary styles I have encountered in contemporary literature.Jan 07, 2018
I loved this short novel from the ever incredible Elena Ferrante. The twisted story of the protagonist who steals a doll on a beach is both captivating and heartbreaking. In typical Ferrante fashion, the narration wanders between the primary narrative of the protagonist's seaside vacation and her memories of her now-moved away daughters. It is a poignant portrait of motherhood and dealing with getting old. A must-read for fans of the Naples tetralogy - for me perhaps her strongest standalone I loved this short novel from the ever incredible Elena Ferrante. The twisted story of the protagonist who steals a doll on a beach is both captivating and heartbreaking. In typical Ferrante fashion, the narration wanders between the primary narrative of the protagonist's seaside vacation and her memories of her now-moved away daughters. It is a poignant portrait of motherhood and dealing with getting old. A must-read for fans of the Naples tetralogy - for me perhaps her strongest standalone novella. ...moreApr 15, 2015
The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante was out bookclub end of season read.Apr 30, 2018
This novella starts off reminding me in terms of the setting onlyvery much of the longish story The Beach in Cesare Paveses The Selected Works, translated by R.W. Flint.Oct 12, 2019
This is signature Elena Ferrante, there is no mistaking her writing. She captures the torment of motherhood beautifully. The internal conflict of remaining an individual woman versus the constraints of motherhood. The regrets and remorse that constantly weigh a woman down, that juxtaposition really defines her books. This novel is weird in a good way. The conflicted nature of the main character suffering what I believe to be classic empty nest syndrome tinged with terrible regrets, she This is signature Elena Ferrante, there is no mistaking her writing. She captures the torment of motherhood beautifully. The internal conflict of remaining an individual woman versus the constraints of motherhood. The regrets and remorse that constantly weigh a woman down, that juxtaposition really defines her books. This novel is weird in a good way. The conflicted nature of the main character suffering what I believe to be classic empty nest syndrome tinged with terrible regrets, she encounters a family she becomes slightly obsessed with while holidaying alone, this obsession makes her act in some strange and objectionable ways. It’s weird and wonderful in true Ferrante style. A truly intriguing read. ...moreNov 12, 2016
As all of Ferrante's novels do, The Lost Daughter looks intimately at the complicated nature of motherhood and femininity. Leda, a 47-year old divorcee, is on vacation after her two daughters, now adults, move to live with their father in Canada. She spends her summer by the beach where she meets Nina, a young mother, and her daughter, Lenuccia, who is obsessed with her doll that eventually goes missing. Leda's interactions with this Neapolitan family gets her tied up in something bigger than As all of Ferrante's novels do, The Lost Daughter looks intimately at the complicated nature of motherhood and femininity. Leda, a 47-year old divorcee, is on vacation after her two daughters, now adults, move to live with their father in Canada. She spends her summer by the beach where she meets Nina, a young mother, and her daughter, Lenuccia, who is obsessed with her doll that eventually goes missing. Leda's interactions with this Neapolitan family gets her tied up in something bigger than herself and also forces her to confront her role as mother and the choices she's made in the past. It's a tightly written novel, expertly crafted but lacks the insight and power that Ferrante's other novels have. Overall, an interesting read but not one that will blow you away. ...moreFeb 24, 2015
Troubling Love. The Days of Abandonment. The Lost Daughter. Throw these titles up in the air and whichever lands on whichever book, it would fit. (Not the covers, though: each is uniquely apt.) Ferrante's first-person female narrators could almost be the same woman at different stages of life, except for the three being too close in age and possessing different voices. They are creative women with similar Neapolitan mothers, though with different family ties: single, childless Delia, a Troubling Love. The Days of Abandonment. The Lost Daughter. Throw these titles up in the air and whichever lands on whichever book, it would fit. (Not the covers, though: each is uniquely apt.) Ferrante's first-person female narrators could almost be the same woman at different stages of life, except for the three being too close in age and possessing different voices. They are creative women with similar Neapolitan mothers, though with different family ties: single, childless Delia, a cartoonist whose job is barely spoken of, comes from an abusive home; writer Olga, deserted by her husband, has two young children; and here it's a slightly older Leda, a divorced English literature professor with two adult daughters.Apr 09, 2015
Ewww! This is certainly not a 4 star for enjoyment, but in writing ability and emotive core character layered, nearly a 5. Elena Ferrante is absolutely able to conceptualize, feel, display and express dichotomy of want/repulse, love/hate, scattered self-identity and in other general minutia, the Italian culture's brand of personality disordered woman. This one is vilely unlikable. She was to me. She self-describes as "the unnatural Mother".Jul 08, 2015
Life can have an ironic geometry. Starting from the age of thirteen or fourteen I had aspired to a bourgeois decorum, proper Italian, a good life, cultured and reflective. Naples had seemed a wave that would drown me. I didnt think the city could contain life forms different from those I had known as a child, violent or sensually lazy, tinged with sentimental vulgarity or obtusely fortified in defense of their own wretched degradationOct 07, 2015
Heres what we know about Elena Ferrantes narrator, Leda: shes the middle-aged mother of two grown daughters. Her daughters are living overseas with their father. She is a renowned English Literature scholar. And she is, by her own words, an unnatural mother.Jan 22, 2016
The best feature of this book was its size. It was small. That much I can say about it. Beyond this, I found the characters utterly annoying, the plot borderline nauseating, and the writing... well, tolerable. I strongly considered creating a "heroine I'd gladly slap" shelf, but it's not worth it. I truly hope that I never become such a person, and even more, that I never meet such a person. Sadly, I'll remain in the dark when it comes to the reason everybody is so delighted with this fictional The best feature of this book was its size. It was small. That much I can say about it. Beyond this, I found the characters utterly annoying, the plot borderline nauseating, and the writing... well, tolerable. I strongly considered creating a "heroine I'd gladly slap" shelf, but it's not worth it. I truly hope that I never become such a person, and even more, that I never meet such a person. Sadly, I'll remain in the dark when it comes to the reason everybody is so delighted with this fictional miss Ferrante. ...moreMay 10, 2016
"Sometimes you have to escape in order not to die."Mar 17, 2017
Elena Ferrante's 3rd novel and the novel she has cited as her most daring. It's slim 130 pages prepared the ground for the epic and magnificent 1700 page My Beautiful Friend.Nov 16, 2015
The Lost Daughter is especially interesting to experience after reading Ferrante's Neapolitan novels. She explores struggle and ambivalence in motherhood with the same cutting voice. It's easy and exciting to see the similarities in choice and process between her characters here and in the Neapolitan novels.Nov 26, 2012
distrubing in its honesty about women caught between children and career or fullfillment or just wanting to do and be their own person apart from mama or wife or cleaner or whathaveyou. clever too how author does this in title, she was a damaged daughter who wanted nothing more than to escape from her mother and grandmother in hillbilly naples, only to find she wanted nothing more than to escape from her phd husband and two daughters and pursue HER phd (which she did, and never looked back, for distrubing in its honesty about women caught between children and career or fullfillment or just wanting to do and be their own person apart from mama or wife or cleaner or whathaveyou. clever too how author does this in title, she was a damaged daughter who wanted nothing more than to escape from her mother and grandmother in hillbilly naples, only to find she wanted nothing more than to escape from her phd husband and two daughters and pursue HER phd (which she did, and never looked back, for 3 years no contact whatsoever with her children or hubby, hah).Jul 08, 2017
Even in small novels, little more than a short story actually, Ferrante really excels. It strikes me that her main characters always are very 'complexed': always women who struggle with their self esteem, and so also with what others and society in general expects of them, and who particularly are seized by their relationship to their mothers or to their children. In this story Leda not really is a sympathetic character, she bluntly calls herself a bad woman and she has done things that by Even in small novels, little more than a short story actually, Ferrante really excels. It strikes me that her main characters always are very 'complexed': always women who struggle with their self esteem, and so also with what others and society in general expects of them, and who particularly are seized by their relationship to their mothers or to their children. In this story Leda not really is a sympathetic character, she bluntly calls herself a bad woman and she has done things that by mainstream standards are really 'wrong'. But Ferrante never condemns her main characters, on the contrary, she demands respect for them, for their complexity and smallness, and their negative sides. A grand little story this is! ...moreDec 22, 2008
A brutally frank novel of maternal ambivalence. A 40-something divorced mother of two grown daughters looks back and examines her feelings on motherhood. Although disturbing at times it was very intriguing. She is shockingly honest which is refreshing. I think many mothers have at some point felt at least a little of what she has written but would be afraid to admit for fear of how they would be viewed by others.Apr 28, 2016
I have a pile of review from the last two months to do, but it's about time to catch up. Review soon!Dec 29, 2014
The reclusive Elena Ferrante has come into much praise of late in the U.S. for her novels of female friendship set against the gritty backdrop of crime-ridden Naples. This novel is the outlier--it takes place at the beach and the woman at its center, an Italian professor of English named Leda, is solitary, even, by choice it would seem, friendless. She stumbles into a glancing association with the lost daughter of the title and her rough, fractious Neapolitan family. But, for all her education The reclusive Elena Ferrante has come into much praise of late in the U.S. for her novels of female friendship set against the gritty backdrop of crime-ridden Naples. This novel is the outlier--it takes place at the beach and the woman at its center, an Italian professor of English named Leda, is solitary, even, by choice it would seem, friendless. She stumbles into a glancing association with the lost daughter of the title and her rough, fractious Neapolitan family. But, for all her education and her literary sensibility it is Leda who turns out to be cruel for no apparent reason. The casual, senseless meanness that she inflicts on the briefly lost Neapolitan daughter is only a sample of the more intentional pain that she has meted out to her own family. In the end, it is Leda's own daughters who are lost, in the sense of being abandoned. They survive, even thrive in her absence. Perhaps the real lost daughter of the novel is Leda herself, an intellectual devoted to literature, who uses it not to understand the world and its people but to insulate herself from them. ...moreMar 28, 2009
I was riveted by the intensity of the narrator's experience as the mother of two grown daughters, the complicated feelings of love and self-reproach that eat away at her spirit long after she's no longer responsible for the care of the girls. All of this is tied up with a suspenseful plot, too--I read this book in one sitting.Mar 17, 2020
I really enjoyed this one - it reminded me in many way of The Days of Abandonment, and actually makes me want to revisit that one.Nov 21, 2009
"The Lost Daughter" is one of those amazing books where the stream-of-consciousness works. In the present, the book is about a middle aged woman, Leda, who takes a beach-side vacation for the summer. Beneath the surface, it's about how her interactions with a Neapolitan family reminds her of her upbringing and, more poignantly, her relationships with her estranged daughters.Dec 21, 2018
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