Eternal

From Marco’s dyslexia to Elisabetta’s dreams of authorship, books inform the three friends’ identities and growth. The novel opens with Elisabetta preparing to reveal her son Sandro’s paternity (the deceased Sandro Simone), this story being framed as her own novel about her, Marco, and Sandro’s life on the brink of war. These events create a diegetic version of Eternal, with each character coming to life through their relationship with books and writing. In the beginning of the novel, Marco only cares about cycling and popularity with women. However, due to his undiagnosed dyslexia, he has difficulty reading and writing, and this threatens his sense of self. Although Sandro helps hide his inability to read and write legibly, this façade crumbles, as their liceo’s principal asks to test Marco. Marco lashes out due to embarrassment and immersion in Fascist thought. In the Roman ruins, he observes Latin inscriptions, which convince him that he “couldn‘t read as well as his classmates, but now he knew he possessed native intelligence" (44). As perpetuated by Mussolini, he celebrates “native” identity to reclaim power and assuage his hurt pride.

Elisabetta imagines herself as an author, only losing this dream during war and motherhood. Her choice between friends Marco and Sandro becomes clearer as she recognizes which love interest sees her as an author. This connection between authorship and identity is reinforced by her love of Grazia Deledda’s novel Cosima, as she sees herself in it. Thus, a lecturer’s dismissal of the novel’s family becomes personal, a dismissal of Elisabetta’s own family: As she listens to the professor’s denunciation of the novel’s father, who struggles with alcoholism, she “stiffened, thinking of her own father” (94). Sandro also sees himself in Cosima and reassures his friend when she rushes out of the lecture. By valuing Elisabetta’s interpretation of the novel, he solidifies their bond. This solidarity and Nonna’s encouragement lead to Elisabetta writing her first novel, A Talkative Girl, a novel about her family.

Elisabetta’s verdict of her second novel, Eternal, highlights the value of Lisa Scottoline’s Eternal: Elisabetta “imagined her family story joining so many others, layer atop one another over time, a palimpsest of stories encompassing the world” (460). The use of the word “palimpsest”—writing erased to make space for new writing—reinforces the importance of texts like Eternal, which echo through time and space. Marco, having recognized his inability to see Elisabetta as an author, encourages the completion of Eternal, becoming her own palimpsest.