It takes a literal earth shaking for Lila to come out of the protective shell she has created for her own personal protection. The earthquake “entered into our bones” explains Elena and goes on to tell how not only the real world but how in their internal world everything that is familiar and stabile no longer exist. There is nothing and no one to help during an earthquake. One can’t intellectualize, fantasize, desire, dream, fight, resist, outsmart a earthquake. There you are and there you will stay until mother nature decides to let it stop. It is an event that Lila has no control over, none, and it’s that lack of control that makes her break down to tell her truth. When an earthquake ends it leaves behind a euphoric feeling. Going from an extreme emotional fear of death and dying to survival will generate endorphins perhaps like a truth serum. It took this event for Lila to finally confess to Elena all the reasons of her behavior and they flood out of her uncensored even if she herself can’t understand them all. It’s not that Lila is a stranger to terror she says “the terror remains, it’s always between the normal thing and the other”. (pg 178) But there has always been ways for her to navigate, control and manipulate her terror, with an earthquake, it’s no use.

I tend to feel that without this event Lila would never have come clean to Elena. She would have remained as she is because she is too smart to do otherwise and that’s why Ferrante has to literally shake her up. On a personal note, I’ve experienced every major earthquake when living in San Francisco and L.A and I can attest that after such events there is a euphoric feeling, happy to be alive, to have friends and family. It does, if only temporarily, expose our true nature and what is important.

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