Note dell'editore Aracoeli--Elsa Morante's final novel--is the story of an aging man's attempt to recover the past and get his life on track in the process. The Aracoeli of the title is the narrator's deceased mother, who grew up in a small Spanish town before marrying an upper-class Italian navy ensign. The idyllic years she spends with her only son--Manuel, the narrator of the novel--are shattered when she contracts an incurable disease (probably syphilis) and becomes a nymphomaniac.
Now, at the age of 43, Manuel, an unattractive, self-loathing, recovering drug addict who works a dead-end job at a small publishing house, decides to travel to her hometown in Spain in order to look for her. Filled with dreams and remembrances the novel creates a Sebaldian landscape of memory out of this painful journey, painting a portrait that is both touching and bleak.
Commenti personali Un po' farneticante con una pretestuosa ricerca delle origini della madre per poi raccontare la sua storia da giovane. Belle immagini, ma spesso troppo prolisso
da leggere
Possedeva l’antidoto contro il terribile veleno della vecchiaia. Sapeva leggere.
(Louis Sepulveda)