Elena Ferrante - The Neapolitan Novels

very glad to hear it!

I've now heard this thing a few times about the covers -- I guess I don't get it, I feel like the covers are very subdued and look very much the way I expect "tasteful literary fiction" to look.

same

Seems like if Lina-Lila ever really thought she could "escape through reading," gave it up pretty early. When she eventually tunnels into the deep history of Naples, more like material for her secret writing and getting further inside the place and space she's never left, and tried to find a way to control (incl. reading early computer manuals), despite tirades about the basic chaos, and how everything else is a fuckin' lie.
The cover of the first one, with a stately marriage procession proceeding to the edge of a cliff, as good old Vesuvius drowses across across the bay, as usual, turns out to be very appropriate. Covers of the others, with generic greeting card romance, seem like more examples of that xpost Ferrante humor, considering contrast with contents.

I feel like the covers are very subdued and look very much the way I expect "tasteful literary fiction" to look.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, March 25, 2016 6:18 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, March 25, 2016 6:23 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't know that i agree. got any examples?

i'm not sure what "books that might be sold to poor women with restricted access to education" would look like. personally i imagine some raunch harlequin novels? that's probably classist and sexist of me...

the neapolitan covers look plain in a way that is not quite of this time, they make me think of like, the literary equivalent of old soap operas. but i don't associate that style with the covers of contemporary tasteful literary fiction. i'm bad at describing design but i think the trends in contemp lit fic book covers are like: stencils, rough textures, blurred photos of the sea or forests, the indie comics aesthetic...

http://slimpaley.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/donna-tartt-the-goldfinch-book-cover.jpg?w=870
http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/t/the-flamethrowers/9781439142004_custom-7e81f0840812e7c2097afb8f1ed7955662489442-s300-c85.jpg
http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Wood-Best-Books-of-2015-1200x822-1451928637.jpg

don't care about covers tbh

i care about spines

yep!

I agree the cover doesn't look very "designed" the way lit fic from big presses do. I guess I'm saying it reminds me more of something you'd see from a university press. Like, isn't the cover type actually Times New Roman?

The point is, it's definitely not something that would be mistaken for "the kind of book marketed to poor and lower-middle-class women."

i paid almost 80 bucks for all four books so definitely not priced for poor people. i justified it cuz i only buy new books about once a year.

have now finished all four, best thing i've read in don't know how long

wonder what she'll do next

Is this a literary thing or more young-adult?

I loved Days of Abandonment, most especially because it didn't present its heroine as virtuous.

The covers look aspirationally literary. See my mom's bookshelves. My mom isn't a poor woman with restricted access to education, but she was once.

xp- i love how it's a book about a mother but it's not about being a mother; she finds no comfort in the love of her children. the kids are just background noise in the frantic haze, just another constraint in the balancing act, placed there to add to the chaos.

Is this a literary thing or more young-adult?

― calstars, Saturday, April 2, 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well its easy-to-read, but a lot of literature is easy to read.

Not long afterward, the underground war that occasionally erupted into the newspapers and on television - plans for coups, police repression, armed bands, firefights, woundings, killings, bombs and slaughters I was struck again by in the cities large and small.

Eh?

I presume the narrator's referring to the Years of Lead.

I presume she is trying to say "Not long afterward I was struck again by the underground war...", there must be a missing dash after 'slaughters' but even then 'in the cities large and small' is entirely out of place.

ows posted a link of commentary as it relates to Knausgaard, here is the stuff on Ferrante: http://173.254.14.229/2015/06/the-slow-burn-an-introduction/

Just read the first post, which is brilliant, thanks. Right about the resistance to settling on/into one identity, and reminds of EF interviews re finding the freedom of the two main characters (exchanging etc., as the commentator says here)(but also on and off what becomes their own tracks, as they live so long). Judging from excerpts of novels before this quartet, their one or dominant narrative voice was more like Lila/Lina, or maybe even like Lina/Lila and Lenu/Elena G. simultaneously, trapped in the same body---anyway, the two lifelines provide more range, it seems (though I'll have to read those earlier books).

Finished 3, the soap opera is strong with this one. As is the irony, that just as she is on the verge of becoming a feminist crusader, just as she realises what a chauvinist nino is being, just at the exact moment that she goes to give him a piece of her mind... she falls into bed with him. Ferrante sells it though. Certainly rings more true than the end of The Bostonians.

Yeah, for sure, but also, the husband seems like such a foole at first, and he is---but not, as also seems at first, lol Casaubon and he's done, son---no.he actually, maybe starting when he doesn't back down from the student---oops spoiler for others---well he has his own bit of dumb stubborness/luck--->saving grace under pressure=adaptablity---needs a whole lot more of this last, but---well, you'll see in 4. Also: her child-rearing, also her not child-rearing practices...

well this sucks

The allegation about her identity? I agree; it seems like a pointless violation of Ferrante's privacy.

Went through her thrash - very tabloid. NYRB publishing this reflects v badly on them - the excuse this is being published in other newspapers in different languages doesn't scan. Not sure what other line they can take to defend it. The accompanying article on Raja's family I have not read but it begins by stating that "There are no traces of Anita Raja’s personal history in Elena Ferrante’s fiction", which assumes I would be looking for that when reading her books.

EF's been quoted to the effect that she wouldn't stop writing if outed, but she would stop publishing.

YES

i would rather enjoy resenting and blaming whatsisname for the rest of my days until her estate publishes her posthumous books

Reckon she'll burn 'em before dying. Nothing less than what we deserve.

This is kind of awful. I can think of at least one other writer that some of us have read who was unable to write after their cover was blown

And of course in this situation the damage is magnified a hundredfold.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ct5Tte5XgAAIGPl.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tJGk4ofc18

I have seen about a hundred comments and articles deploring this 'outing' in the strongest terms.

I have not seen one comment, anywhere, praising it.

They can't be thinking it was a very good thing to do! Or: who would think this was a good thing to do?

(I have not read EF but do not support the outing)

had to happen sooner or later. if she had sold literary fiction numbers nobody would have cared. but if you sell millions of books and you are a "mystery" people are gonna see that as a challenge. i honestly don't see it making much of a difference. she can still live an anonymous life. nobody is going to recognize her anywhere.

i do love that she lied in interviews about her history!. so sneaky. and fun too.

i also love the east german/christa wolf thing. very interesting. i can't wait to tell my german-speaking translator wife who as part of her college thesis translated multiple stories by east german women writers about this.

I think I'll leave it up to the woman in question whether or not this violation of her privacy will 'make much of a difference'... She chose to be anonymous for a reason, and that reason was shat on by an arrogant asshole for no good reason.

The other thing that really pisses me off, which people talked a bit about after the robbery of Kim Kardashian, was how there's just no way to win for a woman artist. If you choose to be a public figure, well then you've chosen to be a public figure, and you should expect the abuse and harassment that always follows female public figures. If you choose to no be public, then you're a 'mystery', and you should expect people seeing it as a challenge to violate your privacy. There's no winning, the only answer really is to not be a brilliant artist. Leave that to the men, ay?

Fuck that shithead journalist, and all the misogynistic harassment he represents.

"for no good reason."

journalist with a hot story! totally a good reason. if you are a journalist.

it's too tempting for people. why is that so hard to understand?

I just don't think shitting on people is ok because it's 'too tempting'. If I saw that asshole irl I'd be mightily tempted to knock his fucking teeth out, but that wouldn't be an excuse, would it?

Like, men should not be allowed to violate a woman's privacy because it's 'too tempting'. Stop blaming the victim.

This is papparazzi behavior--it's not like there was some angle, like "Did someone from the Clinton campaign write Primary Colors?" or "Is this JT Leroy thing for real?" This is just: "Hey, check it out! Elsa Ferrante is actually this woman you've never heard of."

Don't really see how this is any different from journalists (or fans!) pursuing Salinger or Pynchon - every mystery creates a detective.

Well, that's assholish too. The obvious difference is that neither Salinger nor Pynchon were writing under pseudonyms.

This is pretty good: https://newrepublic.com/article/137400/sexist-big-reveal?utm_content=buffere5fe5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The obvious difference is that neither Salinger nor Pynchon were writing under pseudonyms.

The main parallels I keep thinking of are musicians like Burial (who I believe outed himself when tabloids were trying to do it for him). Or Banksy.

this isn't *praise*, but it's not condemnation: http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/10/elena-ferrantes-unmasking-wasnt-the-end-of-the-world.html

idk, i guess i'm mainly surprised that nyrb was a party to it rather than, say, . . . gawker

from that npr thing from last year:

"One published theory claims Ferrante is really Anita Raja, Anita being the diminutive of Anna. Raja is a consultant for Ferrante's Italian publisher. She is also the wife of the Neapolitan writer Domenico Starnone, who himself has been "accused" of being Elena Ferrante."

"And besides, Vicinanza says, it doesn't really matter who Ferrante is anyway."

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/01/436289199/in-new-neapolitan-novel-fans-seek-clues-about-mysterious-authors-past

i think it matters - to the reader - as much as you want it to matter. though there is certainly plenty of grist for the academic mill no matter how you slice it. a woman who wanted to not be present/known/get accolades for herself writing about women who...well, you get the idea.

i'd have to imagine her life was already pretty complicated. doesn't that kind of evasion always create complications? hiding/having secrets takes a lot of energy.

right on time: http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-identity-of-a-famous-person-is-news-1787392847