Elena Ferrante, “L’amica geniale”

I usually review books at the request of authors or publishing houses and I leave my personal readings in silence. However, there are texts, the so-called “editorial cases”, which everyone holds in their hands on the train or under an umbrella at the beach, and then you have to say at least two words about them. So finally I too read “The brilliant friend”, by the elusive Elena Ferrante. I don’t know if I will buy the other volumes of the saga and, if I do, it will be just out of curiosity to see what happens, how the plot proceeds. Mind you, the book is not flawed in terms of writing. It is certainly an excellent style, that of Ferrante, raw and modern, but an overbearing effect of estrangement prevents any empathy with the characters.

The doubt arose to me that, rather than telling the story of Lenù and Lila, Neapolitan friends, both good and bad, it is a metanarrative. Lenù, Elena, who, coincidentally, is called after the author (or as the pseudonym with which the author is signed) is, in my opinion, the writer in love with her character, that is Lila, whose feelings she vivisects. She does it with a morbid manner, while we, indifferent and only slightly intrigued, stand by and watch.

This happens especially in the first half of the first book — the only one I have dealt with for now — and the mechanism cracks a little only in the end, with a minimum of…