After seeing the film version of THE LOST DAUGHTER on Netflix, I wanted to read the book. Although there are some differences, on the whole the film is very faithful to the book.
Leda is a middle-aged English professor on summer holiday. In the book, all the characters are Italian and the holiday takes place in Italy. (The movie changes both of those things). Leda is attracted to and repelled by a large Italian family who spend their days on the beach near her. She is especially interested in a young mother and her daughter and the daughter's doll. In flashbacks, we learn Leda deserted her family for a three-year period to pursue her career and an attractive professor in early motherhood.
Leda is also attracted to a much younger student hired for the summer to attend to the guests. She finds it hard to realize that she is just hotel guest to him and not a possible romance.
The doll becomes very significant in this story. Leda steals it and hides it even when the child is clearly hysterical over its loss. It is only through flash backs to Leda's time as a young mother that we see what the doll represents. Her lost daughters (although Leda is the real lost daughter, I think) are now grown and in Canada with their father and although they seem to have a relationship with their mother, it is clear Leda lives with some regret over her desertion. Leda is an extremely thorny character. I felt sympathy for her but also did not understand a lot of her actions.
But I thought this was a very fine novel. Not many books have examined the consequences of a mother deserting her children and the society is not very forgiving of it. I also enjoyed MY BRILLIANT FRIEND a few years ago.
10 comments:
I keep hearing this is a fine read, Patti, and I'm very glad that you enjoyed it. It's also good to hear that the film stays true to the book. I'm a purist that way...
Thanks, Margot. Really a wonderful writer.
Katie has read all of Elena Ferrante's books. She's big fan. I don't think Katie has seen THE LOST DAUGHTER movie yet.
We did watch the movie. I agree with you about the main character. She was very not likable - I thought the worst thing she did (in the "present") was hiding that kid's doll.
I don't think she did it to be mean. The movie was perhaps not clear enough about that. Her children had destroyed a doll from her childhood by inking all over it. And I think she saw that little girls as destroying that doll. Girls and their dolls are a complex dynamic.
She took the doll and hid it. She saw how upset the kid was and did nothing. And then, late in the day, she presents it to her and tells her that she took it.
To me, there was something nuts about that.
I’m glad you liked it, but it sounds quite unpleasant to me. Plus, I’m pretty tired of books filled with flashbacks.
I haven't read anything by Elena Ferrante. This sounds more interesting than I thought her books would be, but also more depressing. I finished Olive Kitteridge recently and it was depressing for me. Sometimes I could not read more than one story a day. But I liked reading it. I am not sure I would like this one.
Most literary (mainstream) fiction is depressing. It is hard to think of a fiction writer who isn't. Maybe Jonathan Evison, whose new book, SMALL WORLD looks great. I don't mind depressing if it captures real life emotions and events. I am always looking for novels that capture the human experience. And guess what, pretty depressing usually.
Even in genre writing-all those sheriffs and cops have drinking problems, family problems, serious issues.
LIane Moriarity's new book is not depressing although I put it aside after 300 pages because she kept telling me the same thing over and over.
Some of Anne Tyler, I guess. Laurie Colwin"s Happy All the Time is lovely but that is thirty years ago now.
You sort of have to do flashbacks if you are going to explain why a character's behavior is the way it is. If you start with the initiating events, there would be no tension probably.
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