Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: middle age (Neapolitan Quartet, 3)

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To say we grew apart is a cheap explanation. It leaves much out. Growing apart—what does that mean? Why do some friendships grow and others grow apart? Where is the line between breathing space and total disconnection? Nino would last a single night, he would leave me in the morning. Even though I had known him forever, he was made of dreams, and holding on to him forever would have been impossible: he came from childhood, he was constructed out of childish desires, he had no concreteness, he didn’t face the future. Pietro, on the other hand, was of the present, massive, a boundary stone. He marked a land new to me, a land of good reasons, governed by rules that originated in his family and endowed everything with meaning. Ferrante, masterful at describing bodies and bodily functions, has said that “we have to activate all our physical re­sources as writers and readers to make it function. Wri­ting and reading are great investments of physicality.” The chaotic passion of Elena and Nino’s first lovemaking is a physical release, accustomed as we are to Elena’s elegant and controlled style:

Central themes in the novels include women's friendship and the shaping of women's lives by their social milieu, sexual and intellectual jealousy and competition within female friendships, and female ambivalence about filial and maternal roles and domestic violence. Isabelle Blank wrote about the complex, mirrored relation between the protagonists Lenu and Lila: "Lenù and Lila are foils for one another. Lenù is blonde, studious, eager to please, self-doubting and ambitious, whereas Lila is dark, naturally brilliant, mercurial, mean and irresistible to those around her. The story is told from Lenù’s point of view, but the two friends understand one another on such a deep and complex level that the reader is often privy to Lila's perceived inner thoughts." [6] Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives. We embraced with a fury that I had never known, as if our bodies were crashing against each other with the intention of breaking. So pleasure was this: breaking, mixing, no longer knowing what was mine and what was his. Even if Pietro had appeared, if the children had looked in, they would have been unable to recognize us. I whispered in his mouth: Stefano Carracci (their eldest son, five to seven years older than Lila and Elena, works at the family's grocery shop) The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Italy. 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.In high school my friends and I daydreamed about the big house we’d all buy together when we grew up. It would be a big house in Southern California, and every day would be a continuation of our glorious days of summer: dinner parties, Frisbee, car washes, greasy sandwiches, bonfires at the beach. We each had a role: handyman, cook, that guy who does all the spreadsheets. In a recent interview, Ferrante explained that, for her, “the passion to write never coincided with the desire to become a writer .” In Italy, where the cult of celebrity can be especially toxic, her anonymity is not a denial of the presence of herself in her works (“what lies silent in the dep­ths of me”) but, rather, of “the media emphasis, the predo­minance of the icon of the author over his work.” She repeats again and again in Fragments that although she brings her novels to life, they must then be allowed to stand alone, separate from her. Pietro Airota (their son, also a professor, and Elena's husband and the father of Elena's two older daughters) The series was also adapted for radio, produced by Pier for BBC Radio 4 and first broadcast in July 2016. In the third book in the Neapolitan quartet, Elena and Lila, the two girls whom readers first met in My Brilliant Friend, have become women. Lila married at sixteen and has a young son; she has left her husband and the comforts her marriage brought and now works as a common laborer. Elena has left the neighborhood, earned her college degree, and published a successful novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned interlocutors and richly furnished salons. Both women are pushing against the walls of a prison that would have seen them living a life of misery, ignorance and submission. They are afloat on the great sea of opportun

The series was praised by its portrayal of an intelligent young woman who finds motherhood stifling, something not often portrayed, as presented by Roxana Robinson for The New York Times: "She (Elena) has joined the intelligentsia and is about to marry into the middle class, yet her life is still rife with limitations. Her distinguished husband is narrow-minded and restrictive, and she finds motherhood numbing." [10] Class struggle [ edit ] Declining population – increasing populism? The impact of emigration on voting behaviour in Germany Nino Sarratore (their eldest son, two years older than Lila and Elena, as an adult is a professor and politically active) In Florence, Lenù runs into Nino again when her husband Pietro brings him home. She discovers she is still attracted to him despite the fact that he abandoned her friend after their love affair. She feels inspired by Nino, who seems to recognize her intellect and blames Pietro for letting her be wasted by a routine with small children. Inspired by this, she writes a feminist text which Adele deems worthy of publication. She and Nino start an affair, which makes Elena realize how unhappy she is in her marriage. Cohen, Roger. "The Violent World of Elena Ferrante | Roger Cohen". ISSN 0028-7504 . Retrieved 2023-02-27.

Then again, Ferrante’s entire literary career, stretching over the past quarter of a century, could be seen as a study of the boundary line between doing and redoing. In a letter to Sandra Ozzola, her Italian publisher and one of the founders of Europa Editions, Ferrante writes: The novel was also praised for its social themes, showing the neighborhood's changes under the Camorra's influence, and the struggles during the 70s Years of Lead in Italy: "During the struggles of the 1970s between the Communists and the Socialists she [Elena] turns to politics, only to find that the Camorra rules here too." [2] Roxborough, Scott (September 3, 2018). "HBO's Big Italian Bet With 'My Brilliant Friend' ". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved September 7, 2018. It was praised for its portrayal of an intelligent young woman who finds motherhood stifling, a perspective not often portrayed, as argued by Roxana Robinson in The New York Times: "She (Elena) has joined the intelligentsia and is about to marry into the middle class, yet her life is still rife with limitations. Her distinguished husband is narrow-minded and restrictive, and she finds motherhood numbing." [2] Wood, James (January 21, 2013). "Women on the Verge: The fiction of Elena Ferrante". The New Yorker . Retrieved July 20, 2015.