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.
