Status Updates From Arturo's Island: A Novel

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.

We all live with an ignorance of our fate. This fatal ignorance sometimes causes joy; sometimes despair, as when Arturo wonders why the portrait of a dead man received kisses he himself never received. And one’s relationship with the context in which one finds oneself often determines the prevailing effect. It's fascinating how Morante filters existential dread through Arturo’s reflections of his childhood wounds.

Ch. 1 done. I'm enjoying the atmosphere of the island and the nature-devoured mansion in which Arturo and his father, Wilhelm, live. The father-son dynamic is already intriguing, poignant, and setting a solid base for the coming-of-age elements—especially given Arturo’s Code of Absolute Truth. There’s a deep sense of isolation in all the main characters, which provides a discomfort riding along the beauty of Procida.