Status Updates From L'isola di Arturo

Typical of Morante, with much drama between individuals in the Neapolitan-adjacent world. Always worth digging into.

Chapter 7: the section titled _Metamorphosis_ is phenomenal. From the cruelty of consolation to the seeming "evil oracles" of our dreams; from a dark dive into Arturo’s imagination to hallucinations driven by known superstitions, Morante’s/Goldstein’s prose here in this tight span is nothing short of devastating brilliance. I'm appalled by this melancholy recollection of Arturo’s but consoled by the storytelling.

Chapter 3 done. Wow... My heart aches. My blood boils. Arturo is becoming increasingly unlikable but nonetheless hauntingly fascinating. Morante excels at making repellent characters magnetic through psychological insight. Her portrait of Arturo and of Procida at large is sharp and crushing.

Morante’s Freudian predilection is definitely showing! Arturo (A.) loosely criticizes and surgically implements ideas from dream theory in his recollections. For A., it's more satisfying to correctly guess a sleeper’s dream than to later hear it told, "even if he doesn’t lie". Yet A. also recalls times Wilhelm would tickle him, and how this would correlate to a "fish-feather" suddenly tickling him in a dream.