Customer Reviews

Sea of Memory: A Novel

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The sixteen year-old narrator of Erri de Luca's short but luminous novel SEA OF MEMORY is on a quest. Set in a small fishing village on an Italian island in the 1950s, the novel explores not only his coming-of-age summer, but his curiosity about the war as well -- and it does so with depth, insight and sensitivity.

The boy's questions about the war are answered by the adults in his life briefly and openly at first -- when they realize that their replies are not satisfying him, however, they clam up, almost to a man. The war is a subject that is not history to them -- it is something through which they lived. Their memories of the events in question are not pretty ones. Serving in the Italian army, under the control of the Reich, there are things they were ordered to do of which there can be no pride. Some of them managed to avoid committing atrocities -- they even found ways of helping the people they were supposed to be oppressing (and some of them were sheltered in return when they were the ones sought by the Germans). The more the boy comes to understand, the angrier at Germany he becomes.

This anger is intensified when he is befriended by an older girl, Caia, who is on the island for the summer. He is attracted to her without question -- but he also knows that, being younger, he stands little chance of getting closer to her. Caia is drawn to him as well -- and as their friendship deepens, he begins to suspect that she is harboring secrets, and he is determined to learn more about her.

As the story evolves -- and I won't give away much here -- it turns out that Caia is Jewish, and that she begins to believe that her dead father is attempting to communicate with her through the young boy. This draws them closer together still -- but in a deeper way than romance alone could hope to accomplish.

De Luca is very skillful in evoking the atmosphere and life in the village -- his descriptions of the fishermen and their work, and of the emotions felt by his characters, are extremely sensitive and compelling. He treats his characters with respect, never depicting them in a patronizing manner.

The boy's anger, fuelled to a volcanic point by his love for Caia, brings him to a crossroads in his life -- one of an intensity that is not usually reached by one so young. The story is told in spare language, but with a sense of completeness that left me with the sure feeling that a 'thicker' style would have over-burdened this story.

Highly recommended.

This book is an excellent and wonderful story of a boy coming of age after WWII in Italy. The book narrates the awakening of a boy's senses during summer vacation in a small island off the Bay of Naples. We experience this awakening as if we were there, through the sensual descriptions of the island, fishing, and people, The author also explores the complexity of relationships, between the main character and all the others he comes in contact.

A memorable scene is the description of the Andrea Doria cruising by. This is a wonderful little book, which left me wishing for more when I turned the last page.

Outstanding book, but a WARNING for those who have learned to enjoy DeLuca's work be aware that this book has been published under two different titles: "You, Me" is the same book as "Sea of Memory." This is not pointed out in Amazon's review of the book -- although another person did in his review of the book [which I didn't read initially because I am so fond of DeLuca's work that I would buy anything new by him].