The Beach at Night by Elena Ferrante
Celina the doll is having a bad night after being left on her own on the beach. The Fire wants to burn her, the Sea won’t hear her prayers, and the Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset is attempting to steal all of her words. Worst of all, her mother, the little girl Mati, who now has a new cat to play with, has abandoned her. The night passes into day between one mishap and another, and Celina will have a bit better vision when the sun comes up.
The Beach at Night by Elena Ferrante
70 used from $1.40
Free shipping
Amazon.com
The Beach at Night is a brief, affecting, and enigmatic story for past and present fans of Ferrante’s well-known novels.
Ferrante’s misleading picture book The Beach at Night can terrify the living daylights out of you despite its appearance as a book for children. There are various overtones of fear in this horrific tale of a doll. Although this is told in the manner of a fairy tale for children, it is more than that. The book is written from the perspective of the doll, and there are many dark undertones throughout. It seems as though the themes of darkness, loneliness, and the need to somehow fit in are common to all of her writings. This book does have a joyful conclusion, but there are still a lot of grim images throughout.
The new kitten Minu has Celina the doll envious. She gets lost en route, and someway the narrative ends at the beach. The novel is about what happens next and the things that happen to her.
The small picture book’s other darker themes are brought up by the pictures by Mara Cerri since they are so in keeping with the narrative and more than sufficient to convey the feeling of isolation and abandonment. The Beach at Night is an unusual book, but it is by far one of the most satisfying ones to read.
