Elena Ferrante - The Neapolitan Novels

xp lol didn't mean "fantastic" fiction just meant it's great

i know! but i wanted to remind myself to develop that comparison when i had time

i just finished the first volume and aw man, seriously, that's where this ends? hell of a fucking cliffhanger

is it? i haven't cracked the second one yet but i'm p sure they stay together

cliffhanger is the wrong word but so is revelation: i guess one can work through all the intermediary steps by which the shoe made its way to the foot. i guess what i mean is basically "oh shit moment"

indeed (speaking of Mad Men)

Ending to second may seem a little too soap opera, ending to third volume is "Damn, girl!" (not "You go, girl," at least not from me), ending to four is perfect punchline for the whole story (multi-volume novel, another 19th Cent thing).

man I don't even know if I liked these or not

Finished the third book last night. Now to wait a year to read the last of these. Roll on Nov '15.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, 15 December 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

4th vol ordered from the library last night, so I'll get it just in time for xmas.

In volume four Lina more than once provokes Elena with her claim that Elena's work is neither one thing nor the other: that it neither fairly represents the jankiness of life nor pulls any kind of satisfying novelistic clarity of through-line out of it. This claim is foregrounded and repeated enough that it seems a fair extrapolation that we're meant to look at the novel we're reading in these terms, which is unfortunate, because I found it deeply frustrating. By halfway through the last book I was pretty certain none of the threads we'd been reading about were going to be resolved, ever, which I was right, with the exception of the story of the dolls, which I'd given up going 'but wait, what did happen to the dolls' a thousand pages ago. (I think, too, a little too on-the-nose for Elena to remind us more than once that Tina was the name of her doll, to draw the line for us between the two disappearances, to remind us that she set up Alfonso's queerness so many pages ago, too ... )

I don't know where I'm going with that complaint. Or rather I guess I think it's kind of ... I don't think whatever point is being made about art and life is so necessary as to make it worth denying the reader the consolations of narrative neatness which are so much in play for the first 600 pages or so; I think it's cheating too to have this freight at the same time as letting the book be driven so much by convenient it's-a-small-world-after-all re-appearances. One thing I do think is kind of a major narrative failing is that Lila's success with computers is so half-assed, that Elena just tells us 'I don't really understand how that happened': why is the thing that eventually affords her some kind of escape given so much less space than 'The Blue Fairy', than the Cerullo shoe factory, than the Solara store? but then maybe no one else wanted to read about the transition from punch-cards to BASIC in European industrial and home computing.

It was definitely a page turner for me because it had great narrative drive, but otoh I don't think the novel was "about" the narrative, at least I didn't really care that much abt loose ends or probability but more abt the characters, the milieus etc. Like, I think the way it depicts friendship, class, Italy and bodies makes it a great work - so if it's soapy in places and maybe a bit unresolved, oh well.

One thing I do think is kind of a major narrative failing is that Lila's success with computers is so half-assed, that Elena just tells us 'I don't really understand how that happened': why is the thing that eventually affords her some kind of escape given so much less space than 'The Blue Fairy', than the Cerullo shoe factory, than the Solara store?

iirc the shoe factory and shop are tied together to a number of relationships and specific places. Also yes "some kind of escape", its never complete.

When she takes up computing she sorta falls into it with the one person she escapes that place with. All felt 'new': the displacement from the town (where she would've never left in a prev generation) to a place and industry she could get into w/out a specific degree (unlike the narrator who uses education to escape; Ferrante shows other get-out routes opening up) and prosper, but I suppose the lack of that kind of BASIC detail does tie in with other, rough-ish aspects of this series.

Its just whether you look at this as merely rough or a flaw that can't be waived.

just setting myself up to disagree with the above in a couple of weeks.

i notice that i'm doing a kind of ferrante-ish sentence structure in the bit you quote, so obviously she's still inside of my head somewhat

i should also note that i've been on a bit of a downer the past couple weeks, so maybe that's influencing my feelings about the book -- that i was starting to query whether the book being a chore was getting in the way of my ability to focus on it (or anything else), or whether my inability to focus on it (or anything else) was rendering it a chore

really don't think complaints about denying us/taking away the pleasures of narrative neatness go with complaints about on-the-nose and it's a small world after all. As for the latter, she's been up front in interviews about 19th Century literary inspirations from early on (note that the little girls' big intellectual etc encounter is w Little Woman, and it's a long time before we get to mentions of any modern authors). Popular books that later became part of the canon were not above devices also used in schlock stage works of the time, or what we associate with soap operas, chick/dick lit etc (so Eliot kills off Casaubon at just the right moment; sucks for him, yay for us). Ditto Shakespeare etc--doesn't always work, but think EF redeems the use (no wrong notes, depending on what's played next)
Don't really want injections of The History of BASIC etc., which would seem like boilerplate, though could say lack shows limitations of first-person narrative, but the point of the latter is we don't really know whether Lina/Lila is " really"all that cracked genius or not (I've had the experience, a couple times, of finally meeting somebody my friends say is awesome, and thinking, "Whut?"). Point is the effect she has on others. Also she's a canary in the coalmine/extreme case re "dissolving boundaries," information overload, social implosions/explosions etc.

really don't think complaints about denying us/taking away the pleasures of narrative neatness go with complaints about on-the-nose and it's a small world after all

bro did you even read my post

In volume four Lina more than once provokes Elena with her claim that Elena's work is neither one thing nor the other: that it neither fairly represents the jankiness of life nor pulls any kind of satisfying novelistic clarity of through-line out of it. This claim is foregrounded and repeated enough that it seems a fair extrapolation that we're meant to look at the novel we're reading in these terms -- like ferrante is definitely rubbing the readers nose in the way she's both doing a bunch of unlikely narrative reconnections while also refusing certain others

Agree with that part, and Elena/Lenu's drive x insecurity about her own work and identity is related, connected to Lina/Lila's, one stays, one goes, the former comes back, because they both have to go round and round with this stuff, with each other, even when confrontation's in their own heads (finally externalized once again, via postal, at end).

personal politics eh

Didn't mean the Eliot etc or any of it as a lecture, just thinking loud x caffeine, sorry

that i was starting to query whether the book being a chore was getting in the way of my ability to focus on it (or anything else), or whether my inability to focus on it (or anything else) was rendering it a chore

this happens to me too

she talked quite a bit in one of those interviews about how it's also really the prose itself that counts, the sentences, the tone, language - having read 1-3 in danish and 4 in english, gotta say her voice comes through very clear in both translations, and I believe this is really a big part of how great it is - as thomp says, it gets under your skin/into your language

and that's one of the greatest thing writing can do

lol *things*

Come to think if it, if I'd read all four books in rapid succession, might have seemed like a chore at some point. Took me maybe 18 months, with gaps incl. waiting for US publication of the fourth.

i'm going to start with part 2. good idea or better start from 1? heart 2 was better..

i think ive posted already itt about how physically wearying i found reading these, although i also found them p worthwhile overall. theyre kind of dogged, almost nagging sometimes.

@thomp i disagree with how literally (or completely?) were supposed to take linas critique of elenas writing, i do think the failure of large parts of the narrative to cohere was successful in its attempt to be 'truthful' to our experience of life? punctuating with a qn mark since im uncertain of how i mean this, precisely

I think it coheres enough. Dealing with the onslaught of information (in media, in the streets, in relationships is one of the main themes, and Lenu's no genius at herding cats, we know that. nostromo, I can't imagine starting with vol. 2. You'd be constantly wtf, even more than otherwise, I mean. Maybe 2 is better for some readers, but 1 seems essential, as the genesis of so many situations in the rest of the story (and has an isolated fascination all its own, funky childhood teenhood neverneverland etc, later maybe more like Brigadoon).

Also agree with lamp re Lina's critique: right or wrong, she's never gonna let Lenu get too comfy. That would be bad for the writing, esp. if Lenu's greatest achievements, the Linacentric ones, of course, come from such tough love.

A guy I work with picked up my copy of volume two out of a lack of anything to do at that moment and read the first six or seven pages. His judgement: "so is this book, like, going to be about the mafia...?"

Another problem I maybe had is that I thought Elena-the-narrator was a total asshole.

I thought she was a pretty complex character

I didn't but I have a high tolerance for arsehole-ism.

Reading through today's interview with the FT

If I were Lina, I'd banish all first-person narrators, including the Unreliables. I often think they're overselling, but somehow Lenu's up-front anxieties don't have that effect on me. As Mary Karr teaches and demonstrates in her own memoirs, you have to lay it out there, but also leave room for the reader to judge, whatever that judgement may be. So, this is presented as such a memoir, confessions of, even, after one operatic collapse, "Today, writing this, I can smile at my younger self"---even better once we know she better smile while she can, cos Lina's not done with her yet." We see how younger self thought this or that was a good idea at the time; we also see some of the effects on her hubbie (Casaubon and yet not, an unexpectedly sympathetic figure in some ways, despite some dangerous tendencies/limitations) and especially her kids. So I don't think Ferrante would mind somebody thinking Greco is an asshole---poster child-to-woman in all the stages of social change, but still something of an asshole, if differently fucked up than Lina---she might even enjoy it (seems like there's a wicked sense of humor behind all this, though a serious one, too, like, "Whaddayagonnado? All I can do is write about it.")

most assholes are pretty complex characters imo

reading part 1. somewhere in the middle. nice enough but i can't see the greatness and can't justify the hype (yet?!)

Hm

I should finally be getting to the last part of this by next week.

Anyway revived because I am reading Peter Stamm and I think he is a pretty good for anyone looking for a similar sensibility crossed with a kind of intensity. I'll think more on this later.

ah, i bought a copy of Brilliant Friend last night.

i haven't read these yet, but i already want to read the fragments book. she's my kinda talker.

https://www.guernicamag.com/features/the-author-is-purely-a-name/

i might look for these books tonight. i have a chance to sneak into Amherst tonight, and i'm almost certain that Amherst Books would have them. it's a great store. within spitting distance of emily's house.

More Ferrante - its cool: https://www.guernicamag.com/features/the-author-is-purely-a-name/

so I should read these novels, right? I almost bought the first last month.

Only if you like what is behind the link.

nobody listens to me when i tell them this but you should read 'Days of Abandonment' first, Alfred. it's wild.

Cool! I'm sick of reading Isherwood and about the CIA.

started the first book. bought them all. i love Amherst Books. such a great store. they had all her books. page-turner so far!

Finishing this soon-ish. Just to go back to this:

One thing I do think is kind of a major narrative failing is that Lila's success with computers is so half-assed, that Elena just tells us 'I don't really understand how that happened': why is the thing that eventually affords her some kind of escape given so much less space than 'The Blue Fairy', than the Cerullo shoe factory, than the Solara store?

There is a scene where the narrator starts comparing her and Lina's daughter as they sit. Lina is showing them the new personal computer. The latter is attentive and the former does not want to know and wants to play as normal. The level of anxiety that was already written about earlier -- is my daughter normal? is she stupid? -- is speeded up in this scene. Its true that the techie stuff is sorta lost, and we really don't know the division of Labour so much. According to Enzo and Elena its Lina this Lina that. She is a sponge that picks up anything and moves on to being better at it than you, which is yet another shade of the 'my perfect cousin' syndrome.

Started the first book too: a hundred pages.

50 pgs from the end - coming to the conclusion that a more pruned and powerfully concentrated book about Lila and the relationship between her and the narrator only - with men, work, children really away/at the background (or as simply talk between the two of them) might have been more: i) more amazing as literature and ii) would have sold 10 copies.

But I think there is a tension (perhaps unresolved) between the above and what we have - the 80s/early 90s just seem forgotten.

or was there a blackout? idk.