‘Lucy and the sea‘ starts with an advantage that, at the same time, can be a stumbling block. Write about how the pandemic was experienced involves a reading experience that immediately arouses the empathy and identification, but, at the same time,who wants to remember now how did you feel during confinement? The secret, of course, is in the dough. Because the way Elizabeth Strout approaches the dramatic arc of Lucy BartonGoing through all the emotions (shock, weariness, impatience, fear, pain) that went through us when the virus turned the world into an apocalyptic scenario, he warns us that only by looking back can we overcome the emptiness of those eternal months, and that, in that sense, literature is the only one that can accompany us in that duel, and make us feel less alone.
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For writing as emotional as Strout’s, the implications of the pandemic are pure gold. On the one hand, social distance and isolation sublimate the remote possibility of a hug, underlining the importance of physical contact for the author of ‘Luz de febrero’ and the fact of putting words to what we feel. On the one hand, she folds her prose inward, which, transparent and colloquial, lends itself more naturally to self-analysis and inquiry into the past. If those who have frequented Lucy Barton in Strout’s previous books had the feeling of knowing her thoroughly, now they will think that she is simply one more of the family, because Strout shows that, in the face of covid-19, we all end up facing the same challenges: worrying about our loved ones, wondering about our selfishness, dealing with sudden loss, feeling alienated from everyday space, enduring the each other’s company by decree law, to understand our privileges (Strout does not avoid this conversation, especially considering that Lucy comes from a poor family, and that the pandemic makes her social ascension problematic), to contemplate how political tensions extend from the private sphere (denial) to the public (the assault on the Capitol), battle against the impotence of not being able to intervene in the lives of those we loveand that they are far away, and that they separate and suffer and get sick and die (or not).
‘Lucy and the Sea’ reads as one more chapter of this great serialized novel that Strout has dedicated to Lucy Barton. Thus, the character is enriched book by book, and the serial conception of this literary project increases the familiarity we feel with the character. In ‘Lucy and the Sea’, in which other creatures from the Strout universe also appear, such as Bob Higgins and Olive Ketteridge, we have the opportunity, thanks to the pandemic, to deepen Lucy’s relationship with her ex-husband William, also co- protagonist of his previous novel, ‘Ay William’. In the end, ‘Lucy and the sea’ is a reflection on the complexity of love: not only about the unforeseen bonds that arise with strangers in adverse circumstances (how beautiful is the friendship that is born between Lucy and Bob, one of her new neighbors in her Maine retreat!) but also about the recognition of the love that saves us without give explanations, with more actions than words, and who goes through the pain of the passage of time.