#ferranteposting

[balkanlila]

Raffaella Cerullo + Transition state theory

"She was like that, she threw things off balance just to see if she could put them back in some other way." - Elena Ferrante

largely inspired by this post by my beloved @elenagrec and this discussion i've had with @prismelit

[rotzaprachim]

there’s something so genuinely haunting and magical about the Neapolitan novels by Elena ferrante in that they’re simultaneously so deeply rooted in the experience of working class women in Napoli and this very specific experience and the intersections of gender ethnicity location and class that shape these peoples’ lives….. and yet the novels have this ability to unlock Buried Memories in pretty much everyone who reads them no matter your background like oh boy that sure was a Thing that happened

[balkanlila]

( via @irllilyevans )

The patron saint of Naples-Saint Gennaro

[honeyslow]

I can't believe I am employed at this moment in time.. I should have been at home ferranteposting all day

[balkanlila]

love letter to the girl who runs; poem by @elenagrec

time capsule note: today my brilliant friend colette wrote this poem for me and i wanted to make sure it remains a monument💙🧡

[balkanlila]

poem by: @elenagrec

paintings by: Vincent van Gogh, Pierre Boncompain, Yuri Krotov

[balkanlila]

you didn't hear it here but lila does this thing where she judges elena for something she's still mad at herself about because she can't stand the idea of elena being in any proximity to her own fate, but there's a tiny part of her that finds pleasure in bringing elena to what she sees as her inadequate level and yes, this can be seen in immacolata as well. i feel like the pleasure lila derives from elena being reduced to her neapolitan roots is the same pleasure elena derives from her marks of superiority in comparison to lila, significantly higher level of formal education most of all. of course, both of them are quick to view those arguments as weak and petty because they will always see the other friend as the brilliant one, sometimes with jealousy, but more often with fondness that exists both at the expense of their own credibility and as their one untarnished positive quality. being your friend is the sole good thing about me etc.

[balkanlila]

that kindled her, she lighted up

Lila's love for learning and Lila's love for people in her life are identical and come from the same place. This is rather unusual and she is consistently transformed into something either less or more than human for it. She is made out to be less than human when her love for people more closely resembles love one might have for an idea or a book or a city. She is made out to be more than human when her love for learning more closely resembles love for a person in its intensity, dedication and passion. Both of these things inspire a fascination that turns sour in others who in return want to make this part of Lila dissappear. It's only with Enzo that she gets to be this way, not only without having it be a bad thing, but also having it be something that she can share and enjoy in the presence of the other.

[balkanlila]

changing the physiology of the universe // love letter to the girl who writes (for @elenagrec)

Self-Organization of the Retina during Eye Development, Retinal Regeneration In Vivo, and in Retinal 3D Organoids In Vitro // My Brilliant Friend TV // L'amica geniale, Elena Ferrante // text by me (brought to you by my unimaginable desire to accent Lila's perception of Elena, who often takes her ability to add magical components to an otherwise unpleasant and meaningless reality for granted)

Everything is connected in L'amica geniale because Elena makes it so. She is the one who offers the symbolism we all see to everything these characters do. She is the only one who sees the metaphorical kingdom behind the disgusting and the banal and the violent. She finds wounds in time and turns on a flashlight and suddenly the blood spilling out of it is a different, more vivid colour. Lila is right to recognize the underlying disorder behind artificial structures humans build to feel more comfortable and Elena engages in the same architectural work of creating boundaries where there aren't any, but she does it so differently from everyone else and that is why Lila loves her. The way Elena does this exists in direct contrast to the false safety most of the other characters are dependent on because the material Elena uses to create her shapes is love stored in attention. It doesn't matter that Nino Sarratore wasn't actually beautiful. It matters that Elena saw him as such. It doesn't matter how Lila Cerullo actually was like. What matters is that Elena Greco loved her. Love is the sole instrument that can shape things in a convincing and tenacious way.

[balkanlila]

an arrangement between effects of the light and the flesh of the city

My Brilliant Friend (TV) // L'amica geniale, Elena Ferrante // excerpts from my diary

I am perpetually fascinated by the landmark qualities behind Enzo's physicality in a world plagued by disintegration. I especially enjoy how it compliments Lila's outwardly signatures, such as nervousness and a body that is often described as fragile and betraying, all characteristics that are in tune with dissolving boundaries as a concept. There are two spheres this relationship inhabits narratively: one of the cyclical, historical and architectural Naples and one of the confined area that is a room and I am restless in my curiosity when it comes to those spaces interacting and what that means for these characters.

[balkanlila]

(autumnal?) matching elenalila icons 🧡🍁🫀📝📜

like/reblog if you save/use :")

[balkanlila]

Elena&Lila matching headers 🧡

like/reblog if you save/use 🩵

[balkanlila]

i also find it interesting how elena minimises her own romantic and sexual encounters in book 1 and thinks of lila as more fortunate and almost epic in terms of her own romantic conquests when in actuality they are both experiencing something very brutal they're processing as innocent when it's good and their fault when it's bad. it's all hidden in that conversation at the beach, when lila shows up with stefano in her red bathing suit, and elena discovers lila and stefano have only kissed without taking it any further and lila is immediately worried about elena being more knowledgeable than her in this department. they always think of the other one as miles ahead and the knowledge of that not being the case brings both pleasure and sadness. pleasure from establishing superiority (a temporary sense of victory) and sadness from being isolated in their experiences. think of elena and donato and how knowing that lila hasn't had anything even approximately similar to that happen to her at the point in the narrative i am referencing and how that must bring some of the brutality of the act into focus for elena, if only subconsciously. it's like with that, minimising the impact is the desirable outcome. she initially wished to tell lila about it because it was finally something that matched the scale of lila's life and elena immediately decides against it instead.

[balkanlila]

FOUND MY TAGS!!!!!

[balkanlila]

Lila Cerullo + Enzo Scanno: Volumetric Analysis Conducted in a Kitchen

text by me | perhaps the world ends here - joy hario | my brilliant friend - elena ferrante | summer kitchen - donald hall | jacebeleran | letters to donald windham - tennessee williams | x | x | x | my tags

[balkanlila]

SEE THIS IS WHY I LINKED HER TO DYLAN!!!! She is too much of her own person and she has what I call the Konstantin Levin Syndrome where her opinions change quickly the more information she gathers (which is why Lenù links her mind to the sea and the moon, she's restless, change is her constant, she's trying not to be this way, but it's who she is). Lila is all about ideals, she could've never sacrificed herself to one ideology. (Unless. Her passion took the helm and by the time she realized what she was doing she would've been capable of something extreme. She is obsessively careful about this after Nino especially and this tendency is why a complete absence of senses attracts her.)

My favourite thing about your last paragraph regarding Lenù is how Lenù is only like this about Lila. To Lila, everyone is a mythical figure temporarily because she's always looking for a God to belive in after Rino, but Lenù isn't that prone to this... Except with Lila (and partially Nino, but she's just looking for Lila in him and he is only ever close to being Lila)... Lila is the one real thing about Lenù's life and her fantastical heroine (because Lenù processes the world like a collection of stories and of course the only person she deems worthy of being the main character is Lila)... She's the star of the book she's giving us after all. And yes, Lenù writing about Lila in spite of being told not to is spiteful, but I prefer to focus on how Lila is someone who had the magic of books forcibly taken from her and Lenù putting Lila in a book is like giving her Galiani's library... She's taking her home whether she likes it or not.

hiiii i love it when you're in my notifications 🧡

LOL same. The Bob Dylan Vs. Lila, or Lila as a Dylanesque character, was a wonderful analysis!!! I'm also very interested in the social changes that happened worldwide during the Twentieth Century. It was a century of big changes and huge theories. Some of these communities were very distant in terms of location and heritage yet there were lots of common thoughts and ideas.

I still wonder what would've happened to Lila had she been in touch with the groups that were agents of change (like the Italian feminists of the 60's-70's), but then I remember that she was in touch with some of those groups, and she was way too much her own person to join any kind of organized fight. Though in Lenù's mind she had gone full Red Brigades and the only issue was that LENÙ WASN'T BY HER SIDE TO HELP HER!!! (Lenù's mind is also fascinating)