Characters grow and mature but end up menaced by circumstances
4 stars
In the third volume of this series the long friendship between the characters of Lenù and Lila is changed as they lead divergent lives in different parts of Italy. There are significantly long sessions where one or the other does not appear but then they reconnect after the tumultuous events, usually by telephone, and it is as though these sections convey the real significance of what just happened. Each manages to reach a certain kind of success but has to navigate stresses in their other relationships and from the larger society. Politics plays a pretty big role in this book, larger than I would expect to see in one by an English speaking writer concentrating on the lives of women in the West. The story is complex with many characters and events from the previous two books impinging on the characters' lives, and I had to work hard more than …
In the third volume of this series the long friendship between the characters of Lenù and Lila is changed as they lead divergent lives in different parts of Italy. There are significantly long sessions where one or the other does not appear but then they reconnect after the tumultuous events, usually by telephone, and it is as though these sections convey the real significance of what just happened. Each manages to reach a certain kind of success but has to navigate stresses in their other relationships and from the larger society. Politics plays a pretty big role in this book, larger than I would expect to see in one by an English speaking writer concentrating on the lives of women in the West. The story is complex with many characters and events from the previous two books impinging on the characters' lives, and I had to work hard more than once to recall just who they were talking about. The writing in English translation is beautiful with long passages here and there with the viewpoint character working out her feelings and coming to surprising insights. There are villains in the course of the plot but even more than that there are ambiguous characters, frequently but not always men, whose actions twist the plot in surprising ways. It is kind of a slow read I took mostly in ten or twenty minute chunks rather than speeding through it all. The settings are more generic than the intense descriptions I remember of Ischia in book two. Really, the only thing distinguishing the new settings was the distance between them which serves to isolate them at critical times. The author is masterful in foreshadowing the hardships that may come to her characters because of their actions and simmering conflicts.
I m going to take a break to ruminate before hitting book four, the last one in the series.