Book Four - The Story of the Lost Child - Neapolitan Novels

Highly recommended by a member of our book club, I read the 4 books in this series. I was curious about life in a parallel culture, but unprepared for the darkness of the story. It took an effort to finish this last volume, and I can't say that I feel satisfied, just depressed by the events and relationships the author describes.

I have been engrossed for four months in these novels. Like Lenu I have had important and powerful friendships that helped me become who I am. And I have lost most of them, making me incapable of ignoring this story. I liked how it places friendship at the center of human development. I have never seen or read another author who sees friendship in such a central role to development. Reading the story made me feel close to the women I have lost in my life.

Finished The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante, the last in the series of four books about two friends in Naples and gave it 5 stars. It was as good as the first book, My Brilliant Friend, and finished the quartet in style

I devoured all of Ferrante's Neapolitan novels in a week. Her writing is so compelling, gritty, socially aware, literary, and she is interested in all kinds of issues posed by language, class, and gender while being a very satisfying storyteller. I can't recommend her highly enough - she is a must read!

I have been completely absorbed into this story, from the first to this last book of this series. The writing pulls you right into the ups and downs of the characters' lives in a vivid manner. I appreciate how succinctly the author addresses women's issues in a culture that is not favorable to women. I'll feel a huge void when I'm done with this last book!

Brilliant, all four novels. Only adding my voice to those of many reviewers. i found the novels compelling in every way: character, setting, honesty, histor, /politics, society, psychology. I was bereft when I finished the last page.

I enjoyed all of this series although happy endings are difficult to find here. The story of a lifetime of friendship with its twists and turns, misunderstandings and hurt feelings is so palpable in these books, I almost feel I have lived this very different life. The density of the population she creates and follows through the years is wonderful. This quartet of books is well worth the time investment required.

I was pleased to finish this book and series, the detail and trauma had become overwhelming. I liked and disliked the story in equal measure but was drawn to it and "needed to know " rather than not complete the journey.

Beautifully written, with characters and setting that are so well depicted they feel like people I actually know. I've read the three previous volumes and recommend the whole I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't done something with this series of related novels.

these books in the series are so engaging the writing is a pleasure the story is so informative but does not become maudlin you learn about a culture at a particular time frame without it being pedantic or self servingit is great literature about people and our conflicts in being a person

A wonderful conclusion to an epic story of friendship, love, loss and Italy after World War II. But the author wanders off into long treatises on politics and philosophy. These political diatribes may be of interest to Italians or Europeans but, to me, it detracts from the human drama and the truths reflected in the characters lives. If the personal is political, then the story alone can convey the message.

This is the final of four books and the ending is very satisfying and mysterious at the same time.

Ferrante digs deep and conjures the complexities of our feelings: love is never straightforward. Our self-esteem is a big chunk of our will to live. The asymmetry between our self-perception and that of others can be quite daunting. Ferrante tells a story, a fascinating yarn that unfolds with ease and rhythm.

The fourth book is as gripping as the first three books in the series. Yet it could use a bit of editing as it became somewhat drawn.out toward the end. Overall however it is a beautifully written and mesmerising story of friendship, marriage, and class struggle in this time and place in Italy.

I was eagerly awaiting this conclusion to the Neapolitan quartet, and it turned out to be all that I'd hoped. Now that it's finished, I can wholeheartedly recommend the series to anyone, especially to women but also to men.

Two things you should know right away. First, please don't be put off by the covers. Yes, they look like they belong on the grocery store's discount rack with lowbrow chick lit. Fortunately, the contents are nothing like that! They are excellent literary books with a lot of depth and no sentimentality or easy answers. Now that they're gaining recognition in the U.S., hopefully there will be a reissue someday soon. Second, this series is really one novel in four volumes, so if you haven't already read the first three, don't start here. You're looking for My Brilliant Friend. The quality is consistent throughout, so you'll soon know whether this is something you'd like.

But Ferrante isn't resting on her laurels here; there's a lot in this book. It's about friendship, of course: Elena returns to Naples and she and Lila resume their close relationship, even raising their children together, leading to unexpected drama and tragedy. It's also about romantic relationships, and about the changes in family relationships as we age, and about loss. It's about motherhood, and since this is Ferrante, both women are far from perfect mothers (but who is perfect at being a working single mother? Elena in particular is constantly required to choose, as she's asked to travel the country promoting her books). It's about what it means to succeed in life. It's about escaping the place and the social class to which one is born, and whether that's even possible. It's about an Italy that's constantly changing - a vibrant, violent, dangerous place, steeped in history yet teeming with new ideas.

As always, the book rushes along through short chapters that delve deeply into the characters' lives and interactions. The writing is urgent and electric, not quite like anything else I've read. The characters are people, in all their complexity. The author doesn't make it easy for us by assigning them two or three traits apiece; instead she shows them to us and lets us figure them out for ourselves. You may not always like them, but you'll remember them.

I'm a little disappointed this series is finished, but looking forward to more from this author (and maybe even re-reading these books someday - something I hardly ever do). If you haven't yet started this series, you are in for a treat.

How can I add anything new after all the responses already submitted! Well, I can personalize it. Elena's 'neighborhood' reminds me of the block I lived on in Borough Park, Brooklyn. The friends I grew up with, Charlie, Bobby, Ralphie Theresa, Rosemarie, etc. live on in my memory and dreams but I have lost contact with them. The neighborhood, once Italian and Jewish is now Chinese and Puerto Rican. The story of America! While in Italy Elena maintains contact over many years and speaks of ethnic change only in the last chapter. The local church, St. Catherine of Alexandria, is still there; the beautiful grotto with St. Bernadete's vision of the Virgin, the last time I saw it was filled with rubbish and disrespect. I was horrified. The Church in those days was very paternalistic. Though I attended public school after the third grade I went to novanas every morning before school and had religious instruction every Wed. afternoon for which I was let out of my school an hour earlier. The four books of this series is a marvel, writing a marvel and the characters memorable. I miss them already and wish there was another book bringing back to life Lila, Elena, Nino and all the rest. I had to continually refer to the list of families and their members to keep up with such a large list of characters. Ms Ferrante mentions one of my favorite and recent Italian writers discoveries, Grazia Deledda, also Pasolini, Leopardi and more. I felt connections which enlarged my esteem and enjoyment of the book. The book stands on its own, however, and need not depend on knowledge of these others though it would enrich the experience. I have already an earlier book of Ferrante's and will look for more; maybe even try one in Italian. I had a dream the night I submitted this review and it was very depressing, the lost child never found, Lila's disappearing too, all the deaths of dear characters....just like life, I thought.

Superb modern literature. Elena Ferrante can put into words some of the most complex and difficult emotions which most writers never even come close to. She transports the reader into a world which many people are entirely ignorant of ... and you are there , in the middle of it all. I admire her work more than any other living writer I can think of. I am sure her books will be read for many many generations to come.

I heartily recommend Ferrante's novels that explore an enduring friendship between two remarkable women. Besides writing with amazing. clarity, she soars with elegance in passages throughout the four volumes. Her life in Naples is teeming with colorful characters whose lives and passions are universal. Definitely a great work of literature that will endure.

Characters tend to be "drama queens", self indulgent, self centred and irritating. Nevertheless, it is these very human traits which draw the reader, almost against their will, into the lives of these very flawed individuals. The city of Naples is very much a "character" in this book and both reflects and produces the chaotic lives of the people who were born there and stay and those who escape and are drawn back.

Hard to put down these books. You are drawn into the narrator (author's) world. This book is book 4 of a 4-part series in which one definitely moves right into the next. Can't imagine how they work as separate entities. I would definitely recommend starting with Book 1: My Brilliant Friend

I have just finished the fourth book by Elena Ferrante. Beginning with the first book I was totally pulled into the story.. from Naples after WW11 to present day. It covered in depth the lives of women...where we were and where we are today, as changed as society has changed and evolved. I recommend these books!

The fourth book about the same peope - and I thought at first that one was enough, that I didn't really care about knowing more about them. But I could not stop. The book also tells the story of Italy's politic situation at the time so it's also a bit of history there.

This is a grand series of books clearly evocative of Naples. I loved all four of them. My son was stationed in Naples, and I fell in love with the city then. It was lovely to burrow into a story of family and friends and the life. Elena Ferrante is a first rate writer, and I highly recommend these novels.

What an experience it has been to read these novels! I am very happy to have been able to read them all at once because to me they are really one long book broken into four physically manageable sizes. The story Ferrante tells is compelling and moving and interesting all the way through (and if, as a non-Italian reader, you find yourself less drawn to the occasional passages about the politics in Italy at the time of the story, you can easily enough skim past those). The heart of this story is the 60-year friendship between the two women well-described in many other reviews, and the enduring relationships between them and all the other people they have known all their lives. Love and hate, connection and betrayal, disappointments and mistakes, surprises that truly surprise... all the swirling emotions and events that make a life are put before us in interesting and unexpected ways.If Elena Ferrante, like one of her characters, is actually worried about whether or not her creations will outlive her, she need worry no more. This story is bound to be read and appreciated for a very long time to come.

The story of the lost Child by Elena Ferrante (pseudonym) - Book Four of the Neapolitan Novels. Translated from the Italian to English by Ann Goldstein

This is the conclusion of the story started six decades early. It's the story of Elena Greco and Rafaella Cerullo (Lina). Their friendship over time and it concerns to the Neapolitan history.

It opens in 1975, just after Elena abandons her husband, Pietro, for Nino Sarratore. This causes a lot of strain in the lives of her daughters, Dede and Elsa. With Nino, she conceives another daughter, Imma. Lina decides to have a child with Enzo, with whom she has lived for a long time. Tina and Imma are born within weeks and they become good friends. Lina and Enzo run a successful computer company and they are wealthy.

However, one day Tina ( it was September 16, 1984 and Tina is four years old) disappears (thus the "Lost Child") and things go south for both women. Nino leaves Elena. Enzo and Lina break up. Elsa, Elena's daughter, runs away with Rino, Lina's son. It is in this act that the Elena Greco's lifestyle becomes relevant. She was unfaithful to her husband, she had an out of wedlock daughter - so it's not surprising that her daughter follows the same path.

This book's prose is much better than the first three books. Still narrated from the first person point of view - this last book feels more real. No need for anyone else's perspective. It's clear that Elena is a self-centered woman and can only care for herself. At points, she prefers the company of her lovers over the duties of motherhood. Other times, she prefers to write to the extreme of neglecting her children. For the first time, I understand why she has insisted on writing from the first person point of view - Elena does not care about anyone other than herself.

Through the story, Naples comes alive. Ther's a vivid description on the earthquake that ravaged Naples on November 23. 1980. There is a clear description of the trouble with government corruption, drug addiction, and crime. At the end, Elena confesses that even though she has written on Naples and about Naples, she has no clue as to what Naples is. She uses Lina to give meaning to Naples' history as Elena imagines a book that Lina is writing on the subject.

The book ends in 2002 just like it started in book one - with Lina disappearance and her unknown whereabouts.

This series by Elena Ferrante is some of the best reading I've come across in a long time. I was sad to finish the last one and hope their will be more. Her characters get under your skin, they become people you know. The way she writers about the interplay in female friendships was fascinating and thought provoking. I loved these books.

Still reading this finale as I write, but it does not disappoint. Like the previous books in Ferrante's Neopolitan series, it is difficult to put down, written in her austere and engaging prose (beautifully translated, again). More like 4 1/2 stars. The five star book was the second in the series.

An extraordinary conclusion to this series. Ferrante has the gift of character/plot/ writing. In addition she captures the human spirit of being an artist/writer and the angst of being one.The last pages of this book are just breathtaking!

The fourth and final of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels is brilliant and poignant and takes the reader through more years of Lila's and Lenu's lives than any of the previous novels. Lost Child is notable for its treatment of Naples, always a distinct character in the stories but now more fleshed out and more relevant to the city's current state. A beautiful story and a beautiful and fitting ending to the series.

This is the last of the Neapolitan novels, and for me perhaps the most satisfying. But don't expect neat resolutions and orderly endings. Like life, these four novels (or is it this single novel?) are messy, disorganized, surprising, the mundane interrupted with flashes of brilliance. This volume is all of those and more. It brings into focus some of the ambiguities that stalked the earlier novels -- who, for example, is actually telling this tale? -- and brings the relationship of the two central characters full circle. Like the other three novels, I loved it, and look forward to reading it again.

Weaving story after story, Ferrante holds court displaying the deep desire to explain her fascination with genius. Elena and her Neapolitan friends and family come alive with honesty and passion. Where is book five???

I was glued to every word. Even as a continuation to her earlier books, there was no loss of drama or tenderness and the characters remained fascinating. This is an amazing "slice of life" series. It was tender, thoughtful and very sad. I never knew (and hope to never really know) what it is like to have a child just disappear, but this part of the book drew tear after tear. A wonderful read.

This novel is a compelling, personal, realistic portrayal of friendship with rivalry, mental health issues, underlying gang activities, modern technology, and many unanswered questions thrown in to keep the reader guessing about the ultimate bond between two talented, bright women from impoverished backgrounds.

Great novel! Suspenseful, sympathetic characters, hateful characters, the whole world is written between these pages. By far, Elena Ferrante is the best writer since WW II. This is art and story telling at its best.

This, the final book of four of the Neopolitan novels, brings the story of the friendship of Elena and Lina full circle. This is literature at it's best but the series is not an easy read. It is "dense" not "light and airy". However the depth that the author Elena Ferrante demonstrates in her exposition of the friendship as it develops and evolves is stunning. Staying with the series brings it's own reward!

Ferrante terminal has captured so many of life's stages thru a sophisticated prose rarely found in modern literature. It was so satisfying to finish the first novel and know there was more delectable reading in store for me. This series may be worth a second reading.

Simply the most amazing human, utterly female, personal Epic I have ever read. A miraculous work of love and mystery and time and pain and loss, and always, the elusive and brilliant friend. (This is a review of the four novels; to me they are one.)

My only criticism is that there was more and somewhat tedious detail near the conclusion of the story. Also, there were sections of the story (in all four books in the series) where I sensed I was reading a translation. Overall, it's masterful, a fulfilling and saturating epic.

What a refreshing style! It is highly unusual for me to read more than two sequential books by any particular author; however , I read all four of these novels without a break. In spite of my being a grammar Nazi , I didn't mind at all the run-on sentences because it was the perfect style in which to tell the story. At times, she expressed herself tersely and with great competence . Loved it!

So sorry to have finished the last of this amazing quartet.
Riveting story with many surprises and twists.
But the beauty is truly in the insightful development of the characters and the writing. All of which leads to a number of sleeples nights because you cannot put this book down.