Great Wonder

The main character in Viola Ardone’s latest novel is called Elba, like a river in Central Europe that flows into the North Sea. The only reality she knows is of the Fascione psychiatric hospital where she grew up with her mother, which she calls the “half world”. After the death of her mother, Elba remains shut up within the walls of the ward, writing and taking notes on her daily existence of people, odours and flavours. It’s a world she inhabits while she patiently waits for her mother to come back to her. A few years have passed since the Basaglia Law was passed, but the reality is still that of shutting patients away in psychiatric hospitals, electroshock treatment and straitjackets. Dr Fausto Meraviglia works at the Fascione, a psychiatrist who believes in the work of Basaglia and in moving beyond the existing system to give dignity back to people. He decides to adopt Elba and raise her in his own home. The novel then continues in 2019, where we find an old, tired Dr Meraviglia going back over his life and his regrets. It’s a book that reaches the heart of the reader in telling of the love that develops between the two main characters, like “a form of madness”, and that concludes the conceptual trilogy on the second half of the 20th century, which began with Il treno dei bambini and continued with Oliva Denaro.

Grande meraviglia (Great Wonder)
Viola Ardone
Einaudi, 2023