The Story of the Lost Child

Last night I finished the fourth, and according to Europa Press, the final book in the Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante. http://elenaferrante.com/ I scarcely know where to begin to talk about these books that have made such an impression on me. The characters have been so much a part of my life for months now. I loved them and hated them. They soared and then fell, becoming all too human. And Italy? The country of my heart was exposed as the passion- inducing yet dangerously corrupt land that it is.

 I don't believe that I've ever read a more realistic description
of a friendship, one that spans over fifty years and involves
 so many losses, misunderstandings, great acts of love, and acts of
ferocious cruelty. This is no fairytale. Readers must be prepared to examine their deepest thoughts and emotions, the ones they'd never want to share with another human being, and admit that these are a normal part of our human condition.

The ambivalent feelings that Lila and Elena hold for each other manifest themselves from grade school where their teachers pit one against the other. The girls are drawn to one another until they become two sides to the same coin. Lila seeming to be the more powerful force, Elena the wanna be.

Elena sees Lila's early marriage, a means of escaping grinding poverty, as capitulation. For Lila it's a means to an end. Elena's star rises when she leaves Naples for academia while Lila's influence in Naples' business world threatens the powerful hold that the Solara brothers have over the old neighborhood.

Elena thrives when away from Naples. She is fecund with words, publishing feminist tracts to critical acclaim, and fecund biologically, reveling in the pregnancies that produce two beautiful girls. Lila's body, on the other hand, is repelled by the sex act and is sickened by her own pregnancy.

At times I questioned Lila's magnetic pull on Elena. Why would such a smart, outspoken woman be drawn to Lila's subversive undermining of Elena's hard-won confidence. I wanted to yell out to Elena, "No! Don't return, don't let her tear you down." And though Elena questions her own motivations, she does eventually move back to Naples where the two women's symbiotic relationship becomes a destructive force, poisoning all the people they love.

These novels are absolutely Shakespearean in their depth and insight. Though much praise has been (well-deservedly) lavished on the translator, Ann Goldstein, http://on.wsj.com/1lz34Sb I think that another draw is the anonymity that the author has been able to maintain over the years and through all the publicity. This mystery of authorship and the mystery of this finale force us to accept the uncertainties of life. Don't miss this tour de force.

Elena Ferrante - Judy Blume's Opposite

Last week I complained about the lack of substance in Judy Blume's adult novel about the lifelong friendship of two girls who were affected by a series of air traffic accidents in their small town in New Jersey.

A week later I can only marvel at the depth and sophistication of "My Brilliant Friend," the first in a series of four novels, also about the  lifelong friendship of two girls, Lila and Elena, raised in the violent, patriarchal world of Naples, Italy. What a different reading experience!

Much has been written about the enigmatic author Elena Ferrante. Apparently no one actually knows who she is. She eschews speaking engagements and only acquiesces to interviews by mail. Some even thought that she might be a man but, based upon my reading, that just doesn't seem probable. Her female characters, their thoughts, aspirations, jealousies, and insensitivities are simply too visceral. This is the work of a writer at the top of her game.

The story begins in the 1950's in a small, insular neighborhood outside Naples, a town that serves as a microcosm of Italy at the time. Lila and Elena might be two sides of the same coin, Lila the daredevil, the bad girl, the leader, and Elena, the fearful follower and admirer.

They meet in primary school at a time when few were expected to further their education beyond the eighth grade. Girls like Lila and Elena have no money. Their highest expectations would have been to work in the family's meager business or to marry and have babies. But these girls have brains, imaginations, and aspirations. What will become of them?

And that's what the reader will discover, lost in these volumes of exquisite prose. One asks how can a writer - think of Alice McDermott - take a subject of such little consequence, the daily lives of small-town girls, their parents, siblings, boyfriends, and turn it into a work of literature?

Ferrante captures the importance of the hierarchy in a small town. The butcher trumps the shoemaker who trumps the clerical worker. The first one to own a car has a means of escape, a way to open up to a wider world. But the one with the education? What good is Latin and Greek when your family needs you to forge a propitious alliance with another family? What's love got to do with it, Tina would ask.

I won't tell you what happens. I only know the beginnings of the story myself. After all, it's life and all that living entails, betrayal, hurt, sexual awakening, accolades and disappointments. I'm waiting for book 2 in the series right now. I don't doubt that I'll be living with these women into their old age and enjoying every minute.

Frances Godwin, Another Tough Woman

I've returned from beautiful Costa Rica and a wonderful visit with a friend who's one strong woman. She and I share of love for the author Robert Hellenga (www.roberthellenga.com) who initially grabbed us with "The Sixteen Pleasures," so I had dragged along his latest book for her to read while I was there. As you can imagine, as much as we all love books, we didn't get much reading accomplished. On the flight home, however, I jumped in and finished "The Confessions of Frances Godwin" in two days.

 

 

 

Frances spoke to me for a number of reasons, she's a Latin teacher as was my mom, she's a young widow like my sister-in-law, she's prone to examining her life in minute detail like my dear friend Andrea, and she's in love with Italy as I am. Perhaps she is Hellenga's alter-ego or maybe she's channeling his mom. Either way I loved her for her humanity, her truth, and her passion for all that life throws at her.

 

Frances begins her story in 2006 having survived hernia repair surgery and been advised by her friend/arch-enemy Lois that she should think about getting her affairs in order. Yes, she's about my age. Her confessions take her back to 1963 in the Trastavere neighborhood of Rome where, now graduated from college, she is taking a conversational Latin course with the renowned Father Adrian. Back in the states she's left a lover, her Shakespeare professor Paul Godwin, whose marriage is now on the skids because of their torrid affair.

 

Forty-some years later Paul and Frances are still together in Galesburg, Illinois. Their only child, Stella, has failed to live up to their high expectations, having eschewed study at the Iowa Writers' School, to take up with a thug named Jimmy who treks vegetables cross country in an eighteen wheeler.

 

Paul has lung cancer. In less than a year Frances must face the world as a solo traveler. What she decides to do and how she does it fills this small novel with big ideas. We learn about astronomy, antique automobiles, opera, piano tuning, great wines, and even the Catholic church.

 

Some critics might say that Hellenga throws in everything but the kitchen sink to show off the breadth of his knowledge. I say that he takes a love story, a murder mystery, and a fantasy, combined with a dose of magical realism, wraps it up in the food and music of Italy, and serves up the kind of satisfying novel that will stay with you days after you've closed the cover.