Find thousands jazz reviews at All About Jazz! I am unable to read this book. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 August 2020, An Italian classic-Sublime - poetic - entrancing.... profound ...disturbing ....magical ...a classic republished and well worth the read. Bookshelf ‘Arturo’s Island’ Review: Childhood’s End A new and close translation, by the prolific Ann Goldstein, of a classic Italian fable of innocence and experience. "L'Isola d'Arturo" is written in a wonderful simple style, sensual Italianità, and mediterranean light. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. The unlikely details arrive right from the start. About the young male hero of “Arturo’s Island,” she commented: “Arturo, c’est moi!”. His absentee father only returns to visit when it is convenient. This wonderful book has it all: developed characters, unique plot, interesting setting. Prime members enjoy fast & free shipping, unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Prime Video and many more exclusive benefits. Approved third parties also use these tools in connection with our display of ads. There’s a tragic sense that the heroic dreams of his youth are about to be tested in ways he did not anticipate. When the boy reaches his early teens, his ... Read full review In the novel, Arturo, a small boy, grows up on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples.The island is the location of a penitentiary. His mother died when he was born, and his father is always away. She is luminous, a kind of saint. Arturo grows up in a woman-scorning world. Is life on Procida so cut off from reality? Family photos had faces scratched out. Arturo’s Bistro serves European style food prepared with the freshest ingredients and the highest quality of food. It is incantatory as lyric poetry, and has an originality of voice and a boldness of psychological reach to which only the most skilled of novelists can lay claim. Morante's 1957 novel tells the story of Arturo, an Italian boy who lives alone on his father's island where he is cared for by a staff of black-clad women. He seems not to appreciate his son at all, but, nevertheless, Arturo adores his father. A book for fans of Ferrante, Tove Jansson, Tana French, Janet Gardam, and Marcel Proust, other masters of setting and psychology. Arturo's Island (Italian: L'isola di Arturo) is a novel by Italian author Elsa Morante.Published in 1957, it won the Premio Strega.. Back in Rome after the war, they became something akin to the Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir of the Italian intelligentsia. I came to this writer by way of Elena Ferrante, who was apparently a big fan of the author (see "Frantumaglia"). Arturo O'Farrill: Live in Brooklyn album review by John Kelman, published on June 15, 2005. Reviewed in the United States on 20 March 2019. “Arturo’s Island” is about a semi-orphaned boy’s coming-of-age on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples in the years just before World War II. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 August 2020. It didn't help to have a rich father who was aloof, cold, condescending and traveled most of the time (for fun) but did not share anything about his adventures. Morante’s themes are not subtle. The island of Procida, in this novel, feels stolen from myth. I was expecting so much more. Ferrante was among those who devoured Morante’s novels. © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. I read a lot of books and I rarely give five stars with this level of enthusiasm. Elsa Morante's novels were once considered the greatest of Italy's postwar generation. He slowly falls in love with his stepmother and asks her to run away with him. But the wonder of it is not so much its oddness and its poetry, but how deeply the author, and therefore the reader, cares about the central character and how deeply felt is her portrayal of his travails. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. One day, Arturo’s father brings home a new wife, a teenage peasant named Nunziata. His mysterious father comes and goes at will. Arturo is a teenage boy who lives alone on an island. This page works best with JavaScript. There is no space between one paragraph and the next! The characters in Elsa Morante’s masterpiece, Arturo’s Island, are bewitched and bewitching, in thrall to someone, or to some idea, and, simultaneously, enthralling … The book has the quality of a fable or a dream, in the best possible way. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. Morante’s mother was often hysterical, and attempted suicide. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. An enormous prison looms over the island, as if it were Alcatraz. Critic Reviews for Arturo's Island (Isola di Arturo, L') All Critics (1) | Fresh (1) [Director Damiano] Damiani handles the explosive, though not new, father-wife-son triangle with deific delicacy. Woe to those who referred to her using her husband’s surname and not her own. Arturo's Island : A Novel (Italia Series) User Review - Not Available - Book Verdict. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. When she has a child, however, Arturo is jealous of the attention the baby gets. The first time I picked up the Italian writer Elsa Morante’s 1957 novel “Arturo’s Island,” in this new translation by Ann Goldstein, the gifted translator of Elena Ferrante’s novels into English, I put it down after 75 pages. (She had to share him with the actress Anna Magnani. He was found to be impotent on his wedding night, and his wife often made him stay, as punishment, in the basement of the family’s house in a working-class section of Rome. ), Her table talk was famous. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Arturo's Island at Amazon.com. Arturo’s mother died in childbirth, and, because their home’s previous inhabitant hated women and, so the story goes, left a curse on the … Plot synopsis. Reviewed in the United States on 30 April 2019. His father, who inherited the house from the man, also inherited most of his opinions. Her people don’t talk so much as they exclaim “with a contemptuous sneer” or “a loud, haughty cry of derision.” They tremble with violent disgusts and savage attitudes. A very emotional, imaginative, and poetic novel, about a boy deprived of love and basic parenting by a selfish and perverse father. Arturo's Bistro, Marco Island: See 355 unbiased reviews of Arturo's Bistro, rated 4.5 of 5 on Tripadvisor and ranked #20 of 88 restaurants in Marco Island. We use cookies and similar tools to enhance your shopping experience, to provide our services, understand how customers use our services so we can make improvements, and display ads. - See 355 traveler reviews, 46 candid photos, and great deals for Marco Island, FL, at Tripadvisor. Morante shows great sensitivity but also painful insights in her portrayal of Arturo's journey towards manhood. by Elsa Morante ; translated by Ann Goldstein ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 19, 2019. Before I picked it up again, I found Lily Tuck’s slim and sophisticated biography of Morante, “Woman of Rome” (2008). Reviewed in the United States on 11 April 2019. (Some spoilers) ARTURO'S ISLAND is a moody film about a lonely, motherless fifteen-year-old boy living on the Island of Procida in the Bay of Naples and who, without any real guidance, must fend for himself. “Arturo’s Island,” even in Goldstein’s adroit translation, is a sledgehammer performance. Father and son treat her abysmally. This quiet, meandering existence is upended when his father brings home a beautiful sixteen-year-old bride, … Reading it is an experience I recommend. It seemed very long, wordy, and sad. Try again. Morante didn’t attend college. She lived in poverty, sometimes resorting to prostitution, while struggling to become a journalist then a novelist. Their friends included the writer Italo Calvino and the directors Pier Paolo Pasolini and Luchino Visconti, with whom Morante had an affair. Elsa Morante was a type of southern Italian woman which in Italian is called "cattiva" (evil) but with an admiring connotation. The characters in Elsa Morante’s masterpiece, Arturo’s Island, are bewitched and bewitching, in thrall to someone, or to some idea, and, simultaneously, enthralling to someone else. Morante led a striding, unconventional life; a life that helps put the soaring cadenzas of feeling in her novels in context. Sorry, there was a problem saving your cookie preferences. The book is about a boy's ecstatically fanatical devotion to his charismatic, difficult father, and how his relationship to him evolves over time. Original and arresting coming-of-age story, Reviewed in the United States on 2 August 2019. She chose her pen name because of its echoes with Morante’s own. 5/5: This was an absolutely amazing book, Elsa Morante should be more widely known, though she only wrote four books, and went into exile during WWII and had a famous husband, that may have kept people from seeing the incredible author she was. Arturo’s Bistro is a quaint and cozy establishment with a warm and friendly atmosphere. Arturo's Delicatessen, Glasgow: See 26 unbiased reviews of Arturo's Delicatessen, rated 4.5 of 5 on Tripadvisor and ranked #836 of 2,220 restaurants in Glasgow. Published in Italy in 1957, it was very successful at the time, and has since become a classic, taught in schools and widely read. Its odd and off-beat coming-of-age story moves relentlessly forward, leaving enough unsaid to achieve an entirely original effect. Select Your Cookie Preferences. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Morante’s stepfather was a probation officer at a boys’ reform school. “Arturo’s Island” is about a semi-orphaned boy’s coming-of-age on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples in the years just before World War II. “Arturo’s Island” kept calling out to me, however. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 April 2003. The men in this novel are knives, and the woman meat. The print is so very small- it is a strain. Superbly written/translated. He adds: “They were ashamed of themselves, maybe because they were so ugly; and they went around like sad animals.”. Arturo’s sense of himself, and of his father, are shaken when he realizes that his father is in love with a male prisoner on the island. Here, Ann Goldstein's "deft translation" (Madeline Schwartz, New York Review of Books) of Arturo's Island heralds a "second life" for the beloved author, finally garnering Morante "the new readers she deserves" (Lily Tuck, Wall Street Journal). Flights Holiday Rentals Morante wore trousers, a rarity for Italian women at the time. His father, whom he idolizes, is mostly cold and aloof, spending much of his time away from the island on trips that he refuses to talk about. Yet Nunziata keeps the fires lit in the kitchen; she makes fresh pasta every day; she cares for her child and tries to stay above the fray. The book’s themes — … Arturo's initiation to the tragedies and mediocrities of adulthood is contained within the geographical space of a beautiful Southern island, Procida, where he … Was somewhat disappointed. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Arturo's Island at Amazon.com. In 1938, she prepared a pot of boiling oil, intending to pour it on the heads of Hitler and Mussolini, who were passing in a convertible limousine under her apartment windows. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness. He and Morante were each half-Jewish. The writing was so vivid that after I put down the book, I had the feeling that I had been at the boy's side as he roamed the island's hills and explored its surrounding waters on his boat. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. Reviewed in the United States on 23 August 2013. The filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci told his father, who begged him to go to college, “My university is having dinner every night with Elsa Morante, Alberto Moravia and Pier Paolo Pasolini.”. Arturo’s early ramblings on the island have an unearthly quality, as ethereal as the later sections are grounded and precise. Moravia found that he was on the wanted list of the fascist police. It is very similar and the food was great. I am very grateful that I stumbled across her, as she is writer of rare insight and power. Arturo, a young boy, grows up on the island of Procida alone. I purchased THIS book after reading her first book (The Story). Arturo's Bistro, Marco Island: See 355 unbiased reviews of Arturo's Bistro, rated 4.5 of 5 on Tripadvisor and ranked #19 of 88 restaurants in Marco Island. It means a woman who is first herself, doesn't waste smiles, and speaks her mind, sexually too. The characters in Elsa Morante’s masterpiece, Arturo’s Island, are bewitched and bewitching, in thrall to someone, or to some idea, and, simultaneously, enthralling to someone else. It had set its brutal hooks. Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2010. This book is so beautifully written, even in translation from the Italian. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Marisa Rastellini/Mondadori Portfolio, via Getty Images. Our Chefs have decades of culinary experience, and are recipients of various culinary awards. The house’s previous occupant, a wealthy and apparently gay man, threw elaborate parties and refused entrance to women. “According to my judgment, real women possessed no splendor and no magnificence,” Arturo says. They strike poses of fear, loathing and, in the words of one character, “aggressive, insolent vehemence.” They rattle the cutlery and they rattle each other. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 April 2003. And yet, in another way, I had the sense that the topography was merely a projection of the boy's inner life; in this book, outside and inside merge and blur deliciously. In this little-known classic of Italian literature, young Arturogrows up in near-isolation on the island of Procida in the Bay ofNaples. If you love Ferrante you will love Morante's Aurturo's Island. 4.0 out of 5 stars Rights of passage. L'isola di Arturo, Arturo's Island, is Elsa Morante's second novel. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Arturo'S Island at Amazon.com. There's a problem loading this menu at the moment. (“Shut up, you ugly, slovenly devil,” the father says to her, in a typical snippet of dialogue.) Her novels, enormously influential in her home country, include “House of Liars” (1948) and “History” (1974), which was a landslide best seller in Italy. They are where Island Cafe was which we loved. Arturo's Island is a magnificent and complex novel about the coming of age of Arturo, a boy half orphaned at his birth and growing up in loneliness in the Neapolitan island of Procida. He realizes that he has never been kissed. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 February 2014. Arturo’s own house is a crumbling, spider-webbed 20-room palazzo. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Arturo's Island at Amazon.com. There are few happy or fulfilled women in Morante’s oeuvre. The pair went on the run in 1943, hiding for nearly a year in a small town, in a one-room hut built against a large stone. Highly recommended. She did not suffer fools. Her future husband, the novelist Alberto Moravia (1907-1990), talked her out of this suicide mission. Arturo’s mother, who was 17 and illiterate, died in childbirth. Critic Reviews for Arturo's Island (Isola di Arturo, L') All Critics (1) | Fresh (1) [Director Damiano] Damiani handles the explosive, though not new, father-wife-son triangle with deific delicacy. The gorgeously rendered setting heightens the novel's power--the boy and his father live alone in a grand but dilapidated mansion on the hills of a small island off the coast of Naples. Morante’s style might seem old-fashioned, at first, to contemporary readers, but they’d do well to overcome that initial impression. An Operatic Italian Classic Gets a Fresh Translation. The book’s themes — incest, misogyny, narcissism, homosexuality — slide across the pages like lava. Arturo's Bistro We tried this new restaurant Arturo's Bistro this year. In interviews, Morante often claimed she wished she’d been born a boy, so that she could have heroic adventures. Elsa Morante at her apartment in Rome, 1961. Follows the adolescent Arturo through his days on the isolated Neapolitan island of Procida, where―his mother long deceased, his father often absent, and a dog as his sole companion―he roams the countryside and the beaches or reads in his family’s lonely, dilapidated mansion. What an exceptional writer! This novel just blew me away. A postwar novel about a boy, his father, and their isolated world. When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. But her writing, once you acclimate to its gargoyle extravagance, has the power of malediction. About its impact, Paul Hofmann wrote in The Times, “For the first time since anyone can remember, people in railroad compartments and espresso bars discuss a book — the Morante novel — rather than the soccer championship or latest scandal.” The translations of her novels made little impact in the United States. Morante’s vision is so baroque, and her prose so operatic, that after reading her I needed some alone time, with cucumber slices over my eyelids. Set with at times unbearable intensity on a small Itallian island just before the Second World War, this is the story of Arturo's right of passage through childhood and adolescence to young adulthood. Arturo’s growing up plays out against the reader’s awareness of the onrushing war. The specificity of the setting, the precision of the tone, the poetry of the language--this novel just doesn't let up. The story is unfolding word by word without the reader ever being fully aware what is told to him: A young man, about to enter military service tells his coming of age, his first sexual experiences, his father's marriage to a stepmother, his small stepbrother's birth, his father's love affair with a (male) criminal incarcerated in a neighboring prison, his father's past relationship with a North European homosexual... Elsa Morante put into the book what few male writers worldwide in the fifties were daring to write. Arturo's Bistro: Best restaurant on Marco Island! The boy roams the island with his dog, and the sea in his small boat. Set with at times unbearable intensity on a small Itallian island just before the Second World War, this is the story of Arturo's right of passage through childhood and adolescence to young adulthood. From time to time, Arturo's father comes to see him, but only too soon leaves him again. 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