Lorenzo

Lorenzo is the novel’s narrator and protagonist, yet we learn comparatively little about him. Instead of telling us about himself, he draws our attention to the characters of those around him, or to memories of his mother. We can tell however that he is a sensitive character, haunted by those memories. His narrative approach suggests a particularly morbid sensibility, addressing a monologue exclusively to a dead person. His grief is compounded by bitterness over her desertion of him, and frustration over not knowing more about her. He suffers even more when he learns the details of her decline into alcoholism and isolation.

Lorenzo does lose his temper at times – for instance when he scratches Anselmi’s car, or screams at him outside the barber’s – and these emotional outbursts are particularly potent because he is elsewhere so reticent, as regards both his narrative voice and his actions...