Customer Reviews

Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From start to finish, Lily Tuck brings to this nuanced and dazzling biography of a difficult woman the intuition, the appreciation, the empathy, and the skill of a writer no less gifted than her subject. Both personal and acute, this book resembles no literary biography that has come my way. Like its subject, it will always be a true original.

I'd never heard of Elsa Morante before a good friend recommended WOMAN OF ROME. Not only couldn't I put it down, I've ordered all of Morante's and all of Tuck's books on line. To think I'd never heard of Morante, a woman who lived life purely on her own terms. And what a life! Lily Tuck won the National Book Award and I can see why. Her prose is pitch-perfect, smart, often funny and invariably moving. I loved this book. Elsa Morante is blessed to have Lily Tuck as a biographer. I'd give ELSA MORANTE: WOMAN OF ROME 100 stars if I could.

Lily Tuck captures the fundamentally elusive nature of Elsa Morante. Morante is a difficult subject, not easy to love or understand, but tantalizing all the same, and an important and (in America) overlooked writer. Tuck, with her deft, non-judgmental style, her cosmopolitan detachment, is the perfect biographer. She can love Morante without needing to completely explain or understand her. A terrific job!

I am an English professor and did not really know the work of this
writer. The book spurred my interest and now I will find some of
Morante's novels and read them. A provocative study of her life
and relationships and nicely written.

From the original review I read in the New York Times Book Review section I expected a biography of some depth. This sliver of a book skips along and does not have the depth I expected though it does include direct references to her books. But I feel as though I do not know Elsa Morante. The connect between reader and subject is totally lacking for me

I bought this book at a deep discount close-out store and was glad I didn't pay more.

It is supposedly a biography of what I finally concluded was a very progressive female writer from Rome, Elsa Morante who lived from 1912 to 1985. I say this this way because the author seems to assume the reader knows in advance who this "woman of Rome" is. Frankly if you didn't know that, it took some time to figure out. That Elsa Morante as a writer was evident early on but the open question was why she merited someone writing a book about her.

Even after I finished the book I'd categorize it first as a scattered review of Morante's works and far less a biography. Another reviewer indicated that it lacked depth. I concur completely. It was like a summary of every topic, her early years, her marriage, her behavior, her books and short stories. As a result it was rather "empty". For anyone who has a special interest in Morante, the books does contain 16 pages of black and white photographs.