My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Wow, what a fabulous novel. Elena Ferrante is someone who has kept her identity secret, though it is known that she grew up in Naples. This book is about childhood and adolescence in Naples and it must be informed by her own experience. And it is riveting. It tells the parallel stories of Elena, the narrator, and her best friend Lina, and their cohort of boys and girls and local families. They are poor girls in a poor neighbourhood with parents who are shoemakers and porters. Both have brilliant minds, but only one of them goes on to get an education. Perhaps because I visited Naples a couple of years ago, I found the insight into life, values and behaviours, rituals, relationships and norms utterly, utterly mesmerizing. Not only is the story compelling but Ferrante’s writing style is also addictive. I struggled a little at first, because she writes in Italian and this is a translation that has retained a lot of the convolution of Italian prose, but like reading George Eliot or Dickens, your brain soon settles into the rhythm of the language and its structure. It’s vivid, often violent, and original. I’ve come away desperate to read the next installment. I think this book is a masterpiece.