So, why did Vincenzo have to die?

I got into the book thinking I really liked it. I finished it feeling a void. A faint taste of bitterness, accompanied by a slight sense of relief and unsatsifaction. I wish it lasted longer. I wish more things were accomplished in the end. I wish Di Pietrantonio generously showed me how the girls grew up and how they each ended up -as I believe they well derseve- nicely, quietly. A happy pair of gemini.

A Girl Returned feels retrospective. The tone of the protagonist resembles someone who is looking back at a distant past, reflecting or lamenting it without hostility or antagonism. However, it is precisely this retrospective tone that tricked me into thinking that the story will end differently than how it actually ends. The accumulating dramatic tension and the climax, which are quite condensely packed in the last third of the book, caught me off guard. I was all of a sudden hijacked by the Girl's rage, disappointment, desperation, and indifference. At one point I was very angry, and I had tears in my eyes. I wanted to, for one second, curse Adalgisa. I wanted to scream at her and ask her how could she. How could she, out of all bad things a woman is capable of, choose to take a girl at her willing only to return her 13 years later, like a piece of merchandise with a life-long warranty?

C'mon, even big name brands nowadays do not offer waranties that would last decades. I would say that with a cold scoff.

But I cannot in the end come to hate her. She is just a woman who wishes to be mother. And I am sorry for her, for that she is now bound to a man worse than the carabiniere. That being said, I am overwhelmingly sorry for the protagonist. The arminuta. What on earth did she do to deserve all this disaster? She lost her biological family upon being adopted; then her adopted family upon being returned. She lost Vincenzo before they could understand what they meant for each other. I would have killed myself if I were her.

Still, coming back to the book itself. I have seen many stories of stolen motherhood. This is the first time ever I have read something about a stolen daughterhood. A child who keeps losing the construction she has of her world. It is captivating in this sense. The language of Di Pietrantonio is rather soft, tender and even suave. I feel immersed when I read her text, as if the l'arminuta was sitting in front of me. Soft, skinny, pale and well-washed. The young damsel in distress. I just cannot stop saying how much I like her. Oh the child of woe... Oh l'arminuta, you are not even described by a name... She is the amateur to her own family, the stranger in a house full of her kins. What was important to her was lost in the faded ages that she recalls on these pages. L'arminuta is a girl on exile.

Right, exile. This one novel brings me back to the essay of Edward Said and what he wrote on exile. I recall something vaguely -forgive me for not pulling out the original quote, it is late at night and I only have less than an hour to finish this before the deadline- to be exiled is to feel lost for both the existence of the place of origin and your love for this place. Our girl loves her home with all her heart: the house beside the sea, her father the carabiniere, her mother the gentle teacher. But that place of her dream is a no-place now. As much as she loves them, she is an exile, forever outcasted from those 13 years of sunshine. But she deserves so much more, that is why I was eager to find out the finale of the novel, only to be slightly disappointed in the end. The ending seems abrupt to me. I get that the sisterhood is beautiful, and that though they will differ in their looks and perhaps paths. The two little girls who slept on the same bed head to toe would always be together. The promise is not to be broken. But, why stop here? Is it necessary that everything else must be left to our imagination? I just in general feel like things are not well-taken care of. Especially with Vincenzo. He die too quickly, I could not even cry for him longer. His thread with the gypsies also broke off suddenly. What is the use of mentioning him again in the very last few lines of the novel? I cannot even be sure if l'arminuta loved him in which ways. 

What is the function of his death? Why on earth did he have to die? That can be my question for this blog.

Oh I think I will go to sleep with a sorrowful heart tonight.

The song to go with this novel, which is also my best wishes for l'arminuta: