Elena Ferrante - The Neapolitan Novels

Stuff like this just seems... silly?

Georgios Mikros from Athens University, for example, used the textual corpus to train a machine-learning algorithm to profile authors (that is, identify their gender, age, and provenance) with a high degree of accuracy. This algorithm concluded that the person behind Elena Ferrante was a male over 60 years old from the region of Campania.
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 17 March 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Do you think questions like 'Was Homer the author of both Iliad and The Odyssey?' are silly?

I know that isn't in the same ballpark but some people have a curiosity about the people they are reading. And if it turns out Ferrante isn't quite what it's claimed people will be pissed off about it.

I guess for me, there is a big leap from "X is similar to Y" to "X contributes to Y" or "X is Y".

There are so many ways a couple can influence each other's writing: sentence style, editing style, sense of humour, history, likes, kinks, pecadilloes, etc. This is normal. The Ferrante issue seems wedded to rather old-fashioned sexist assumptions about female authorship (also a problem for female musicians, sports people, scientists...) and the equally questionable idea that appropriating stories from other people's lives somehow lessens you as an author.

There's no gender/authorship issue in Homer AFAIK

Funnily enough there is.

https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/authoress-odyssey-1897

"and the equally questionable idea that appropriating stories from other people's lives somehow lessens you as an author."

iirc I don't think -- in that lithub piece, anyway -- there was an attempt to lessen Ferrante. You could argue this kind of thing could enrich.

"to train a machine-learning algorithm to profile authors"

the desire to know more abt an author isn't silly but the idea that this kind of phrenology-by-robots is any use *is* p silly: it's crappier and more speculative than most forensic and profiling cop science, and we now know that most forensic and profiling cop science is also garbage (up to and including fingerprints)

plus it's done by robots! famously not good at reading novels well imo

Funnily enough there is.

https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/authoress-odyssey-1897

ha! that is great

xposts

Re: appropriating, I guess it's the assumption that an author has to have lived through something (e.g. been raised in, as opposed to just being born in, Naples) to write about it. And therefore anyone who *has* been raised in Napes (conveniently a dude) must QED have written the book or part of it

plus it's done by robots! famously not good at reading novels well imo

― mark s, Friday, 18 March 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Don't think the robot is reading a novel. The lithub piece describes a study where they look at phrases from Ferrante against author a, b, c etc. This analysis took out everyone except Starnone.

There was then a horrible tabloidy investigation years later that pointed to Raja, who is married to Starnone. So in this case it looks like the robot did its job.

I could see how some readers would find it galling, as xp Thurman says, if Ferrante turned out to be a male author with no female input, although of course Raja could be giving him all manner of feedback, guidance, notes, without having the final say, putting down phrases in analyzable way----but I'm always more interested in what's on the page or other medium (controversies in music and visual arts too)

Very excited for this translation of Starnone.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/06/02/boy-remembers-his-fierce-father-rich-family-novel/