The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

The second novel in the series describing the relationship between Lila and Elena is even more intense than the first. It’s a painful book to read but utterly engaging. It charts Lila’s marriage to Stefano, which collapses inevitably into violence as the limited character of the husband finds himself completely out of his depth with no capacity whatsoever to understand the brilliance of his wife. He resorts, of course, to violence and brutalityThere is the sense throughout that this is the inescapable pattern of life in Naples at that time. And only Lenu seems capable of escaping it, the pathway out through education. The story investigates love, almost as something that can never be properly realized, as a figment of the romantic imagination. Every one of the ‘loving’ relationships in the book is marred by one thing or another. I am particularly loving the discussion of the role of language in Italian society. It’s a market of class and education, and the movement between dialect and Italian beautifully describes Lenu’s passage out, her lack of confidence in who she is and where she fits. Really, you could spend a whole semester studying the ideas that this book raises and still barely have scratched the surface. I’m already champing at the bit to get onto book three.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

A number of people have told me they couldn’t get past the first chapter or so of this book. I don’t know whether it was the content or the language that made it so difficult for them, but for me this book is absolutely mesmerising. I decided to re-read the whole series and am finding it twice as enjoyable second time around, when I’m not so anxious about where the story is heading and can concentrate on the detail. It’s the story of the intellectually incandescent Lila, and her friend and narrator of the story, Lenu. It traces their friendship from the age of six to sixteen, through the slums of post WWII Naples. On this read, it’s the life of the city that I’m focusing on, the attitudes towards women, the posturing and brutality of the males that is accepted as normal, the disregard of education, the limitation of expectations. Having lived in Italy and spent some time in Naples, a lot of the subtext is very familiar. So I’m living with these characters as they moved backwards and forwards between the intimacy of best friends forever and the competition, coolness and sometimes even open hostility that occurs in all children’s friendships. Throughout Lenu the observer struggles to understand this brilliant but damaged friend who both inspires and frightens her.