#neapolitan novels

[flowerytale]

Elena Ferrante, from L'amica Geniale (My Brilliant Friend), translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein

[susansontag]

it's incredibly transparent that mainstream reviewers of the neapolitan novels (my brilliant friend series by elena ferrante) explain the divide between lila and elena in terms of elena having discipline, yet lila was somehow just too unfocused, pessimistic, or chaotic to be able to achieve her goals. some of them cast lila as a villain that needs to be contained by elena in writing; both a cruel misreading of lila's character but also one that tries to make elena complicit in seeing her friend as the antagonist of their story, something I don't for a second believe.

liberal press seriously can't handle, is unable, to admit, that lila cerullo didn't go on to become a famous writer or else lift herself up by her bootstraps because her family didn't care and couldn't afford her education, so she was forced to stop after elementary school? her father throws her out of a window when she complains. the point wasn't that she wasn't crafty enough, it's that you can be crafty and brilliant and if the opportunities aren't available to you it doesn't matter. lila potentially could have become the big boss of her neighbourhood if she'd seriously wanted to, but she wasn't interested in gaining power by such illegitimate means, she wanted to be better.

elena was dedicated and worked incredibly hard, much harder than those who were more fortunate had to, certainly. but she was also lucky. various things converged for her in such a way that she was able to leave the poverty of her childhood and create a different life for herself, and this wasn't because she was somehow better or more capable than lila, or because lila had deficiencies of character. to seriously read it as though that was the case, as though this was what ferrante was trying to tell us, is a reading so obviously false and cynical that it's bizarre these people wouldn't feel shameful publishing it. fuck the working class, they're mostly just lazy and incapable, right? oh but elena's alright, she has nice manners.

[metamorphesque]

— Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child

[text ID: one writes to inflict pain on those who wish to inflict pain.]

[whilereadingandwalking]

Chiara Lagani and Mara Cerri come together for this gorgeous graphic novel adaptation of My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein. They tell a condensed version of this story, still as poetic and lovely as the original, but accompanied by gorgeous drawings of shadowy painted scenes, depicting beautifully the emotions on the faces of the two protagonists, the exposing feeling of growing into a woman's body in a world of sexual harassment and leers, the mix of uncertainty and familiarity that lights their world. Fans of the Neapolitan novels will have to get their hands on this adaptation!

Content warnings for sexual assault, sexual harassment.

[reginaphalange2403]

They’re everything to me if you even care

[goodfully]

god god god elena is queer. and even if shes not, the intense yearning she has for lila to need her as much as she does for lila... how much shes pained by and alone due to how difficult the living circumstances are, even worse bc of the challenges of girlhood, yet still.. always believing in a future together with lila. and how every thing she does is for lila and how she fears so badly that lila doesnt need her even tho shes so sure that theyre the only ones who understand each other. my goodness, ive only just started reading this??;? theres still the other half of this book and three more books after this?:??& (im saying this with excitement!!) hhfng also im finally feeling less awkward about using tumblr so.. here!!

[yknkaito]

[motifcollector]

I hope you loved the novels!! What was your favourite part? Do we need to keep you from messaging a long lost friend?

HIIIII i did love them!!!! it's funny bc I read the first one last year and was kinda ehhh about it but then I read her other book the lying life of adults and really enjoyed it and since the series is so acclaimed, i decided to give it another chance and i fell in love w the second book onwards! some spoilers mentioned below and I ramble a bunch so adding a read more :) Tagging dear mika @meerschweinchen1993 bc u said you wanted to hear what i thought as well !!

Oh also funnily enough I too had a friend I used to write stories with as a kid!! Get ready for the US american neapolitan novels ;)

there are so many fascinating elements of the books--from a narrative perspective it's so interesting to me that since you only see Lila through Elena's eyes, it's never clear whether Lila is as manipulative as Elena thinks or if Elena's misinterpreting her (and same w/ other character traits.) for example there's the part when Elena becomes convinced that Lila has been orchestrating the political violence in their community which seems like her imagination, but then at the very end when she visits Pascale he suggests that she's responsible for the Solaras' killings (but is Pascale reliable either??) I love books that emphasize subjectivity like that <3

And another element that I really enjoyed was the discussions of women's experiences and relationships w men and motherhood... the parts when Elena writes her book about women being shaped by men and gives talks about her work in very politicized environments but is simultaneously soooo obsessed with Nino and willing to do anything for him felt so painful and real. I think Ferrante really captures the complexity of political action (esp when it comes to things that are so personal, beyond just the more obvious political sphere.) Also this might sound odd, but I think the books have given me more appreciation for the older women in my life and their complexity & the careful and difficult choices they have had to make. At the end when Elena realizes her books seem dated and irrelevant to her daughters, it's so devastating </3 As probably many other younger women can relate to, I've had conversations w/ my mom and grandmother in which they take more conservative opinions on feminist issues and there's an impulse to dismiss their views as outdated, but I have more of an appreciation for the context in which they've lived their lives and the compromises + pragmatic decisions they've had to make.

[hollywoods-angel]

neapolitan novels-ferrante

the neapolitan novels series is the best series i've ever read, and the individual books are some of my favorite books. elena ferrante creates vivid characters and such detailed storylines that feel real.

the story starts with elena and lila, two girls growing up in post ww2 italy. it's a dangerous town, full of dangerous people, and the girls have nothing but themselves. as they grow older both girls go on different paths, elena goes on to get a higher education while lila marries as a teenager.

the four books go through their lives and the messiness of womanhood- marriages, divorce, affairs, children and maternal guilt. even when elena pulls away from lila there's something that always pulls her back to her childhood friend. the series goes through 6 decades when a tragedy breaks the two apart.

i read this series for a couple months, and finishing it made me so sad. i was completely invested in this, i would read for an hour everyday, at school when i finished my work early i wanted to read more. it's so hard to describe the plot of all the books, mainly it goes over their lives, how they intertwine and how they pull apart.

[dandruffaromatics]

I read first, made curious by the title, a pamphlet called "We spit on Hegel".

I was struck by every sentence, every word, and above all the brazen freedom of thought. I underlined so many sentences forcefully, marked exclamation marks, vertical scrubs. Spit on Hegel. Spit on human culture, spit on Marx, Engels, Lenin. And on historical materialism. And on Freud. And on psychoanalysis and penis envy. And on marriage, on family. And on Nazism, on Stalinism, on terrorism. And on the war. And on the class struggle. And on the dictatorship of the proletariat. And on socialism. And on communism. And on the trap of equality. And on all and each manifestations of patriarchal culture. Oppose the dispersion of female intelligence. Deculturalise yourself. De-acculturating starting from motherhood. Get rid of the master-slave dialectic. Tearing inferiority from the brain. Return to themselves. Have no antithesis. Moving to another plane in the name of one's own difference. While males embark on space feats, life for females on this planet has yet to begin. The woman is the other side of the earth. The woman is the Unforeseen Subject. Free yourself from submission, here, now, in this present.

I thought, how is possible for a woman to be able to think like this? I worked hard on the books, but I suffered them, I never turned them against themselves. Here's how you think. Here's how you think against.

Those who leave and those who stay- Neapolitan novels

Elena Ferrante

[whatthymeizzit]

Ok but the way the relationship between these two women somehow encapsulates every emotional connection I've ever had

[theroseadage]

— imma sarratore greco, the story of the lost child.

[susansontag]

I don't believe for a second btw that these reviewers seriously believe class isn't the reason many don't achieve material success. they are telling themselves stories (in order to live?). ferrante could have just written a story about an elena greco, who, through hard work and discipline, was able to rise above the prospects of her class (and even if she had, the idea doesn't naturally follow that she believes people who didn't succeed simply didn't work hard enough). she included lila, who was bright and intuitive, who was not able to succeed in the same way because of her circumstances. it's actually pretty overt messaging: being brilliant isn't enough. these reviewers had no reason to miss it or to interpret it so inaccurately. media literacy isn't great these days but it's not that bad, we know class mobility isn't just a matter of personal resolve. we're not ten anymore!!

[whilereadingandwalking]

The twist of the final book in this quartet will always take my breath away. I had a hard time reading The Story of the Lost Child knowing what was coming. The taste of dread was in my mouth the whole time, the rising threat in the background, the question, the mystery.

Spoilers ahead. I’ve always been fascinated by the possibilities of these final passages. In the final years, Lenú desperately wants to read the novel she’s certain that Lila must be writing, so much that she writes their novel in an attempt, a hope, that the boundaries will fade between them despite them having grown apart, that somehow Lila’s voice will just intrude, invade, as Lila always seemed to invade Lenú’s life before. Ultimately, Lenú is upset that the boundary she always wanted is set between them for good, that a wall has been erected.

Or, is something uglier going on? Lenú received, read, and tossed all of Lila’s notebooks. Lenú wants Lila’s voice to invade her novel, but it doesn’t. How much of Lenú’s story is truly their story? How much of a reliable narrator is she, given that she is so gifted at lying to herself, that she is so unsure of what’s hers, that she seems to never be able to see what’s right in front of her throughout the series? What doesn’t she understand of Lila, and yet what did she take from Lila, in the end?

[reginaphalange2403]

This is their song, yup yup yup

[goodfully]

i forgot how ferrante writes so matter of factly, it sometimes leaves me feeling so "??;?_!&??" like lila literally gets thrown out the window and lands right next to elena, is bleeding on the asphalt acting like her arm isnt also broken. and as awful as it is to imagine all that, the chapter ends a bit after just "he had thrown her like a thing", and immediately the next chapter starts with "fathers can do that and other things to impudent girls" and the scene has already moved on hfhfj i think its fitting for the way elenas describing the life theyre living tho, all the violence they encounter and experience in their childhood.. thats the norm for them. ahhh i really do love reading ferrantes works. despite this tone i think, youll still feel very attached and involved with the characters (at least thats how i feel so far, ive only read "days of abandonment" so far and am barely a third of my way in this book).

fingers crossed that i can finish reading all four books in the next couple of weeks!!!