THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD

By Elena Ferrante

“This stunning conclusion further solidifies the Neapolitan novels as Ferrante’s masterpiece.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Ferrante has created a mythic portrait of a female friendship in the chthonian world of postwar Naples” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women—the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up—a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. In this final novel, she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city’s obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into close proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood. Proximity to the world she has always rejected only brings her role as its unacknowledged leader into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable.

FOR DISCUSSION

1. The fourth volume covers the period of “maturity.” Discuss the different ways in which Lila and Elena have or have not matured as characters since Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay.

2. In the final installment, Elena returns to Naples. What is the relationship between a place and one’s identity?

3. In the beginning of novel, Elena describes her memory of Montpellier as an “escape” (25), yet she also describes it as the place where she felt her various “limitations” (26). What, then, does “an escape” mean to her? Is it merely an escape from a bad marriage or something else?

4. Adele says to Elena, “A woman separated, with two children and your ambitions, has to take account of reality and decide what she can give up and what she can’t” (67). According to the books, can a woman have it all?

5. In the beginning of Elena and Pietro’s relationship, Adele is very supportive of Lenù. This is similar to Immacolata’s relationship with Pietro. Both the mothers however are not shown as being overtly supportive of their own children. What do you think is the reason behind this?

6. “He [Franco] had rid himself so fiercely of memory, language, the capacity to find meaning that it seemed obvious the hatred he had for himself” (112). Does Elena’s description of Franco’s suicide have echoes of Lila’s disappearance?

7. Lila and Elena are two very different pregnant women. Is this difference a reflection of who they are as characters?

8. Do you think that Nino played a role in the making of Elena as a writer? If so, how?

9. Most of the men in the series are unlikeable characters with the exception of Enzo. Why?

10. In the earthquake episode, the style of narration changes, resembling stream of consciousness, (177-8). Is the sudden fragmentation in the writing style a reflection of Lila’s state of mind, and further, a premonitory sign of things to come?

11. What do the “dissolving margins” mean to Lila, and to this series as a whole?

12. Compare Lila’s relationship with her son Gennaro, to her relationship to Tina. Why do you think it is so different?

13. What do you think happened to Tina?

14. The dolls make a return at the end of the novel. What do you think they represent?

15. While Elena Greco is proud of, and even craves the visibility that comes with success, Elena Ferrante has always shied away from the limelight. Could the first be a commentary on the latter?

16. The Blue Fairy is a reoccurring motif in the series. What does it represent?

17. Alex Clark of The Guardian described the finale of the series as “a portrait of the dynamic of a friendship” that “has mutated into a weightier, more uncanny exploration of the antipathy of love, of our compulsion to create one another, over and over again.” Reflect on this.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elena Ferrante was born in Naples. She is the author of The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter. Her Neapolitan novels include My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and the fourth and final book in the series, The Story of the Lost Child.