Status
Checked out
Series
Genres
Publication
Europa Editions (2014), Paperback, 400 pages
Description
Since the publication of My Brilliant Friend, the first of the Neapolitan novels, Elena Ferrante's fame as one of our most compelling, insightful, and stylish contemporary authors has grown enormously. She has gained admirers among authors--Jhumpa Lahiri, Elizabeth Strout, Claire Messud, to name a few--and critics--James Wood, John Freeman, Eugenia Williamson, for example. But her most resounding success has undoubtedly been with readers, who have discovered in Ferrante a writer who speaks with great power and beauty of the mysteries of belonging, human relationships, love, family, and friendship. In this third Neapolitan novel, 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 of 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 mystery, ignorance and submission. They are afloat on the great sea of opportunities that opened up during the nineteen-seventies. Yet they are still very much bound to see each other by a strong, unbreakable bond.… (more)
Media reviews
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Writing about the Brilliant Friend books has been one of the hardest assignments I’ve ever done. When I began, I thought I felt this way because I loved them so much and didn’t know where to start with all my praising. Then I had to fight a deep desire not to mention the things I most liked
It has to do, presumably, with femininity, with having been a girl who loved reading and was supposed to know that you have to let the boys keep winning at math. It has to do too with the less gendered but even more bodily experience of living in and through a mind. And it has to do, profoundly, with living in a mind and being touched by another one: delighted, exasperated, confused, envious, sorrowful, appalled. As the years go by, the women in these novels allow the holes in their friendship to spread, yet Elena feels the presence of Lila constantly, an almost physical pressure, a disturbance in the air. Telling her own story, she thinks, is easy enough: “the important facts slide along the thread of the years like suitcases on a conveyor belt at an airport.” But involving Lila, “the belt slows down, accelerates, swerves abruptly . . . The suitcases fall off, fly open, their contents scatter here and there. Her things end up among mine.”
“May I point out something?” Lila says to Elena in one of the women’s scarce, increasingly ill-tempered phone conversations in the Seventies. “You always use true and truthfully, when you speak and when you write. Or you say: unexpectedly. But when do people ever speak truthfully and when do things ever happen unexpectedly? You know better than I that it’s all a fraud and that one thing follows another and then another.”
This, in a nutshell, is Lila’s problem, perhaps her tragedy. She thinks so fast and with such ferocious rigor; she sees connections and discerns so many fine distinctions; she’s impossible and overwhelming — “too much for anyone” and, most of all, for herself. But Elena keeps thinking about her, putting her on the page. Great novels are intelligent far beyond the powers of any character or writer or individual reader, as are great friendships, in their way. These wonderful books sit at the heart of that mystery, with the warmth and power of both.
Writing about the Brilliant Friend books has been one of the hardest assignments I’ve ever done. When I began, I thought I felt this way because I loved them so much and didn’t know where to start with all my praising. Then I had to fight a deep desire not to mention the things I most liked
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in the novels so I could keep them to myself. Now my view of the matter is that somehow Ferrante so thoroughly succeeds in her aim of seizing at “the evasive thing” that she has stirred up something from the depths of her mind that touches and spreads through mine.It has to do, presumably, with femininity, with having been a girl who loved reading and was supposed to know that you have to let the boys keep winning at math. It has to do too with the less gendered but even more bodily experience of living in and through a mind. And it has to do, profoundly, with living in a mind and being touched by another one: delighted, exasperated, confused, envious, sorrowful, appalled. As the years go by, the women in these novels allow the holes in their friendship to spread, yet Elena feels the presence of Lila constantly, an almost physical pressure, a disturbance in the air. Telling her own story, she thinks, is easy enough: “the important facts slide along the thread of the years like suitcases on a conveyor belt at an airport.” But involving Lila, “the belt slows down, accelerates, swerves abruptly . . . The suitcases fall off, fly open, their contents scatter here and there. Her things end up among mine.”
“May I point out something?” Lila says to Elena in one of the women’s scarce, increasingly ill-tempered phone conversations in the Seventies. “You always use true and truthfully, when you speak and when you write. Or you say: unexpectedly. But when do people ever speak truthfully and when do things ever happen unexpectedly? You know better than I that it’s all a fraud and that one thing follows another and then another.”
This, in a nutshell, is Lila’s problem, perhaps her tragedy. She thinks so fast and with such ferocious rigor; she sees connections and discerns so many fine distinctions; she’s impossible and overwhelming — “too much for anyone” and, most of all, for herself. But Elena keeps thinking about her, putting her on the page. Great novels are intelligent far beyond the powers of any character or writer or individual reader, as are great friendships, in their way. These wonderful books sit at the heart of that mystery, with the warmth and power of both.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Life is full of entanglements. And when two lives are as entangled as those of the protagonists of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels it becomes a moot point as to who it is that really leaves and who remains. Elena Greco has found literary success with the publication of her first novel, as well
The contrast between Lila and Elena is both sharper in this third novel in the series as it is more subtle. Elena is full of high politics and ideas about the class struggle, while Lila is being abused and maltreated by voracious overlords in a dismal Neapolitan factory. Elena has access to the power of the press and highly placed friends, but Lila knows that real power still lies at the sharp end of a knife. Elena is frustrated by her inability to help Lila in any meaningful way. Lila, on the other hand, desires only that Elena live the life of integrity that would somehow, in its purity, redeem Lila’s sorry and sordid present condition. But for Ferrante, all contrasts are at best momentary and reversal after reversal consistently inverts expectation and interpretation. The effect is bewildering.
At times this third novel can feel cerebral, almost passionless, as Elena self-consciously narrates the raising of her own consciousness. Have we strayed into the politics of the personal? Perhaps. But the real has its own demands and Elena’s suppression of her own passionate nature has repercussions, unlooked for but perhaps not unexpected. By the end of the novel, Elena is literally taking flight for the first time (a journey from Rome to Montpellier, in France) even as, she can’t help noticing, the floor under her feet trembles.
I remain riveted. And somewhat in awe of Ferrante’s skill at juggling huge political themes whilst rooting everything in the clinging mud of that Neapolitan neighbourhood from whence Elena and Lila sprang. Who knows what might yet flower in the remaining books in this series? I, for one, can hardly wait to read on.
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as a certain notoriety, and an enduring confidence in her power to effect change — she thinks it is positive change — in the lives of those dear to her. Her counterpart, Lila Cerullo, has found obscurity and destitution after a failed marriage, a failed love affair, and an unwanted birth. Yet, as ever, it is Lila and not Elena who seems to be in control of her own destiny. Even Elena’s marriage to a well-connected but dull academic and her new life in Florence cannot free her from the suspicion that far from escaping the mire that is her childhood neighbourhood in Naples, she is ever at risk of sinking back into petty jealousies and crude emotions that suffocated her in her youth.The contrast between Lila and Elena is both sharper in this third novel in the series as it is more subtle. Elena is full of high politics and ideas about the class struggle, while Lila is being abused and maltreated by voracious overlords in a dismal Neapolitan factory. Elena has access to the power of the press and highly placed friends, but Lila knows that real power still lies at the sharp end of a knife. Elena is frustrated by her inability to help Lila in any meaningful way. Lila, on the other hand, desires only that Elena live the life of integrity that would somehow, in its purity, redeem Lila’s sorry and sordid present condition. But for Ferrante, all contrasts are at best momentary and reversal after reversal consistently inverts expectation and interpretation. The effect is bewildering.
At times this third novel can feel cerebral, almost passionless, as Elena self-consciously narrates the raising of her own consciousness. Have we strayed into the politics of the personal? Perhaps. But the real has its own demands and Elena’s suppression of her own passionate nature has repercussions, unlooked for but perhaps not unexpected. By the end of the novel, Elena is literally taking flight for the first time (a journey from Rome to Montpellier, in France) even as, she can’t help noticing, the floor under her feet trembles.
I remain riveted. And somewhat in awe of Ferrante’s skill at juggling huge political themes whilst rooting everything in the clinging mud of that Neapolitan neighbourhood from whence Elena and Lila sprang. Who knows what might yet flower in the remaining books in this series? I, for one, can hardly wait to read on.
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LibraryThing member lit_chick
2015, Blackstone Audiobooks, Read by Hillary Huber
In this third Neapolitan novel, Elena and Lila have become women. Lila, who married at sixteen, has a son. But she has left her abusive marriage and is reduced to working as a common labourer. But, as always with Lila, I predict that her fortunes
For the greater part of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, the friends are apart. And yet when Lila is unwell and calls for Elena, her friend is by her side without hesitation. Still, the relationship is an odd one: the balance of power has never been equal. I am beginning to wonder about Elena’s take on the friendship, which, because she is the novel’s sole narrator, we only ever perceive through her eyes. Anyhow, in spite of how she loves her friend, Lenù says this of her:
“With her, there was no way to feel that things were settled; every fixed point of our relationship sooner or later turned out to be provisional; something shifted in her head that unbalanced her and unbalanced me. I couldn’t understand if those words were in fact intended to apologize to me, or if she was lying, concealing feelings that she had no intention of confiding to me, or if she was aiming at a final farewell. Certainly she was false, and she was ungrateful, and I, in spite of all that had changed for me, continued to feel inferior ... For years after that, we didn’t see each other, we only talked on the phone. We became for each other fragments of a voice, without any visual corroboration. But the wish that she would die remained in a far corner, I tried to get rid of it but it wouldn’t go away.” (Ch 60)
Ferrante continues to do a marvelous job of this series. I’veread listened the novels consecutively and look forward to the final installment. Narrator Hillary Huber is wonderful! One final observation on Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: what on earth do these women see in Nino Sarratore? Brilliant he may be, but I find him small: a user and a manipulator. And, yes, I’m fully aware that it takes great literature to extract such an emotional response!
In this third Neapolitan novel, Elena and Lila have become women. Lila, who married at sixteen, has a son. But she has left her abusive marriage and is reduced to working as a common labourer. But, as always with Lila, I predict that her fortunes
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will change again. Elena has long since left Naples, earned her degree, and published a successful novel, which has opened doors for her to the academic world and richly furnished salons. She marries a professor with whom she will have two little girls. For the greater part of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, the friends are apart. And yet when Lila is unwell and calls for Elena, her friend is by her side without hesitation. Still, the relationship is an odd one: the balance of power has never been equal. I am beginning to wonder about Elena’s take on the friendship, which, because she is the novel’s sole narrator, we only ever perceive through her eyes. Anyhow, in spite of how she loves her friend, Lenù says this of her:
“With her, there was no way to feel that things were settled; every fixed point of our relationship sooner or later turned out to be provisional; something shifted in her head that unbalanced her and unbalanced me. I couldn’t understand if those words were in fact intended to apologize to me, or if she was lying, concealing feelings that she had no intention of confiding to me, or if she was aiming at a final farewell. Certainly she was false, and she was ungrateful, and I, in spite of all that had changed for me, continued to feel inferior ... For years after that, we didn’t see each other, we only talked on the phone. We became for each other fragments of a voice, without any visual corroboration. But the wish that she would die remained in a far corner, I tried to get rid of it but it wouldn’t go away.” (Ch 60)
Ferrante continues to do a marvelous job of this series. I’ve
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LibraryThing member AlisonY
Number 3 in the Neapolitan novels series, and another belter. This one felt different to the first two - perhaps a little less 'good chick lit' and a little more in the direction of literary fiction.
This part of the series is set in the 1960s / 70s, when political tensions in Italy between the
I'm slightly torn on this book versus the first two - on the one hand it has more narrative depth, with the turmoil of the political backdrop and the class tensions that exist. However, in the first half of the book, I found it a little harder to connect with the characters because of this new political diversion, and had I picked it up without firstly falling in love with them in the first two books I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much as I did. There was less active development of the relationship between Elena and Lila due to their geographical and social separation, and I missed that level of interaction between the two characters. Having said that, I think Ferrante depicted very well how friendships change as you hit different life points.
Regarding the political backdrop, I'm conscious that I know little about this era of Italian history, and I'm interested to do some more reading around the subject.
One more book in the series to go - I'm waiting for it to come back into stock at my library. I feel I shall miss the characters once the series is completed.
4 stars - a little duller in parts, but superb writing form.
This part of the series is set in the 1960s / 70s, when political tensions in Italy between the
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Fascists and Communists were running high, and Lena, the narrator, has left the neighbourhood and Naples for a 'much better' lifestyle with her professor husband who comes from a very well connected family. I'm slightly torn on this book versus the first two - on the one hand it has more narrative depth, with the turmoil of the political backdrop and the class tensions that exist. However, in the first half of the book, I found it a little harder to connect with the characters because of this new political diversion, and had I picked it up without firstly falling in love with them in the first two books I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much as I did. There was less active development of the relationship between Elena and Lila due to their geographical and social separation, and I missed that level of interaction between the two characters. Having said that, I think Ferrante depicted very well how friendships change as you hit different life points.
Regarding the political backdrop, I'm conscious that I know little about this era of Italian history, and I'm interested to do some more reading around the subject.
One more book in the series to go - I'm waiting for it to come back into stock at my library. I feel I shall miss the characters once the series is completed.
4 stars - a little duller in parts, but superb writing form.
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LibraryThing member Larou
This is the third of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, and in the course of the friendship between Raffaella / Lila and Elena / Lena which these novels map it marks the point where they are the furthest apart, so much in fact that rather than braided it appears as a case of parallel lives.
The
Both friends are grown women by now, and this volume takes place mostly during the seventies, and even more than even in the second novel events in the wider world play heavily into individual lives here. It is a time where the ideals of late sixties begin to wear thin, where it becomes increasingly clear and finally undeniable that the better world so many had hoped for ist not going to manifest any time soon, which basically leads to two opposing reactions among those who hoped for that better world – either they resign and turn inward, retreat into their private lives, or they turn outward and become even more radical, finally even openly violent towards the existing system. This split runs not only through the friendship between Lila and Lena but through all of their friends, too, and leads to some very painful ruptures and, in some cases, tragedy.
And in a way, the split runs through this latter half of the Neapolitan Novels, too: In Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, the metafictional thread has become so thin as to be almost invisible, while on the other hand it the most openly political of the novels (and things will be the precise reverse in the final novel, The Story of the Lost Child). And if the second volume already dared to be very unfashionable with its unabashed advocacy of feminism, then this third one tops that by speaking very clearly and very loudly in favour of something even more unfashionable and (supposedly) discredited, namely socialism and the labour movement. With both Lena and Lila coming from poor families, and both rising (at least temporarily) into the high and petit bourgeoisie respectively, the Neapolitan Novels always have been very class-conscious; but this reaches its culmination here with Lena’s circle of friends becoming increasingly involved in increasingly radical politics while Lila experiences working life first hand as labourer in a factory.
Ferrante (and I do think it’s her rather than just the narrator) makes her sympathies for the oppressed lower classes very clear in this novel, but she does not flinch away from the more questionable aspects of radical left politics – the fruitless debates, the way the class struggle breeds violence on both sides, and finally, terrorism. As all the hopes and dreams of the late sixties are either smashed or perverted one after the other, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay turns into the by far saddest instalment of the series, becoming at times outright bleak and is kept from being depressive only by the continuing use of the melodrama structure of the narrative – the reader remains aware that, no matter how bad things are, there always is hope in soap opera, as each episodes ends with a “To Be Continued.”
And again, I find myself marvelling how this series of novels could become bestsellers – while part of their success is certainly due to Elena Ferrante’s deft use of melodrama to keep readers turning the pages, her subject matter and her emphatically non-sugarcoating way of treating it make them a rather unlikely candidate. Also, The Neapolitan Novels, while not exactly breaking new literary ground, show an awareness of form and a degree of reflection of themselves as writing that alone would raise them head and shoulders above the usual reading fodder filling the bestseller lists. These novels, while always humane and touching, emphatically are no comfort read, as becomes especially clear in this volume, and while reading it, I needed to pinch myself from time to time to make sure that yes, they really were widely read and even loved.
The
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novel’s title, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, quite clearly marks the reason for this distance: while Lena continues to move away from Naples, both geographically and socially, Lila stays – she briefly moves to another part of the city, but finally returns to their old neighbourhood – even after the parting from er husband. There is barely any contact between the two friends at all during the first half of the novel, and the book’s structure reflects this: It starts out with several chapters dedicated to the developments in Lena’s life, then switching to Lila as Lena (and with her the reader) catch with what has been happening to her in the meantime. But eve as the friends are physically and spiritually apart, they continue to be connected by a bond – each still is the other’s dark guiding star, each is for the other – in increasingly obscure and difficult to understand ways – their ideal existence, having what she secretly desires but cannot have because she took the wrong path at some stage in her life. It probably is this which allows the two to reconnect again after their long parting and initiate a slow process of approaching each other again.Both friends are grown women by now, and this volume takes place mostly during the seventies, and even more than even in the second novel events in the wider world play heavily into individual lives here. It is a time where the ideals of late sixties begin to wear thin, where it becomes increasingly clear and finally undeniable that the better world so many had hoped for ist not going to manifest any time soon, which basically leads to two opposing reactions among those who hoped for that better world – either they resign and turn inward, retreat into their private lives, or they turn outward and become even more radical, finally even openly violent towards the existing system. This split runs not only through the friendship between Lila and Lena but through all of their friends, too, and leads to some very painful ruptures and, in some cases, tragedy.
And in a way, the split runs through this latter half of the Neapolitan Novels, too: In Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, the metafictional thread has become so thin as to be almost invisible, while on the other hand it the most openly political of the novels (and things will be the precise reverse in the final novel, The Story of the Lost Child). And if the second volume already dared to be very unfashionable with its unabashed advocacy of feminism, then this third one tops that by speaking very clearly and very loudly in favour of something even more unfashionable and (supposedly) discredited, namely socialism and the labour movement. With both Lena and Lila coming from poor families, and both rising (at least temporarily) into the high and petit bourgeoisie respectively, the Neapolitan Novels always have been very class-conscious; but this reaches its culmination here with Lena’s circle of friends becoming increasingly involved in increasingly radical politics while Lila experiences working life first hand as labourer in a factory.
Ferrante (and I do think it’s her rather than just the narrator) makes her sympathies for the oppressed lower classes very clear in this novel, but she does not flinch away from the more questionable aspects of radical left politics – the fruitless debates, the way the class struggle breeds violence on both sides, and finally, terrorism. As all the hopes and dreams of the late sixties are either smashed or perverted one after the other, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay turns into the by far saddest instalment of the series, becoming at times outright bleak and is kept from being depressive only by the continuing use of the melodrama structure of the narrative – the reader remains aware that, no matter how bad things are, there always is hope in soap opera, as each episodes ends with a “To Be Continued.”
And again, I find myself marvelling how this series of novels could become bestsellers – while part of their success is certainly due to Elena Ferrante’s deft use of melodrama to keep readers turning the pages, her subject matter and her emphatically non-sugarcoating way of treating it make them a rather unlikely candidate. Also, The Neapolitan Novels, while not exactly breaking new literary ground, show an awareness of form and a degree of reflection of themselves as writing that alone would raise them head and shoulders above the usual reading fodder filling the bestseller lists. These novels, while always humane and touching, emphatically are no comfort read, as becomes especially clear in this volume, and while reading it, I needed to pinch myself from time to time to make sure that yes, they really were widely read and even loved.
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LibraryThing member SamSattler
I recently completed The Story of the Lost Child, the fourth (and final) book in what has become known as the purposely-mysterious Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Series. The books explore the decades long friendship between two Italian women who met as children in one of the poorest neighborhoods in
With the exception of a few brief moments in the books during which Elena, the book’s narrator, addresses the reader about her current feelings regarding her old friend Lila, the books offer a chronologically linear progression of the pair’s more than fifty-year relationship. Seldom has a relationship between literary characters been more deeply explored than this one. Each book in the series comes in at around 400 pages, but the Neapolitan Series is easier to read than one might imagine. My Brilliant Friend, beginning as it does (after a brief word from the sixtyish Elena) when its two chief characters are preschoolers, is both charming and intriguing - and when it ends, some four hundred or so pages later, most readers will want to know more. And Elena Ferrante has a lot more to say about Elena, Lila, their working class families, their friends, their lovers, their children, and the lives the two little girls will live during the next six decades.
Bottom line, this is a fictional study of the kind of longtime friendship that can shape – for good or for bad - a person’s entire life. Even as children, Elena and Lila recognized in each other the best that their neighborhood had to offer. They were among the very brightest in their local school, they were often the most adventurous, and neither was much willing to put up with the foolishness of those around them. They simply could not imagine staying in the neighborhood forever, and they looked forward to the time when they could finally begin living their real lives.
It would not, however, be easy for either of them to make their escape from the neighborhood. Elena and Lila were, as it turns out, as much rivals as they were friends. At times, it can even be said that they were more rival than friend to each other. Their competitiveness drove each of them to achieve more than likely would have been possible if they had never met, but it may have been at too great a cost for them to enjoy what they achieved. Only they can answer that question.
Elena and Lila are two of the most memorable characters I have encountered in a long time, and their often-tragic relationship leaves the reader with a lot to ponder about life, fate, and trying to go home again after living in a bigger world.
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Naples. My Brilliant Friend, first published in 2012, seemed to come from nowhere as it became a 2015 bestseller in, I suppose, anticipation of the publication later in the year of the fourth book in the series, The Story of the Lost Child. Between these two came 2013’s The Story of a New Name and 2014’s Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay.With the exception of a few brief moments in the books during which Elena, the book’s narrator, addresses the reader about her current feelings regarding her old friend Lila, the books offer a chronologically linear progression of the pair’s more than fifty-year relationship. Seldom has a relationship between literary characters been more deeply explored than this one. Each book in the series comes in at around 400 pages, but the Neapolitan Series is easier to read than one might imagine. My Brilliant Friend, beginning as it does (after a brief word from the sixtyish Elena) when its two chief characters are preschoolers, is both charming and intriguing - and when it ends, some four hundred or so pages later, most readers will want to know more. And Elena Ferrante has a lot more to say about Elena, Lila, their working class families, their friends, their lovers, their children, and the lives the two little girls will live during the next six decades.
Bottom line, this is a fictional study of the kind of longtime friendship that can shape – for good or for bad - a person’s entire life. Even as children, Elena and Lila recognized in each other the best that their neighborhood had to offer. They were among the very brightest in their local school, they were often the most adventurous, and neither was much willing to put up with the foolishness of those around them. They simply could not imagine staying in the neighborhood forever, and they looked forward to the time when they could finally begin living their real lives.
It would not, however, be easy for either of them to make their escape from the neighborhood. Elena and Lila were, as it turns out, as much rivals as they were friends. At times, it can even be said that they were more rival than friend to each other. Their competitiveness drove each of them to achieve more than likely would have been possible if they had never met, but it may have been at too great a cost for them to enjoy what they achieved. Only they can answer that question.
Elena and Lila are two of the most memorable characters I have encountered in a long time, and their often-tragic relationship leaves the reader with a lot to ponder about life, fate, and trying to go home again after living in a bigger world.
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LibraryThing member mjlivi
It's increasingly hard to figure out how to rate these books - the series is so engrossing and all encompassing that they all feel essential. In this, the third in the series, Lina and Lenu's friendship continues to fray as the political situation in Italy explodes into violence. These are such
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rich books that it's impossibly to summarise what they're about - class, feminism, friendship, politics, love, creativity and on and on and on. Ferrante is a marvel. Show Less
LibraryThing member Widsith
In this book Lenù grows up, and suddenly Ferrante's meandering internal monologues swing into orbit around the twin poles of SEX and POLITICS. Perhaps this is why I found it more successful than the first two – the experiences of 60s student politics, the fight for workers' rights, Elena's
Her technique depends, I think, on a talent for generating frustration in the reader. When Elena gets involved with the wrong guys, she does not, as in some other writers, describe it by means of a lot of tortured expressions of regret and confusion. There's no justifications like I knew he was a dick, but I just couldn't help myself. Instead she just tells you what she did, and it's left to you as a reader to scream mutely at the page.
Such outbursts tend to revolve around the presence of Nino Sarratore. ‘Oh, this dickhead again,’ you mutter whenever he appears – but Elena, who's now engaged to a nice professor, loses her fucking mind every time he slouches into her life. ‘Even as I was holding [my fiancé's] hand, even as I was affirming that I wanted to marry him, I knew clearly that if he hadn't appeared that night at the restaurant I would have tried to sleep with Nino.’ This despite the fact that he seems to do little but waltz around ‘sowing children’, as she puts it, among her friends and acquaintances.
I realized that precisely because all women wanted him and he took them all, I who had wanted him forever wanted him even more.
This is getting close to a lit-fic treatment of the kind of dynamic that gets posted to erotic fiction websites, tagged alpha-male, harem, cheating, breeding-fetish. At least she is finally getting some decent sex, though, which didn't seem to be much in evidence from past boyfriends, or indeed from her new marriage (an institution which, she says coolly, ‘stripped coitus of all humanity’). She behaves extremely badly, but as a narrator, Elena's willingness to show herself as dislikable, without offering any excuses, charmed me.
It also clashes interestingly with her growing status, in the novel, as a feminist icon. In fact the disparity between her reputation and her behaviour is so glaring that Ferrante is almost playing it for comic effect, no less so because Elena's feelings on the status of women are deeply felt, and grounded in a lived experience that we, as readers, have been following for nearly a thousand pages. Her instinctive sense for injustice runs up against her pragmatic frustration with the earnestness of political activism, in a way that probably feels familiar to many people.
It seemed to me I knew well enough what it meant to be female, I wasn't interested in the work of consciousness-raising.
It's in this new swirl of intellectual stimulation that Lenù re-examines her relationship with Lina, through lenses both political (Lina as working-class revolutionary) and psycho-erotic (‘With difficulty I reached the point of asking myself: had she and I ever touched each other?’). And so all this book's many strange and wonderful tangents only serve, in the end, to add further facets and layers and accretions to that central relationship – which is still, somehow, as mysterious as it's ever been.
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gradual feminist awakening, all embed the neighbourhood of the earlier novels satisfyingly into a larger context, while her tangled relationships seemed more meaningful to me than the stuff she was worrying about as a teenager. Or maybe I am just enjoying Ferrante's style more now.Her technique depends, I think, on a talent for generating frustration in the reader. When Elena gets involved with the wrong guys, she does not, as in some other writers, describe it by means of a lot of tortured expressions of regret and confusion. There's no justifications like I knew he was a dick, but I just couldn't help myself. Instead she just tells you what she did, and it's left to you as a reader to scream mutely at the page.
Such outbursts tend to revolve around the presence of Nino Sarratore. ‘Oh, this dickhead again,’ you mutter whenever he appears – but Elena, who's now engaged to a nice professor, loses her fucking mind every time he slouches into her life. ‘Even as I was holding [my fiancé's] hand, even as I was affirming that I wanted to marry him, I knew clearly that if he hadn't appeared that night at the restaurant I would have tried to sleep with Nino.’ This despite the fact that he seems to do little but waltz around ‘sowing children’, as she puts it, among her friends and acquaintances.
I realized that precisely because all women wanted him and he took them all, I who had wanted him forever wanted him even more.
This is getting close to a lit-fic treatment of the kind of dynamic that gets posted to erotic fiction websites, tagged alpha-male, harem, cheating, breeding-fetish. At least she is finally getting some decent sex, though, which didn't seem to be much in evidence from past boyfriends, or indeed from her new marriage (an institution which, she says coolly, ‘stripped coitus of all humanity’). She behaves extremely badly, but as a narrator, Elena's willingness to show herself as dislikable, without offering any excuses, charmed me.
It also clashes interestingly with her growing status, in the novel, as a feminist icon. In fact the disparity between her reputation and her behaviour is so glaring that Ferrante is almost playing it for comic effect, no less so because Elena's feelings on the status of women are deeply felt, and grounded in a lived experience that we, as readers, have been following for nearly a thousand pages. Her instinctive sense for injustice runs up against her pragmatic frustration with the earnestness of political activism, in a way that probably feels familiar to many people.
It seemed to me I knew well enough what it meant to be female, I wasn't interested in the work of consciousness-raising.
It's in this new swirl of intellectual stimulation that Lenù re-examines her relationship with Lina, through lenses both political (Lina as working-class revolutionary) and psycho-erotic (‘With difficulty I reached the point of asking myself: had she and I ever touched each other?’). And so all this book's many strange and wonderful tangents only serve, in the end, to add further facets and layers and accretions to that central relationship – which is still, somehow, as mysterious as it's ever been.
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LibraryThing member lauralkeet
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay continues the story of the lifelong friendship between Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo. In this third book in the series, the women are in their mid- to late-twenties and their lives have diverged. Lila works in a factory in Naples, and Elena is a published author
During the late 1960s/early 1970s, Italy was rife with political unrest and terrorism. Lila somewhat unwittingly gets caught up in labor issues at the factory, which ultimately lead to violence. The Solara family, who controlled much of Elena and Lila’s old neighborhood during their youth, becomes even more powerful and Elena finds that even though she moved away, she is not completely free from their influence. Elena also struggles against the societal forces that hold women back. Throughout this novel, whenever one character experiences a high point socially, romantically, economically, or intellectually, the other is at a low. Occasionally they support each other but more often than not the situation only serves to highlight their differences.
Eventually, it becomes clear that Elena’s storybook marriage to a promising young academic is just as unsuccessful as Lila’s marriage, much earlier, to a working-class shopkeeper. And just at that point, Nino Sarratore re-enters her life. The book ends on a cliffhanger that lends new meaning to the title. Although I will be sad when this series comes to an end, I can’t wait to read the last book.
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who has married and moved away from her hometown. She visits only occasionally and finds her visits difficult and emotionally draining. During the late 1960s/early 1970s, Italy was rife with political unrest and terrorism. Lila somewhat unwittingly gets caught up in labor issues at the factory, which ultimately lead to violence. The Solara family, who controlled much of Elena and Lila’s old neighborhood during their youth, becomes even more powerful and Elena finds that even though she moved away, she is not completely free from their influence. Elena also struggles against the societal forces that hold women back. Throughout this novel, whenever one character experiences a high point socially, romantically, economically, or intellectually, the other is at a low. Occasionally they support each other but more often than not the situation only serves to highlight their differences.
Eventually, it becomes clear that Elena’s storybook marriage to a promising young academic is just as unsuccessful as Lila’s marriage, much earlier, to a working-class shopkeeper. And just at that point, Nino Sarratore re-enters her life. The book ends on a cliffhanger that lends new meaning to the title. Although I will be sad when this series comes to an end, I can’t wait to read the last book.
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LibraryThing member mbmackay
Still enjoying the series, and still enjoying the characters and the environments (especially the social environment) painted by Ms Ferrante, but starting to wince at some of the plot development.
I find myself knowing, in rough terms, what is about to happen, and where I don't like the anticipated
But, I enjoyed finishing the book and am absolutely signed up for the final volume.
Read Sept 2016.
I find myself knowing, in rough terms, what is about to happen, and where I don't like the anticipated
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content, I find myself putting the book aside for a while - hours, sometimes days.But, I enjoyed finishing the book and am absolutely signed up for the final volume.
Read Sept 2016.
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LibraryThing member starbox
"Lina, when we were children dazzled us both...You ended up attributing to her capacities that are only yours"
By sally tarbox on 16 January 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
You know you're enjoying a read when you get through two volumes, each of 400+ pages, in four days!
This continuation of the story of
These books work because the characters are so believable, their uncertainties, difficult relationships, jealousies make them totally 3 dimensional and real. The friendship between the two women is complex: on the one hand she goes to great effort to help Lila when she falls ill (or is she just glorifying in her new-found wealth and power?); on the other, she withholds things from her, and even wishes her dead.
This volume ends on a cliffhanger...needless to say I've ordered the final volume!
By sally tarbox on 16 January 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
You know you're enjoying a read when you get through two volumes, each of 400+ pages, in four days!
This continuation of the story of
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the two friends, Lila and Elena, takes us through the late 60s and early 70s, against a world of protests and militancy. Having left her husband, Lila now lives - platonically- with old friend Enzo. While she labours in a gruesome salami factory, Enzo also works and studies computers into the night... Elena has enjoyed celebrity with her first book and is engaged to be married....These books work because the characters are so believable, their uncertainties, difficult relationships, jealousies make them totally 3 dimensional and real. The friendship between the two women is complex: on the one hand she goes to great effort to help Lila when she falls ill (or is she just glorifying in her new-found wealth and power?); on the other, she withholds things from her, and even wishes her dead.
This volume ends on a cliffhanger...needless to say I've ordered the final volume!
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LibraryThing member Narshkite
Ferrante continues to dazzle me with her plain-spoken prose and the depth of her understanding of the characters and motivators of such a varied group of people. Perhaps most gripping is the examination of the ways in which societal strictures on women limit not just the accomplishments and choices
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of those women, but of the men around them. I am sunk so deep into these characters that I think my heart will break when I finish the series. Show Less
LibraryThing member gayla.bassham
In the end, I think I liked the idea of this trilogy more than I liked the books themselves.
LibraryThing member snash
Third in series. Engrossing story of the early adulthood of the two friends.
LibraryThing member crazeedi73
This series will get under your skin and stay there. I can't wait to read the 4th book. Highly recommend
LibraryThing member janeajones
I found Ferrante's quartet a sophisticated and psychologically elegant Bildungsroman of two women whose lives are inextricably entwined for over 60 years beginning with their childhood in the 1950s. In an act of love (or, perhaps revenge), Elena Greco sits down to write the life story of Lila
Lila is overdoing it as usual, I thought.
She was expanding the concept of trace out of all proportion. She wanted not only to disappear herself, now, at the age of sixty-six, but also to eliminate the entire life that she had left behind.
I was really angry.
We'll see who wins this time, I said to myself. I turned on the computer and began to write -- all the details of our story, everything that still remained in my memory.
The poor, working-class neighborhood in Naples in which the girls grew up, one rife with corruption and nearly incestuous family ties, is a kind of collective antagonist to Lila and Elena's struggle to survive and succeed in the tumultuous last half of the 20th century.
Ferrante plays with warring philosophies and ideologies, class conflict, Italian politics, the student and worker protests of the the 1960s and 70s, the sexual revolution, the rise of feminism, the sea-change in economy and work brought about by the introduction of computers as integral aspects of the friendship and competition between Lila and Elena. The reader sympathizes first with one, and then the other, but rarely both at the same time, as their lives follow very different paths, yet remain tangled together.
Ferrante's Neapolitan series is a great read, and I expect the ideas and memories generated will remain with me for a long time.
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Cerullo, who has disappeared.Lila is overdoing it as usual, I thought.
She was expanding the concept of trace out of all proportion. She wanted not only to disappear herself, now, at the age of sixty-six, but also to eliminate the entire life that she had left behind.
I was really angry.
We'll see who wins this time, I said to myself. I turned on the computer and began to write -- all the details of our story, everything that still remained in my memory.
The poor, working-class neighborhood in Naples in which the girls grew up, one rife with corruption and nearly incestuous family ties, is a kind of collective antagonist to Lila and Elena's struggle to survive and succeed in the tumultuous last half of the 20th century.
Ferrante plays with warring philosophies and ideologies, class conflict, Italian politics, the student and worker protests of the the 1960s and 70s, the sexual revolution, the rise of feminism, the sea-change in economy and work brought about by the introduction of computers as integral aspects of the friendship and competition between Lila and Elena. The reader sympathizes first with one, and then the other, but rarely both at the same time, as their lives follow very different paths, yet remain tangled together.
Ferrante's Neapolitan series is a great read, and I expect the ideas and memories generated will remain with me for a long time.
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LibraryThing member PatsyMurray
This is a well-crafted novel whose attraction lies in the deft characterization of the two women at its center: Lila and Elena. Through Elena's narration, the reader can feel the forces at work in their lives. Family, friends, feminism and politics press in on them, insisting that they take up a
A word about the series: I read this, the third book, first. Once you get grounded in the names (and there's a glossary to help), you don't need to have read the first two books to follow the story. Now, though, I am going to read the first book, despite wanting terribly to read the fourth to find out what happened!
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position, hold an opinion, do something when what Lila and Elena are truly seeking is simply a way through life that will allow them to be safe, productive and happy. In their effort to find their path, they fight, make mistakes, and mistrust one another and those around them. This, to me, was the most intriguing question asked in the book: how do you know if what you feel, what you think is the right thing to feel and think? The book ends with Elena taking a decisive step that will redefine her life, but is it the right step?A word about the series: I read this, the third book, first. Once you get grounded in the names (and there's a glossary to help), you don't need to have read the first two books to follow the story. Now, though, I am going to read the first book, despite wanting terribly to read the fourth to find out what happened!
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LibraryThing member Markus.bauer
Italienische Soap, wie italienisches TV, schrill, kitschig, viel Drama und Spektakel, lest Elsa Morante!
LibraryThing member bobbieharv
Enjoyed this just slightly less than the first two because of the politics of the sausage factory. But the ending ...
Can't wait to read the last one.
Can't wait to read the last one.
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
This is a difficult book to review, both because it is the third of a four book series, and because I sped through it, not so much that I needed to find out what happened next, but because I was enjoying it too much to stop reading. And, having inhaled Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, I now feel
[Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay] continues the story of Lila and Lena, although their life circumstances and the nature of their relationship has kept them largely apart. While Lena continues on as a university graduate and author, Lila can’t continue in her role as the wife of a man she hates. Both come face to face with the changes beginning to sweep Italy, Lena through contact with student activism and Lila seeing the need for workers to unionize and in the clashes between communists and fascists.
I don’t know how successful this book would be without the two that came before, but each segment of the larger story is more compelling than the last. I’m planning on reading the final book, [The Story of the Lost Child], as soon as it's released in English in September.
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that I consumed it too quickly to have given it the attention that [[Elena Ferrante]]’s novel deserved. [Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay] continues the story of Lila and Lena, although their life circumstances and the nature of their relationship has kept them largely apart. While Lena continues on as a university graduate and author, Lila can’t continue in her role as the wife of a man she hates. Both come face to face with the changes beginning to sweep Italy, Lena through contact with student activism and Lila seeing the need for workers to unionize and in the clashes between communists and fascists.
I don’t know how successful this book would be without the two that came before, but each segment of the larger story is more compelling than the last. I’m planning on reading the final book, [The Story of the Lost Child], as soon as it's released in English in September.
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LibraryThing member Laura400
Every bit as good as My Brilliant Friend, this third installment of the story recaptures the first installment's propulsive pace while chiseling further to bring out the themes and preoccupations of the work as a whole.
It's really an extraordinary achievement, illuminating, excoriating and brutally
I haven't yet read My Struggle, but I feel that this must be the counterpart to that.
It's really an extraordinary achievement, illuminating, excoriating and brutally
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honest. It's historical, and political and feminist. It's bracing. It's revelatory. It's as detailed and specific about its world as it is universal.I haven't yet read My Struggle, but I feel that this must be the counterpart to that.
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LibraryThing member Castlelass
In the third book of the Neapolitan quartet, we follow main characters Elena and Lila into their thirties, as they develop livelihoods and rear children. Set in the 1960s-1970s Italy, this book contains more about the political climate of the era, including violent clashes between the communists
It is a family saga filled with unpleasant people, dysfunctional relationships, and questionable decisions that complicate their lives. There are many scenes from daily life – conversations around the dinner table, phone conversations, and lots of chit-chat. Many say this is a story of female friendship, but it is not affectionate or supportive, and, in fact, seems pretty toxic. The romantic relationships are almost all toxic as well. I came away with a lukewarm feeling, but I am out of step with the numerous readers who love this series. I liked it enough to read the final installment.
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and fascists. Elena and her relationships are the primary focus of this storyline with intermittent appearances by Lila.It is a family saga filled with unpleasant people, dysfunctional relationships, and questionable decisions that complicate their lives. There are many scenes from daily life – conversations around the dinner table, phone conversations, and lots of chit-chat. Many say this is a story of female friendship, but it is not affectionate or supportive, and, in fact, seems pretty toxic. The romantic relationships are almost all toxic as well. I came away with a lukewarm feeling, but I am out of step with the numerous readers who love this series. I liked it enough to read the final installment.
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LibraryThing member annbury
(Jim) A pretty good read. Elena, the writer succeeds and marries Pietro, a nice young professor. She has two daughters,Dede and Elsa. Ultimately she grows bored with Pietro and goes on to live with Nino, a bright young man who is the son of her original seducer. Nino is a jerk and a liar and
(Anne) This third volume of the Neapolitan novels is more about Elena, the narrator, than about her friend Lina, and takes a definite turn to the dark side. Elena's marriage is fraught, and her literary career is on hold. Lina, meanwhile, finds herself in a horrible working situation. On the broader scene, Italy is descending into left-right chaos. The book is interesting -- compulsively readable, more accurately -- but the characters are harder to like, and thus to care about. But I will definitely read the fourth volume.
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despite having a daughter with him throws him out after she catches him having sex with a maid. Well written and a great story, but not as compelling as 1 and 2.(Anne) This third volume of the Neapolitan novels is more about Elena, the narrator, than about her friend Lina, and takes a definite turn to the dark side. Elena's marriage is fraught, and her literary career is on hold. Lina, meanwhile, finds herself in a horrible working situation. On the broader scene, Italy is descending into left-right chaos. The book is interesting -- compulsively readable, more accurately -- but the characters are harder to like, and thus to care about. But I will definitely read the fourth volume.
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LibraryThing member lkernagh
Turbulent – and sporadic – are good terms to describe the ongoing friendship between Elena and Lila, and the overall impressions of this installment. The story follows their very separate lives during the upheaval, both social and political, of 1960s / 1970s Italy, fueled by struggles between
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Fascist and Communist factions, along with other societal changes. Against this backdrop the story is really a whole lot of minutiae I wasn’t particularly interested in and I found myself feeling let down with the story. An overall feeling of melancholy continues to permeate the series, due, I believe in a large part to the excessive amount of navel-gazing on the part of Elena. I find it disturbing that while Lila and Elena are now adults - with adult responsibilities - they both seem to have tendencies to revert to the (petulant for Elana and antagonistic for Lila) self-absorption of their adolescence. Yes, Elena does discover feminism and Lila become a what some might classify as a working-class hero by exposing the deplorable work conditions of a sausage factory, but I am actually growing weary of both characters. Neither one appeals to me. So, why do I keep reading? In part, because I like the frank honesty with which Ferrante writes. She tells the story without having to delve into melodrama. Lila and Elena’s friendship is not rock solid, but there is something elusive that keep them connected. It is not the BFF one encounters in other books. If anything, the friendship is tenuous at best, waxing and waning between tensions of hostility and tenderness. It is the examination of this friendship as the two travel through life that continues to hold my interest. Maybe it is the familiarity I have developed for the characters... kind of like the neighbours that you really don't want to associate with but still cannot help observe their comings and goings. Show Less
LibraryThing member steve02476
Listened to the first half, read the second half - much faster. Boy, this series is just unstoppable. I’m totally gripped, and will start reading #4 tomorrow!
LibraryThing member SarahEBear
The third book in the Neapolitan quartet continues on where the story left off. The woman are now in their early twenties and are dealing with marital issues, child rearing, career development and most importantly trying to find their place in the world. Our protagonist has left Naples for greener
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pastures, but is constantly drawn back into her past. This is a wonderful examination of the socio-economic issues during the later 50s and 60s in post-war Italy as well as a gripping tale of friendship, love and loss. Show Less
Awards
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Quarterfinalist — 2015)
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Longlist — Fiction — 2015)
Best Translated Book Award (Shortlist — 2015)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2014)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Fiction — 2014)
NPR: Books We Love (2014)
Boston Globe Best Book (Fiction — 2014)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Fiction — 2014)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Fiction — 2014)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — Fiction — 2014)
Language
Original publication date
2014
Physical description
400 p.; 5.31 inches
ISBN
160945233X / 9781609452339
Local notes
Fiction
Other editions
Those who leave and those who stay by Elena Ferrante (Paper Book)