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4.0 

Lies and Sorcery

By Elsa Morante & Jenny McPhee
Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante & Jenny McPhee digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

An Italian master's magnum opus about three generations of women, now in the first-ever unabridged English translation.

Elsa Morante is one of the titans of twentieth-century literature—Natalia Ginzburg said she was the writer of her own generation that she most admired—and yet her work remains little known in the United States. Written during World War II, Morante’s celebrated first novel, Lies and Sorcery, is in the grand tradition of Stendhal, Tolstoy, and Proust, spanning the lives of three generations of wildly eccentric women.

The story is set in Sicily and told by Elisa, orphaned young and raised by a “fallen woman.” For years Elisa has lived in an imaginary world of her own; now, however, her guardian has died, and the young woman feels that she must abandon her fantasy life to confront the truth of her family’s tortured and dramatic history. Elisa is a seductive, if less than reliable, spinner of stories, and the reader is drawn into a tale of secrets, intrigue, and treachery, which, as it proceeds, is increasingly revealed to be an exploration of a legacy of political and social injustice. Throughout, Morante’s elegant writing—and her drive to get at the heart of her characters’ complex relationships and all-too self-destructive behavior—holds us spellbound.

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17 Reviews

4.0
“It feels impossible to give this book a star rating. At least right now. *Update: I decided to give this 5 stars because I genuinely have not stopped thinking about this story, and I miss the presence it had in my life. I purchased this earlier in the year after I saw that it's one of Elena Ferrante's favorite books. Ferrante is my favorite contemporary author, so anything she recommends is an instant buy for me. I started reading it on September 8th of this year and here we are, 73 days later... Lies and Sorcery is a multigenerational family saga that takes place in Sicily during World War II. But, in reality, it is so much more than that - it is a melodrama, a literal soap opera, an excavation of desire, privilege, obsession, patriarchy, fantasies, fascism, and, well, lies and sorcery. This is not your typical historical fiction. It is delirious, confusing, untrustworthy, and a fundamentally disconcerting experience. This has to be the most brilliant exercise in literary authority that I have ever come across. I did not have a fun time reading this. It is quite long, the prose can be extremely dense, and I found myself straight up bored for a good portion of this. I have a million books on my TBR, so why continue with this mammoth when there's so many other books waiting for me? Because Elisa, the narrator, continuously assures answers to all outstanding questions. Just when you're getting bored with the narrative, Elisa will remind you - promise you - that all seemingly minute details are essential to the climax of the book. I have read other books that break the fourth wall and found it extremely annoying. I am still trying to figure out why Morante's particular use of this technique was so affecting for me. I can absolutely perceive the inspiration that Ferrante took from Morante. Upon finishing the Neapolitan Quartet, I was overwhelmed by the conclusion that those four books gave us a true, classical epic. But Lies and Sorcery takes the cake for that. Much like Ferrante later does, Morante tells us every thought, every desire, every hatred, every dream that our characters have. It's monotonous, it's repetetive, but it's so consuming. The mixture of baroque and modern prose styles was impossibly unique and elusive. I can't imagine how Jenny McPhee translated this. Hats off. I have no idea if I would recommend this.”
“I did it!!! I’m so happy that I finished this nearly 800 page book. Unfortunately I found it way too long and a bit of a slog to get through at times. I expected to love it because it’s a huge inspiration of Elena Ferrante; and I’ve heard it compared to the Neapolitan Novels. Stylistically it is VERY different than that. It feels more like a Dickens novel or something from that period with over the top characters and a bit more high drama, not gritty realism. The story is told by Elisa who recounts her family history starting with her grandmother and moving to her mother, as well as some other characters in her mother’s life and how they are all connected. It’s very tell, not show. It’s written like a book Elisa is writing and she pulls info from letters and diaries. Ultimately I think this is a case of me not being the right reader for this and having different expectations going in. The translation is strong! But the rest just didn’t grip me like I wanted to. I always felt like an outside observer, almost like watching a soap opera. It was fun but maybe not 800 pages worth.”

About Elsa Morante

Elsa Morante (1912–1985) was an Italian novelist, poet, and translator. She was born in Rome and lived there nearly all her life. In 1941, she published her first collection of stories and married the novelist Alberto Moravia. Morante is best known for her novels Arturo’s Island and La Storia. For her work, she was awarded both the Viareggio Prize and the Strega Prize.

Jenny McPhee is a translator and the author of the novels The Center of Things, No Ordinary Matter, and A Man of No Moon. For NYRB Classics she translted Curzio Malaparte’s The Kremlin Ball and Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon. She is the director for the Center of Applied Liberal Arts at New York University.

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