She was a person invented by my regrets, and so she had, for me, every wished-for kindness, and different expressions, different voices. And while he grasps something of what a mother must be like, his portrait of her only shows how much he can't know about her or about any woman - his references come not from the human world but from the animal world he's more familiar with. He creates his own version of his mother, for example, inspired by an old blurred photo of her he finds discarded in his father's room. Other things, the things he couldn't ever know, he chooses to invent, and sometimes he shares those imaginings with us.

He keeps things from us but he also keeps certain things from himself in order to survive. We don't get all of his thoughts, only those he chooses to tell us, so that while we get to know him well, we will never know him completely. This entire story is recounted to us by Arturo. But one day, Arturo's father returns to the misogynistic house accompanied by a young bride he's picked up in a Naples slum.

The house he lives in has its own legend: that it has never tolerated the presence of a woman. His little boat allows him to navigate the waters around his island and act out scenes from his favourite legends. His dog helps to fill the gaps left by his mother, whom he never knew, and by his father, a mysterious figure who returns home rarely and whom Arturo endows with all the attributes of a knight of ancient times. His books are very old books, mostly histories and legends which fill his mind with dreams of fabulous adventures and noble deeds. There is a fable quality to this book though it is set in the 1930s.Īrturo (and what a good name that is, conjuring thoughts of noble knights and wondrous deeds) grows up practically alone in a large old house on a small island near Naples, with only his books, his dog, and his little boat for company.

L'isola di Arturo by Elsa Morante