A friend of mine often includes excerpts from her reads on her blog and I think I’ll follow along. I can’t imagine a better way to give you a feel of the book!
I read this book in french hence the post’s title but in english it’s called My Brilliant Friend and the novel is so true to it’s title. The story starts off with a young protagonist who goes on different adventures with her ‘Brilliant Friend’, she eventually matures and grows ; trying her best to understand her world and the people in it.
Elena Ferrante captures the very delicate thing which is the contradicting emotions of a young woman. Being in love but needing release, wanting but running away from. It is so difficult to decide on certain things sometimes we would just rather live a life of contradiction
: our actions opposing our beliefs. In this passage, Elena’s mother senses her daughter’s amorous interests – Antonio – Elena then moves away from her mother’s table to be with Nino, who had once declared his love for her only to be turned down. She then realizes how wrong she had been, all this time, she had turned him down when he was in fact exactly what she needed. It is also interesting to note that when choosing a romantic partner, Elena looks out for what is to gain and how he might help her achieve her goal of academic or professional success. Ferrante’s writing is brutally honest, entire mindsets are exposed stark naked and characters are painted in the most realistic manner. Nothing is hidden. When I read this book I wondered how much trouble she encountered writing all these personal events :
The novel is mainly about Lenu’s relationship with Lila. In one passage, Lenu anxiously bathes Lila preparing her for her wedding day. She tries her best not to show any signs of disturbance which would only make the situation more disturbing and this in turns doesn’t help in calming her down! The passage is very explicit and goes into a lot of details. She then thinks about the bride’s groom ‘dirtying’ this work of art which is her friend at night, the only way to ease the pain would be for Antonio to do the same thing to her at the same time.
I couldn’t believe what I read. I was very pleasantly surprised. This is just an example of the author’s brutal honesty I mentioned earlier. It’s really a relief reading such a story because girls get anxious around girls too and human sexuality is so complex. I find it difficult to dress up in front of my friends and when they do so in front of me it really makes me uncomfortable. Even though where I come from your body should be flaunted, and there is no shame in nudity, I grew up always covering and hiding but secretly wanting to open and expose… I still struggle with this today.
This is a novel I hope I get to read again in the future. It was filled with pleasant surprises 😀
Alexandra's diary 