ÖsszĂ©rtĂ©kelĂ©s, mert nem Ă­rtam kĂŒlön a kötetekrƑl. Olyasmi a viszonyom ezzel a sorozattal, mint a kĂ©t fƑszereplƑnek egymĂĄssal. Ellenszenvesek voltak a szereplƑk, nagyon sokĂĄig nem tudtam azonosulni senkivel, mĂ©gis Ășgy sodort, hogy hajnalba nyĂșlĂłan olvastam, a mĂĄsodik-harmadik-negyedik köteteket egymĂĄs utĂĄn. (Az elsƑ olvasĂĄsa idejĂ©n mĂ©g nem jelent meg a mĂĄsodik magyarul.)

A tĂĄrsadalmi Ă©s a lelki nyomor, a bĂĄntalmazĂĄs, az erƑszak termĂ©szetessĂ©ge, a kapcsolataik nyomora, ahogy mindenkirƑl lehull az ĂĄlarc, ahogy lehĂșz a kilĂĄtĂĄstalansĂĄg. Elment az Ă©letkedvem tƑle, annyira a legrosszabb, legkiĂĄbrĂĄndĂ­tĂłbb arcĂĄt mutatja a valĂłsĂĄgnak. Fantasztikusan megĂ­rt baromi kellemetlen közeg. AzĂ©rt sem tudtam letenni, hogy szabadulhassak vĂ©gre ebbƑl a vilĂĄgbĂłl.

KevĂ©s olyan szereplƑt tudnĂ©k mondani, akit nem a kisebbrendƱsĂ©gi komplexusa irĂĄnyĂ­tott, nem volt jĂł köztĂŒk. A mĂ©rgezƑ, bĂĄntalmazĂł kapcsolatok hĂĄlĂłjĂĄban aztĂĄn amikor azonosulĂĄsi pontot talĂĄltam, azt rögtön sejtettem, hogy nem fogom zsebre tenni, amit kapok. A NinĂłk pöcsfejek, nincs kivĂ©tel, hiĂĄba hiszi minden ostoba liba, hogy vele aztĂĄn tĂ©nyleg mĂĄs.

Nagyon ĂŒgyesen voltak beleszƑve a politikai esemĂ©nyek, mozgalmak, a technikai vĂĄltozĂĄsok. Na Ă©s a drĂĄmai csĂșcspont, ugye. Ami nincs elvarrva, megmagyarĂĄzva, megoldva. HiĂĄba szeretne az olvasĂł - a szereplƑkkel egyĂŒtt - magyarĂĄzatot. ÁltalĂĄban a valĂłsĂĄgot szeretem olvasni. Ez annyira kƑkemĂ©nyen az volt, hogy most pihenĂ©skĂ©pp olvasnĂ©k valami kellemes hazugsĂĄgot. ( )

I am going to miss Lila and Lenu!! Very powerful and beautiful. Loved it and was happy that the story finished so strongly. ( )

The Story of the Lost Child is the brilliant conclusion of the life long friendship between the narrator Elena and her best friend Lila. In the first novel of the series the prologue served to demonstrate how loss would be a common theme in all four novels, when an aging Lila simply goes missing. In this final novel, Lila literally looses her little girl Tina in the the local park. But metaphorically speaking, in many ways, right from the first novel, when they were just little girls, Lila was a lost child. She was a fascinating character, but led her entire life surrounded by sadness, simply unable to escape it's evil and ruthless, emotional clutches. ( )

And so this epic tale of two women, friends for 60 years, comes to an end. This volume, which includes the period in which Elena and Lila are my age, women with careers, growing children and complicated relationships with men, resonates with me perhaps more than the other books did. Here the story begins to ruminate in earnest, as Elena contemplates her past and future with the eyes of someone who has truly lived. It also reveals more than ever the depth of the clear-eyed storytelling throughout the three previous volumes as well. In the last few chapters I came to understand why, in the very earliest pages of the first book, Elena discards the manuscript that Lila sent her (an act I'd all but forgotten but whose significance, like the Scouring of the Shire, requires the consumption of the whole story to understand). I marked one passage in the text, from page 221, after Elena's mother dies: "Right after her funeral I felt the way you feel when it suddenly starts raining hard, and you look around and find no place to take shelter." Gorgeous, evocative and simple language that expresses the very heart of an idea is the hallmark of this and all the Neapolitan novels. Everyone should read them. ( )

It’s difficult to describe what why Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels are so interesting, because to describe them sounds like describing a soap opera. Even more so, it’s difficult to describe what she does in her fourth and final book of the series, because it sounds so rote and by-the-numbers, but it comes out naturally and organically. Suffice it to say she gives all characters their final, lingering place in the story, some tragic, some happy, some simply existing. It is like life. While the story (which, in retrospect, is a single book split into four volumes) has often focused on Lila and Elena (the character), there are about two dozen other characters in the story that make up the Elena’s world, and specifically the neighborhood of Naples. And the neighborhood is a character in itself.

Those neighborhood children who seemed so innocent in the opening 100 pages have now committed terrible acts. Some have done so out of greed, some have done so out of necessity, and some have done so because that’s what they see around them. The neighborhood remains in Elena’s life and she can never truly escape it or leave. She can experience love, heartbreak, grief and loss, comfort and success, but it’ll always be within the context of her early years, and within the context of her best friend Lila.

The title, as is now typical of the series, has a double meaning. The “lost child” is part metaphor as Ferrante reaches into her character’s pasts to reveal their childhood dolls were foreshadowing for their middle age. Elena’s immaturity of the third novel dissipates into an understanding of the true nature of the world even as she faces the echoes of her bad decisions in her children. Lila, who to Elena has seemed the more mature of the two, becomes less mature in her old age. If Elena is hope, Lila is realism to its illogical extreme.

As happened several times during the reading of this series, toward the end of the book I realized I was equating Elena Ferrante the author with Elena the character. This is a testament to Ferrante’s skill at realism. When Elena mentions publishing a new book, I flip to the back cover to check if this is a title of Ferrante’s. Of course it’s not. Ferrate is writing from experiences of her own life, but not of her own life. Yet in doing so, she creates two of the most realized fictional female characters, (sometimes confusing, sometimes frustrating, but that is real) and etches them in stone so their edges cannot dissipate.

Phrases and quotes I liked:

- ... My boundaries had burst and I was expanding.
- "It's useless to open the eyes of someone in love."
- In what disorder we lived, how many fragments of ourselves were scattered, as if to live were to explode into splinters.
- “Lies are better than tranquilizers.”
- 
they all seemed to brighten in his vicinity. I knew that light well, I wasn’t surprised. being close to him give you the impression of being visible, especially to yourself, and you were content.
- “Or the whole universe could collapse. And then what is Michele Solara? Nothing. And Marcello is nothing. The two of them are merely flesh that sprouts out threats and demands for money.”
- “One suffers everywhere.”
- Now that I was surrounded by admiration, I could admit without uneasiness that talking to her incited ideas. A slight push was enough and the seemingly empty mind discovered that it was full and lively.
- Only in bad novels people always think the right thing , always say the right thing, every effect has its cause, there are the likable ones and the unlikable, the good and the bad, everything in the end consoles you.
- Every intense relationship between human beings is full of traps, and if you want to endure you have to learn to avoid them. ( )