While Women in Translation Month is all about highlighting the overlooked, it's also nice to celebrate those female writers who have already managed to become well known in the Anglosphere. Of course, if you're looking for big-name female writers in translation, nobody quite seems to have captured attention over the past year or so like Elena Ferrante, the elusive, reclusive Italian writer whose Neapolitan Novels have impressed so many readers.
With the third in the series about to be released, Ferrante's reputation seems set to keep rising, but does the latest instalment measure up to her earlier books? Well, I'll let you know very soon, but be warned - it's impossible to discuss this book without giving away details from My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name. If you'd prefer not to know, please look away now...
*****
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (translated by Ann Goldstein, e-copy supplied by Europa Editions) continues seamlessly from The Story of a New Name, with Lenù introducing her new novel at a bookshop. When a middle-aged man is less than complimentary about her work, she's taken aback, so it's fortunate that a white knight appears to defend her - none other than Nino Sarratore, her childhood friend (and crush...).
While Nino disappears again soon after, his work as a university lecturer means that he's in the same field as Lenù's fiancé, Pietro, and it's inevitable that they will catch up again. Lila, however, is back in Naples, and with little contact between the two old friends, it seems as if their friendship has finally run its course. Little does Lenù know, though, that she's fated to return to her hometown again and again - it's not quite as easy to turn her back on Naples as she'd like...
Those Who leave..., the third book in the Neapolitan Novels series (the series was originally meant to be a trilogy, but it will now extend to four books), looks at the friends' adult years, with a focus on marriage, kids and work, as well as a generational shift. The spotlight, though, is on Lenù, as we are shown her life in Florence after marriage. Initially, she is overjoyed by her success as a writer, but this soon passes and her liking for her new family also turns sour:
"...what am I to the Airotas, a jewel in the crown of their broad-mindedness?.."
p.50 (Europa Editions, 2014)
With the inevitable, premature addition of kids, the intelligent writer soon gets bogged down in the minutiae of domestic life, her plans of a glittering career slowly fading beneath a pile of nappies. It's a bit of a dull life...
Outside Lenù's apartment, though, things are a little less sedate. This is the late sixties, a time of unrest throughout Europe, and students are rioting in the hope of creating a new world order. In these tempestuous times, especially in the universities, there is a real sense of danger, from which Pietro is certainly not exempt (he's not exactly a man of the new era...). While her next book is a bit of a struggle, Lenù is able to dabble in journalism, tempted into becoming a voice of the people.
While her friend plays with theory in Florence, Lila is living the practice down south. Nothing seems to get on top of her, and even in a exploitative factory, her intelligence shines through. She soon becomes a focus for action against the management, and as the pressure builds, matters are always going to come to a head. You see, in terms of violence, whatever the rest of Italy can do, Naples can always do better...
Those Who Leave... is an entertaining book, but, in truth, I don't quite rate it as highly as I did the first two; there's a sense of its being a bridging book, a continuation of The Story of a New Name and a set up for the final part of the series. Part of the beauty of the first two books was the electric relationship between the two women, a tie which, while never broken, was often stretched or tangled:
"I simply listened, overwhelmed. With her, there was no way to feel that things were settled; every fixed point of our relationship sooner or later turned out to be provisional; something shifted in her head that unbalanced her and unbalanced me." (p.222)
This is largely absent here as the two women go about their separate lives, and even when they do meet, it's usually in the presence of others, and the expected confrontation is avoided. Several times the tension builds to what we think will be a dramatic scene, only for the emotions to ebb away without ever coming to the boil.
The focus here is much more on Lenù, and that isn't necessarily a good thing. Her life in Florence, as mentioned, is a little dull, and she actually develops into a fairly unpleasant character over the course of the novel, particularly in the second half. In My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name, she is our voice, our eyes, and she always cut a fairly sympathetic figure, especially when Lila managed to bring her down with a sarcastic comment. Not any more - at times, she's downright obnoxious...
Why? Well, throughout the second half of the book, she shows herself to be selfish, lazy and aggressive, in addition to being annoyingly passive when she should be doing getting things done. The story is basically setting up Nino's return, and this means that poor Pietro is in for some pretty shoddy treatment. I actually thought that for much of this book, a view through the husband's eyes would have been much more interesting, looking at the friends and their families with the eyes of an outsider. Perhaps we'd see Lenù then in a very different light.
Again, I hasten to assure you all that I did enjoy the book, and I do think it's worth reading. However, it's not a book that can really be enjoyed without having read the previous two novels first, and I still believe that it doesn't quite match up to those. Having said that, I suspect that my doubts will be set against a tidal wave of support for the book when other reviews start coming in. One of the key ideas of the novel is the frustration Lenù feels at being stuck at home
with the children, having to put her career on hold while she sacrifices herself for her family, and I suspect that this aspect of the story will be appreciated far more by other readers.
The reality, though, is that Those Who Leave... spends a lot of its pages building up to the final book in the series. The lack of interaction between Lila and Lenù in this third volume is slightly frustrating - surely the final book has to bring their relationship to a head:
"Too many bad things, and some terrible, had happened over the years, and to regain our old intimacy we would have had to speak our secret thoughts, but I didn't have the strength to find the words and she, who perhaps had the strength, didn't have the desire, didn't see the use." (p.19)
I have a feeling the climax to the Neapolitan Novels will be a rather stormy one. This is a relationship which needs to be examined further, and I'm hopeful that the two friends will finally get to the core of their friendship next time. It's definitely time for a good, long talk, one in which those 'secret thoughts' are finally revealed...
Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Trilogy has been getting rave reviews from just about everyone who has read the first two books (My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name) - everyone, that is, apart from this year's IFFP judges, who didn't think the second book worthy of a place on their longlist. Still, everyone else is keenly awaiting the third volume, out later this year, and while I'm itching to get my hands on it, I thought I'd scratch the itch by trying another of the elusive Ms. Ferrante's works...
*****
The Days of Abandonment (translated by Ann Goldstein, review copy courtesy of Europa Editions) is a shorter novel than the other two I've read, but it packs a lot into its 188 pages. The story begins with a bombshell, when Olga, a Neapolitan living in Turin, is informed by her husband that he is leaving her. With that, Mario walks out of the apartment, and his shattered wife is left to adjust to a life without him.
While she initially attempts to deal with events calmly and rationally, this facade soon crumbles, and her fiery southern nature comes through. She becomes more aggressive and louder, taking her anger out on innocent bystanders. However, it's only when she finds out the true reason behind Mario's departure that she really begins to unravel...
The Days of Abandonment is an extremely emotional novel, a story which is by turns intense, passionate and violent. Olga is a woman completely thrown by an unexpected event, unable to comprehend why exactly her husband has left her. She begins to blame herself and also deludes herself into believing he'll be back, despite knowing full well that the break is for good.
The break-up has a devastating effect on her, emotionally and mentally, as she begins a descent into madness, becoming a different person:
"I began to change. In the course of a month I lost the habit of putting on makeup carefully. I went from using a refined language, attentive to the feelings of others, to a sarcastic way of expressing myself, punctuated by coarse laughter. Slowly, in spite of my resistance, I also gave in to obscenity."
p.26 (Europa Editions, 2013)
This complete change of character brings her to do things she normally never would, and what ensues is violence - and sudden, random sex...
The calm collected woman of the start of the novel can no longer think straight. She is unable to remember the smallest detail, forgetting whether she turned off the stove or not. The frustration she feels boils over, ans she lashes out at her kids (and the poor dog) as she, and her apartment, spiral into sickness and decay. The broken phone, with random, intermittent hisses, is an apt metaphor for the break with the outside world.
Of course, this is all made worse by the fact Mario is happy without her, returning with a smile and a glow:
"Mario entered loaded with packages. I hadn't seen him for exactly thirty-four days. He seemed younger, better cared for in his appearance, even more rested, and my stomach contracted so painfully that I felt I was about to faint. In his body, in his face, there was no trace of our absence. While I bore - as soon as his startled gaze touched me I was certain of it - all the signs of suffering, he could not hide those of well-being, perhaps of happiness." (p.38)
Olga is resentful, and quite rightly so. After years of love and sacrifice, moving around to support her husband in his career, she has been, quite simply - abandoned...
The writing is excellent, as is the translation, with Goldstein recreating Olga's internal monologue in English, an anguished, desperate cry for justice. It's violent and breathtaking, and often intensely claustrophobic - at times we sympathise, at others we cringe. It makes for extremely uncomfortable reading at times, but it's always compelling, driving the reader on towards the culmination of the tragedy.
Ferrante has certainly succeeded in creating a story of the woes of abandonment, but whose abandonment is it? While it's true that Olga is abandoned, she, in turn, abandons everyone else in her life. She's certainly not a character you can support without reservations. The Days of Abandonment is a still a great tale, though, of the dangers of taking things for granted - and of refusing to accept the inevitable, no matter how hard it is to swallow...
After reading the wonderful My Brilliant Friend a few months back, I was itching to get stuck into the sequel to Elena Ferante's novel of a Neapolitan childhood. Luckily for me, Europa Editions have just published it - and it's another superb read. A note of warning before we begin though - in reviewing the second book, I will (inevitably) be revealing some plot details from the first one. *Please proceed with caution* ;)
*****
The Story of a New Name (translated by Ann Goldstein, review copy courtesy of the publisher) picks up where we left off, with the cliffhanger at Lila's wedding. Her decision to wed to escape poverty appears misguided from the very start, with her husband having seemingly betrayed her to the people she hates most in the world. As Lenù looks on (slightly distracted by the handsome figure of Nino Sarratore), she begins to feel that for once Lila has overplayed her hand...
Soon enough though, it is Lenù herself that starts to feel lost. As Lila slowly adapts to life as a married woman, her friend struggles with her studies, always doubting her ability to truly fit in with the people around her. Having deliberately distanced herself from her family and friends, Lenù now finds herself caught in a no-(wo)man's land, stranded between two social spheres, neither of which she really belongs to.
Again, the old competitiveness and jealousy raises its head, and Lenù tries to console herself that she is, at least, happier than Lila. The new Signora Carracci, however, is a woman both enigmatic and fearless, and no matter what life throws at her, she is likely to get what she wants in the end. Which is when Nino enters the story once more...
From the paragraphs above, you might be forgiven for thinking that I've decided to start reading romance fiction, but nothing could be further from the truth. Taking up the themes of My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name is a twisting, caustic account of the life of women in mid-twentieth-century Naples, a feminist look at the struggles women faced in escaping from the poverty trap and a lifetime of subservience to men.
The first part of the book largely takes place in the neighbourhood, an oppressive, cramped world in itself, where a handful of families rule the roost, lending money and cheating customers at the grocery scales. While Lila has ostensibly married into this 'ruling' class, she is a woman, with no real rights, and like all wives who hesitate to accept this 'truth', she will suffer for her obstinacy. Lenù, our eyes and ears, is frightened by a sudden realisation of what happens to women when they become wives and mothers:
"That day, instead, I saw clearly the mothers of the old neighborhood. They were nervous, they were acquiescent. They were silent, with tight lips and stooping shoulders, or they yelled terrible insults at the children who harrassed them. Extremely thin, with hollow eyes and cheeks, or with broad behinds, swollen ankles, heavy chests, they lugged shopping bags and small children who clung to their skirts and wanted to be picked up. And, good God, they were ten, at most twenty years older than me."
p.102 (Europa Editions, 2013)
Lila is now one of these women, and her introduction to married life is brutal and upsetting. It does not make for pleasant reading.
The new name of the book reflects Lila's new state as a married woman - Lila (or Lina) Cerullo has become Signora Carracci, and this change of name does bring some advantages. She gains financially, moving into a large, modern apartment, and she never needs to worry about money, taking freely from the tills of her husband's businesses. She has also risen in the world in terms of status, walking around the streets of the neighbourhood like a Neapolitan Jackie Onassis. But at what cost? Her freedom, her intellectual development and her self-respect...
The widening gulf between Lenù and Lila reflects the general division in the novel between the literate, intellectual characters and the rest of the neighbourhood. Those wanting to further their minds are able to retreat to a place in their heads where their partners, friends or enemies are unable to reach them, and Lenù sees a need to keep away from her oldest friend, fearing that Lila's problems will drag her back down into the morass of the neighbourhood...
Part of the magic of Ferrante's work though is the way that the two women's lives are so inextricably entwined that there is never a chance of a complete break:
"But Lila knew how to draw me in. And I was unable to resist: on the one hand I said that's enough, on the other I was depressed at the idea of not being part of her life, of the means by which she invented it for herself." (p.274)
Every time Lenù believes that their friendship is finally over, she can't resist going back to see her friend, looking for something she could never really explain - praise, redemption, a feeling of superiority?
Whatever it is, she's unlikely to leave satisfied - no matter how successful Lenù becomes, there's something about Lila, something innate, which allows her to effortlessly surpass her friend, to always be two steps ahead. It's a tortured relationship at times:
"When I saw Lila again, I realized immediately that she felt bad and tended to make me feel bad, too. We spent a morning at her house in an atmosphere that seemed to be playful. In fact she insisted, with growing spitefulness, that I try on all her clothes, even thought they didn't fit me. The game became torture." (p.97)
Ah, friends...
A further strong point of Ferrante's writing is her wonderful characterisation. The two main women are strongly depicted, and can be very attractive, but there is no black and white here. Lila is whimsical, changing her mind more often than is good for her (and the people around her), but she can also be perversely stubborn, often when giving in a little might actually benefit her.
Lenù, despite being our conduit into Ferrante's world, is a coldly honest portrayal of a character the reader might be tempted to associate with. Egotistical, immature and often self-serving, she is also somehow easily swayed and unable to keep her nose out of matters that don't concern her, even if she kids herself that she wants no part of life in the neighbourhood. These flaws though, far from marring the two women, make them real, complete, people we can truly sympathise with.
Ferrante's novel reflects another time, another world, one in which, of the two paths the friends choose, Lila's housewife role seems the most likely route to success. Sadly though, that's not really the case. Even in twenty-first-century Australia, true equality is very far from being a reality...
After our recent Federal election, won comfortably by the conservative opposition, the new Prime Minister (a deeply religious and conservative politician) announced his new cabinet. Of the eighteen ministers announced, only one was a woman, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (Abbott himself decided to take on the women's affairs portfolio...). A cartoon in the newspaper the next day had a worried-looking colleague asking Abbott if having one woman in the cabinet was a problem. The cartoon PM replied by saying that it would all be good - she'd be overseas most of the time anyway... Just a joke, right? I'm not convinced...
In a climate like this, books like Ferrante's are a reminder of how far we've come, but also of how far we've yet to go - and it's another great read. So, can I have the final book in the trilogy now, please? ;)
While the photo to the left may suggest that I'm at the cutting edge of translated fiction, those with keen eyes may judge that the opposite is the case. You see, while Europa Editions were kind enough to send me a copy of today's book, the only reason I got an uncorrected proof is that there were no reading copies left - because the book was published last year. Yep, I've got my finger on the pulse all right ;)
Still, better late than never - and the book was definitely worth waiting for...
*****
Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend (translated by Ann Goldstein) is a wonderful novel, one I enjoyed from start to finish. It tells the story of two girls growing up in 1950s Naples and is actually the first part of a trilogy. The story is narrated by Elena, a bookish girl you suspect is an alter-ego of the writer, but the central figure of the novel is her best friend Lila, a character who defies description, both for the reader and Elena herself.
Lila is a young woman who can't be pinned down. A poor girl with a fierce intelligence and an undeniable charisma, she chooses Elena as a friend at a young age, and while Elena is never able to rid herself of the feeling of coming off second-best in every possible way (looks, intelligence, sexual allure, success), she feels proud that Lila has singled her out as the only person in her neighbourhood worthy of being her confidante.
The neighbourhood is itself a focus of My Brilliant Friend. The two girls are growing up in a poor area of a poor city in the poorer part of Italy, and Elena acquaints the reader with a suburb used to violence:
"I feel no nostalgia for our childhood: it was full of violence. Every sort of thing happened, at home and outside, every day, but I don't recall having ever thought that the life we had there was particularly bad. Life was like that, that's all, we grew up with the duty to make it difficult for others before they made it difficult for us."
p.37 (Europa Editions, 2012)
Violence, actual or imminent, pervades the novel: husbands and wives brawl; fathers and sons injure each other in senseless quarrels; and on the streets, knives and guns are more common than you would expect...
The concept that drives the story along is that this is a place, and a life, to escape from, and while the two friends start off with the same idea, studying hard in the hope of some day becoming rich enough to escape, they eventually drift onto different paths. While Lila is the genius, it is Elena who manages to stay on the academic straight-and-narrow, striving to be top of the class each term despite having no clear idea of what advantages might arise from her efforts. Lila, on the other hand, decides that a long-delayed possible future success is not for her - instead, she thinks that marriage may well be the way to escape her fate. Towards the end of the novel, flaws begin to appear in Lila's perfection though, and we begin to wonder which of the pair the 'brilliant friend' actually is...
There's a lot to like about My Brilliant Friend. In its depiction of an unequal friendship, narrated by the less confident of the two friends, it reminds me of classic novels like Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes and Günter Grass' Cat and Mouse, and as in those novels, it becomes increasingly clear that the lot of the 'superior' friend is not always the happier one. As a child, Lila is streets ahead of everyone else, but even she cannot extract herself completely from the social ties binding her, slowly pulling her down into the traditional fate reserved for Neapolitan women. It appears that she has made her choices freely, but how free can she be in a man's world?
The book is also a stark, at times brutal, look at class differences, and the way your future can often be ordained at birth. Most of the action takes place in Elena and Lila's neighbourhood, but the girls do venture further afield at times. When they do, it can come as bit of a wake-up call, as is the case when they walk into a richer area of Naples:
"It was like crossing a border. I remember a dense crowd and a sort of humiliating difference. I looked not at the boys, but at the girls, the women: they were absolutely different from us. They seemed to have breathed another air, to have eaten other food, to have dressed on some other planet, to have learned to walk on wisps of wind." (p.192)
The group of friends from the poor suburbs feel out of place among the well off. The choice they have is to retreat to their part of town, or adapt and fit in.
This class difference is also shown linguistically. The native language for most of the characters is dialect, and the switches between dialect and Italian usually represent class differences between characters and situations. The more educated Elena becomes, the more she uses Italian, even if she still retains mastery of her first language. It's tricky to balance these two sides of her character though - some areas (such as the mysteries of the Holy Trinity...) just can't seem to be discussed in dialect...
My Brilliant Friend is a book which makes for compelling, compulsive reading, one I sped through in a couple of days, and it's also a novel which makes you reflect long after the last page has been read. While we are living the story through Elena, and following her slow progress towards an education, maturity and (possibly) future prosperity, we are also witness to the alternative path taken by Lila, wondering if she has miscalculated in her plan to escape a life of poverty and drudgery.
The book ends dramatically, and not in the way you expect. Even if I hadn't known My Brilliant Friend was the first part of a trilogy, I would have been expecting a sequel - there are too many questions here left unanswered. Luckily, we won't have to wait long, as Europa are publishing the second part, The Story of a New Name, in September. Rest assured, I won't be leaving it as long to get around to Ferrante's work the second time around ;)
