The strange narrative of Elsa Morante's Arturo's Island

It's hard to get your mind around the strange novel by Elsa Morante, Arturo's Island (1957, 2019 tr. by Ann Goldstein). On the surface, the novel is quite easy to read: clear prose, and imaginative use of extremely short chapters, each one just a page or two, maybe 4 at the most. There is no clear time setting and no reference - at least for the first 50 pp or so - to any event outside of life on the eponymous island. Arturo is the narrator, seemingly looking back on his childhood from a vantage point of middle or old age. And his childhood is bizarre; I will try to summarize: A's grandfather came to the island, off the coast of Naples, after wealth and success in the U.S. and settles into a Spartan life in an abandoned fortification; he think he has no children or heirs, but learns that he has a son born out of wedlock to a German woman. The son comes to live on the island and is immediately befriended by an old man who has gone blind; the man makes A's father his sole heir when he dies, and A moves into his run-down but vast island estate. He brings his young wife with him, and she dies in childbirth at age 18; the child is Arturo. A's father leaves him to grow up on the island w/ no supervision, guidance, or instruction, very much like a wild child, A somehow educates himself - not really believable - and builds his life around the anticipation of his father's occasional and never announced visits. The father seems particularly cruel to A., but A s so in need of affection that he makes his father into his hero. But this is not a simple "wild child" narrative, which have become fairly popular of late - see My Absolute Darling or the TV series Hanna, for 2 examples; the undertext of this narrative involves a horrible hatred (and fear?) of women: Women have never been allowed in the the estate that A's father inherits - at least until his pregnant wife, who paid the price. There are many vast parties and gatherings of carousing men, and A's father's benefactor has all the makings of a homosexual who develops a passion for a much younger man, who takes advantage of his generosity - yet there is no explicit mention of sexuality of any sort, so I have no idea what to make of this strand of the story line.