"Aracoeli" by Elsa Morante *****

• Summer Reads with Beth
• Italian author
• Originally published in 1982
• author's final novel
• Review: "This one, unlike the other, was not the herald of weeping, but certain individuals are more inclined to weep for love than death."  This is the final sentence of this amazing novel. The reader is lured into a tale of the cataclysmic meeting of past and present, of a psychopathic love of son for mother, of the despair of lonliness, and of a single love beginning in the womb and coming to rest in the mythic El Almedral, where the mother's life began.  Cryptic enough? Reading this novel is like participating in a lifelong fever dream which is inhabited with deep fears, monomaniacal love, and the depths of despair.  The writing is magnificent and emotionally descriptive to a degree I have rarely seen.  This is a translation that uses the highest level of vocabulary in English.  I wish I read Italian!!  The intensity of the protagonist can be a bit overwhelming, but what the heck.  It is an Italian novel after all, isn't it? (I write that with the greatest affection!)