My Brillant Friend – Elena Ferrante
This novel was recommended by a number of people whose opinions I respect. It is the type of story that I like – mostly character driven. And yet, I struggled.
Here is the blurb …
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship.
The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila.
Ferrante is the author of three previous works of critically acclaimed fiction: The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter. With this novel, the first in a trilogy, she proves herself to be one of Italy’s great storytellers. She has given her readers a masterfully plotted page-turner, abundant and generous in its narrative details and characterizations, that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight her many fans and win new readers to her fiction.
As I don’t know much about Italy, I found those aspects fascinating – the local school, speaking dialect, how most people didn’t venture beyond the bounds of their local community and the casual violence. It is a fabulous description of a particular time and place. I’m not sure why I didn’t warm to it – on paper it definitely seems to be my kind of novel. Towards the end I was captured and I want to know the rest of Elena and Lila’s story, but do I want that enough to read the next two installments?
More …
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/31/elena-ferrante-literary-sensation-nobody-knows
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/21/women-on-the-verge