De hemel verslinden (Devouring heaven)

I've read this novel in dutch because as far as I know there hasn't been a translation into English yet. The title roughly translates into Devouring Heaven as in consuming it too rapidly, too eagerly.

I've read another novel by this author before.. The Solitude of Prime Numbers and I really likes it. It has a spot on my premium shelf here at home.
This novel hasn't had that kind of impact upon me. It has the same kind of atmosphere, as in it breathes the same hopeless kind of hope, almost a childlike way of viewing life and its meaning, as if the characters never really fully developed.

The novel centers around a place in Italy, in Speziale. A few acres of land, referenced as the masseria, where almost everything takes place. The masseria itself feels like Peter Pan's Neverland, where growing up isn't part of life and what happens outside this place isn't important.
The place is introduced in the first place as a kind of cult, where a couple take care of kids that are 'orphaned' because their sole caregiver is taken into custody. They get homeschooled and taught about God and the respect they have to give to every living thing. They live secluded, until a girl, Teresa, who spend her summer holidays next door (with her grandmother) enters their live.
Them meaning Bern, Nicola en Tommaso. Nicola is the couple's own son, Bern their nephew and Tommaso the child taken into their custody.
These four entwine their lives and we as readers get to follow their stories as they unwind.

It's not a journey most will follow as their existence has a hippie tinge about it. It's this existence that caused my distance from the story. And I didn't like the ending. The cave or the final thing Teresa does. I won't say more, so not to ruin anyone else's joy of reading this novel.

Review of The Solitude of Prime Numbers

Wow!
Don't let this one slip away!

A prime number can only be divided by itself or by one—it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia, both "primes," are misfits who seem destined to be alone. Haunted by childhood tragedies that mark their lives, they cannot reach out to anyone else. When Alice and Mattia meet as teenagers, they recognize in each other a kindred, damaged spirit.

But the mathematically gifted Mattia accepts a research position that takes him thousands of miles away, and the two are forced to separate. Then a chance occurrence reunites them and forces a lifetime of concealed emotion to the surface.

Like Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, this is a stunning meditation on loneliness, love, and the weight of childhood experience that is set to become a universal classic. (www.goodreads.com)

Where to start?
This is a diamond amongst pearls.
It's been recommended to me by a longtime friend and she told me I'd certainly was going to like it. I have to buy her something expensive since she got it spot on.
This novel hit home. It almost felt personal, as if the writer knew me. Many of the things said or thought, I can relate to.
Of course most of you don't know me, but I am quite a loner. Not antisocial, or anything, but I just don't seem to connect to others as easily as most seem to do.
In this novel we follow a girl and a boy who both have gone through something horrible when they were very young and we see how it has scarred them growing up. Alice is punishing herself quite abusively and Mattia seeks to flee away in a world of mathematics where everything can be logically explained.
It's a novel about how loneliless sometimes is more than only an occurence one needs to remedy by being with others. You can be lonely together.
It's not a long novel, It's been written wonderful or translated into English I have to say, since the original novel is in Italian. As I was reading it, I kept thinking that it would make a great movie and as I searched the internet for a picture to put up in my blog, I found out it has already been adapted to the big screen.
So, read and don't forget this novel! Especially when you're one of those people not quite adapting to others.

Personal score: 5 stars