Se fosse una fiaba sarebbe molto bella.
Se fosse un sogno sarebbe altrettanto bello.
Ma è un romanzo, e in quanto tale mi è piaciuto poco. Sempre scritto bene, per carità, ma siamo lontani anni luce da altri libri di Yehoshua: che, ripeto, secondo me con la morte della moglie ha perso un importante punto di riferimento stilistico per la scrittura dei suoi libri, idea confermata da questo ultimo. ( )

A.B. Yehoshua's The Only Daughter is what I think of as a "stealth read." A good stealth read has two characteristics:
1. The reader understands more than the narrator does due to historical or cultural knowledge.
2. The narrator recounts difficulties that have depths the she herself doesn't recognize.

Our narrator, Rachele Luzzato, is growing up Jewish in post-WWII Italy. Her family is diverse in its approaches to faith, to whether Judaism is a cultural of religious identity, to whether or not there is a G-d, to the extent to which one should be limited by conventional morality. Her paternal grandparents, the Jewish side of the family, were separated during WWII. Her grandfather survived by passing as Catholic. Her grandmother fled to Austria, where she gave birth to Rachele's father.

Rachele's father's is shaped in many ways by a war he is too young to remember, and he can't or won't explain to Rachele why she isn't allowed, for example, to participate in her school's nativity play. Rachele, knows she's Jewish, not Christian, but doesn't understand why this fact would prevent her from taking on a role as part of a dramatic production. Pretending to be someone won't change who she really is.

Rachele's father is also ill with a potentially terminal condition that he refuses to speak of—at least to her.

In a way, Rachele is wise beyond her years: she's asking and attempting to answer questions about identity and faith and mortality that have become lifetime quests for some very remarkable thinkers. She doesn't realize that her questions are remarkable. She just knows that she not being told everything and can't understand why what seems like basic information should be withheld from her.

Because we know more about the history of World War II and Italy's role in it and know more about about processes of illness and death, we understand her dilemma in ways she doesn't. He telling of her story is straight forward, occurring along the timeline of her own life. We see the complex web underlying that apparent simplicity, so we both share Rachele's journey and can see with some clarity what has come before it and what is apt to come after it.

The Only Daughter is an oddly gentle book despite all that it deals with. It's a book that demands readers deal with historical forces, but does this without cruelty. It's a book one can read in a single sitting, but because we both see what Rachele sees and see well beyond her own range of vision, that brief reading will leave lots to mull over afterward. I strongly recommend this title for anyone of a reflective bent. If you ask questions about the why and the how of our world, The Only Daughter will help you understand those questions in a variety of ways.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own. ( )