“Truth and beauty are typically assumed to coexist. [Ferrante] has argued in favor of the opposite view, rejecting ‘the cult of the beautifully wrought page’ in favor of the ‘rough draft with all its sloppiness’ […] Giovanna, like Ferrante, ultimately rejects any association between beauty and what is good and true […] Giovanna’s slipping away within the lines even of her own story, as she puts it in the beginning, may be seen not as tragic, then, but as a refusal to live according to her father’s terms—terms that even he cannot live up to.”
Read the full review in Ploughshares.
