Insomnia: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Review)
Little snippet of culture to stay awake in the best shape
Nice to see you again! I see you’re one of those that stay, and not like those that leave.
Is this introduction too obvious for the article? Well, first of all, thanks for coming back. Or for joining this article library for the first time. It’s a bit strange considering this is the article I’m writing about the third book, but it might be the only one that interests you.
I won’t recap what happened in the first two books as I’ve already written two articles about them: Insomnia: My Brilliant Friend, and Insomnia: The Story of a New Name. However, I can give you two quick summaries, one for each book: Lila gets married and her marriage falls apart. This summary is rather condensed, but in the articles I delve deeper into these stories. If you’re still curious, check them out. Otherwise, get yourself a coffee, water or glass of wine (since this is Italy, after all) and I’ll start by explaining the story of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, before presenting my analysis of it. Of course, if you want to read it afterwards, beware of spoilers!
This book starts with the same technique that Ferrante had already used at the beginning of My Brilliant Friend: rather than continuing the story immediately, we travel back to the moment when Elena and Lila, in their 60s, witness an obese woman collapse and die in the street. They recognise this person as their childhood friend Gigliola, now ruined, which leaves a strong impression on them both as a sign of how time has passed.
We can then go back to the timeline around the presentation of Elena’s book, which is one of the most vivid examples of Lenù’s impostor syndrome. While being criticised by the professor for her sensationalism and lack of style, she feels mortified. It is at this moment that Nino argues that the book tells a fresh and honest story, which gives Elena the strength to stand up for herself. After all this, Adele Airota invites them all to dinner, including Nino. Lenù’s feelings towards the one who left her best friend with a baby are just as strong as they were when she was younger. She is honest about the fact that she is considering sleeping with this particular Sarratore.
While these thoughts are going through her mind, Elena is surprised by the arrival of her fiancé, Pietro. The night goes on as usual, with Nino chatting to everyone else while Lenù feels dejected at the thought of walking home to the hotel with her fiancé and not Nino, the man she desires.
With everything going on, Elena can only wish to go back to Naples and her childhood home. Unfortunately, she has no contact with Lila and has to tell her mother that Pietro doesn’t want a church wedding, which enrages the old Greco and leads to threats of violence. As if Lenù still has space in her plate, the review by the disagreeing professor is published. In it, he complains that this new group of half-educated writers has no sense of literature’s broader aspects. Elena doesn’t come from a high-status family, and this digs even deeper into her sense of class warfare.
When Elena discusses her book in general terms with people, she realises that it is the smut that is selling it. While this is good for her sales, everything she originally intended and planned is lost in this scenario. The main theme of the message that Lenù wishes to convey crosses every action she has taken and will take. She is torn between doing what she feels is right and doing what she feels she needs to do. It is interesting to witness this internal conflict, like a car swerving along the road, leaving us to question whether the drift was intentional.
Now let’s drive to Milan, where Elena is waiting in a room to give talks to female students. The 1968 Sorbonne revolution has had a significant impact on these students, prompting them to consider how they can achieve similar revolutionary results as a movement. The interplay between politics and sex is very evident here, with the room filled with men as well as a variety of women. Some are under the protection of men, but there are also independent individuals, such as Mariarosa, Pietro’s sister. In the midst of the room is an attractive young woman with a baby. This startles Elena as it represents both full-fledged motherhood and female independence.
Contrary to Elena’s expectations, Mariarosa recognises her and invites her, the young mother, and the man that was protecting the aforementioned attractive young woman home. Franco Mari (Lenù’s former boyfriend) is also invited and ends up sleeping with Mariarosa. At one point, Juan — the man who was protecting the young woman — tries to have sex with Elena, but she refuses. Because of this, she goes to help Silvia calm her baby down. Unfortunately, if Elena wanted to feel close to Nino, this is the craziest way she could do that right now, as Sarratore has done the same thing to Silvia as he did to Lila. Yes. This is his child.
Elena actually reaches the right conclusion, and she understands that Nino doesn’t despise his father for being his father, but for the unfortunate reality he might be like him. Let’s hold this happy realization for some time. It’ll be needed. This realization will sting.
Yet I couldn’t hate him. In the burning-hot train I not only reflected on the time I had seen him in the bookstore but inserted him into events, words, remarks of those days. Sex had pursued me, clawed me, foul and attractive, obsessively present in gestures, in conversations, in books. The dividing walls were crumbling, the shackles of good manners were breaking. And Nino was living that period intensely. He was part of the rowdy gathering at the university, with its intense odor, he was fit for the disorder of Mariarosa’s house, surely he had been her lover. With his intelligence, with his desires, with his capacity for seduction, he moved confident, curious within those times. Maybe I was wrong to connect him to the obscene desires of his father; his behavior belonged to another culture, as Silvia and Mariarosa had pointed out; girls wanted him, he took them, there was no abuse of power, there was no guilt, only the rights of desire. Who knows, maybe Nino in telling me that Lila was made badly even when it comes to sex, wished to convey that the time for pretenses was over, that to load pleasure with responsibility was an error. Even if he had his father’s nature, surely his passion for women told a different story.
Yes. Yes. Yes… I know. Unfortunately, this hug was the kind you give someone before they get on a train and leave. But I’m telling you now, this is Ferrante getting us ready. After this, we see the full story of Pietro trying to convince Elena’s family that he loves her and trying to be accepted — something he is successful in doing. Even Lenù’s mum thinks he might be too good for her. There’s a vibe that Pietro is the ideal man, considering the macho times of the 1960s — or today, if we’re being honest — but we’ll start to see where Pietro’s flaws lie. He’s not actually dedicated to Elena, and he lets his mother influence his life too much. Yet he’s one of the best examples of a man in this society.
There we go again with our amica geniale
At this point, we see a close-up of Lila’s (Raffaella Cerullo) life. While it may seem like a coincidence that we go back to Lila after we learn that her and Silvia share the same father for their sons, it actually occurs in the segment where Lila calls for Elena to be present. Lila explains how chaotic her life has been, with her work at the sausage factory and her involvement with the communists in the workers’ struggle. She also talks about how she feels she has to leave her job after the storm that took over her life. To this, we can add her struggle to provide the best possible education for her son, Gennaro, while not spending as much time with him as she would like, as well as her efforts to help Enzo with his IT diploma studies
Everything comes to a head when Lila goes to a meeting at Professoressa Galliani’s house. Why is this place relevant? It belonged to Nadia, Nino’s old girlfriend. The arrival of Professoressa Galliani’s grandson (from her son, Armando Galiani, and his wife, Isabella) hammers home to Lila the importance of a good background when the three-year-old completely outshines her own son in terms of reading and manners. This full situation just sets the fire ablaze to Lila’s speech about the workers’ condition, the grind of it all, the troubles with Bruno Soccavo, and everything that she despises and blames in her life.
Yet, it doesn’t mean that she approves the next step, as it concerns the distribution of leaflets from students about the workers’ fight and her own speech. Fights start between the fascists and the communists. And now we are at a point when Lila joins the fight. Yey!
Oh no. Michele Solara is here. Not yey. Lila is called over for a meeting with Bruno Soccavo and she realizes that Solara is using his power and influence over her brother, Rino, to try and get her on his side. This is the moment, after she spits on Michele’s face, that all of her energy dissipates. Lila quits and stumbles around, unsure of what she’s going to do next. The craziest bit of Ferrante’s explanation with this full story is the amount of details she sprinkles in the middle of the Cerullo’s narration. Even the detail about what is one of the interruptions that Elena does is curious — she ends up wondering about the connection that Lila has with sex.
For Lila, there was never an approach to pleasure; sex was only a means to one end, be it procreation, or the pleasure of the man. For Lenù, there is the possibility of demand, the capacity for change. With this, Ferrante sets quite discreetly the topic of the gender exploration in Italy as a discussion theme.
After this, Elena and Raffaella visit a doctor. There, Lila is told that she is not showing any signs of health complications, but that she is overworked and undernourished. The article that Elena wrote in support of Lila’s workers’ movement becomes very successful, and Elena feels proud of her own work. Armed with this confidence, she contacts Bruno to fix Lila’s problems, and also tries to find work in the computer industry for Enzo.
Every high has its low, and it is at this point that Elena goes to Michele Solara’s house to confront the reality of Lila’s influence. While Gigliola initially seems confident about her wedding to Michele, she later reveals the significant influence Lila still has over him — the one love he has always kept, even after claiming to have slept with over 100 women while with Gigliola.
As if this revelation didn’t already have enough twists and turns, we move to the high-luxury market, where another of Lenù and Lila’s friends, Alfonso, works. We see not only that he’s doing a job that doesn’t seem to fit his high expectations, but also that he’s married to Marisa, Nino’s sister. He confesses to Elena that he’s a ricchione, a term that is even more insulting than ‘queer’, and reveals that he only ended up getting married after pressure from Michele. But what about Marisa’s pregnancy? Alfonso is sure it’s not his child.
Now that we’re talking about kids, do you remember that whole thing about Lila’s son being fathered by Nino and not Stefano? All it takes is for Stefano’s mother to say that Gennaro looks just like his dad for Lila to change her mind and assume that Stefano is actually the father. Is this a backtrack of a backtrack? Maybe. Perhaps Lila just wanted to believe that Gennaro wasn’t the son of a wrong love.
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We witness Lila and Lenù’s separation, and Elena’s growing distance from the neighbourhood and from the expectations and beliefs surrounding her.
Next is Elena and Pietro’s unhappy marriage. Pietro isn’t a dedicated lover, and Lenù becomes increasingly insecure and depressed. The fact that she became pregnant quickly doesn’t help with the lack of sexual pleasure she already felt with Pietro. Remarkably, Ferrante portrays Elena as an even duller character (especially given that she has always been compared to the great Raffaella) by depicting her postpartum depression naturally: writing no longer captivates Lenù, especially after writing a seemingly uninteresting book.
The environment Elena finds herself in only exacerbates her sense of impostor syndrome. She can connect with the professors and journalists brought into her life, but none of them stay around. Pietro himself cannot keep them around as they have no interest in maintaining close ties with him outside of those with his parents.
While Elena’s pregnancy seems to be going well, especially given that she is able to attend political demonstrations, it is after the birth of Adele Junior (or Dede, as she will be known) that life shows its dark side to Lenù. Dede refuses to breastfeed, Pietro doesn’t help around the house and Adele Senior moves in to help, eventually leading to the hiring of a nanny.
Seeking pleasure outside of marriage
Lenù suggests that Pietro invite his colleagues for dinner to make more connections in society. Yet this marriage only encourages Elena to flirt with the guests, almost to the point of sleeping with them. It’s like believing that just because you didn’t get your hair wet when you went into the ocean, you can count it as being dry. Once, she almost fully commits to one of the guests, but pulls back at the last moment. She and Pietro decide to spend a full night of intense love (although the result is a second daughter, so we might not even call it love making), and this stings Elena, someone who is connected to the pleasures of sex, again.
When Elena’s mother comes to help around the house, Lenù feels free to write a book. She finishes it before giving birth to her and Pietro’s second daughter, but the only review she receives says that the book is unpublishable. Yes. That dark feeling comes back swinging again.
OK, I can understand this is taking quite a bit, but I’m going to fast-forward because I haven’t even got to the craziest part of this book yet. Ready?
During an argument, Pietro slaps Lenù and accuses her of never loving him. Elena’s first boyfriend, Gino, is murdered. Bruno Soccavo is murdered too. While helping Enzo with his computer background, Lila learns a lot herself and ends up being offered an apparently irrefusable job by Michele Solara at an information-processing centre. Lila tells Elena that her younger sister, Elisa, is now seeing Marcello Solara and is likely to marry him — something Elena had no idea about. Her mother tells her that her own brothers are working for the Solaras and earning more money than ever before.
Even worse, Elena is now stuck at a party at Elisa and Marcello’s house. Not only is this the celebration of the birthday of Manuela Solara, the materfamilias, but Michele Solara, Gigliola and Lila have also been invited. It seems that the whole event is intended to humiliate Elena and remind her that even if she left the neighbourhood, she could never escape it. The only thing that brings her some comfort is a package from her ex-boyfriend Antonio containing a German translation of her novel.
Dear reader, we now come to those who stay but who will inevitably leave us at some point. While writing this article, there is one that has been an incredible guide through this, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay — Elena Ferrante by We Can Read It For You Wholesale, and it describes perfectly what happens next as a slow-motion detonation. One day, Nino comes to have lunch with Elena and Pietro, and it is during this visit that he praises Lenù, telling Pietro that he is the lucky one to have her in his life. You can probably guess where this is going.
Nino uses all of his charm to charm Pietro into a sense of security, while Elena charms Nino’s wife into a sense of safety. After this, they have sex multiple times, and it’s as if we’re watching a car crash in slow motion. Inevitably, the subject of leaving their respective spouses comes up, but Nino never seems fully on board with this (who would have guessed?).
The confrontation between Elena and Pietro reaches the point where he wants her to tell their daughters that she doesn’t love their daughters, but she could never do that. Lenù feels the need to follow her long-lost love and recover the life she believes she has left behind; that’s why she still attends a five-day conference with Nino. Meanwhile, we receive a call from Lila informing us of Manuela Solara’s murder and the chaos in her life following the suspension of Michele’s businesses. Raffaella’s analysis of the situation is a cutting one after Lenù’s revelation: Nino? You’re ruining your family for him? You know what will happen to you? He’ll use you, he’ll suck your blood, he’ll take away your will to live and abandon you.
I recognise that this explanation was very long, yet I feel that, as these characters and their universe evolve with each book, many of the seemingly ordinary stories end up becoming inextricably linked. As I explained in the first article, all the characters in Ferrante’s universe are fiery, full of personality and distinct individuals. This is evident in a character like Lila, but Enzo is also an important part of the narrative, even if he is not as explosive as the Solaras or Lenù’s mother.
Politics and identity are key themes in this universe, and in the article Those who leave and those who stay — Elena Ferrante by Keeping Up With The Penguins you can find that explained wonderfully, as it identifies how Lila and Lenù fight for independence and release from patriarchy: the former through empowerment and employment, and the latter by following her one true love, even if it means leaving her marriage. And with Nino. That is a significant detail that cannot be overlooked.
As it’s pointed out in the article Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay by Victoria Zhuang, in this book, Elena Greco does not come across as someone who is constantly chasing after Raffaella Cerullo as she usually does. This may be one of the reasons why the two characters seem to be permanently in a tense, codependent relationship, with Lila expressing her feelings for Lenù freely and directly. There are vivid examples of Lila’s attacks, one of them happening at the birthday party for the materfamilias, Manuela Solara, at the home that Elisa shares with the despicable Marcello Solara.
However, it is when Lenù reveals to Lila that she is having a romantic affair with Nino that her brilliant friend reveals her expectations and disappointment. Why did you study so much? What fucking use has it been for me to imagine that you would enjoy a wonderful life for me, too? I was wrong, you’re a fool.
Following those who follow us
Now I can be completely honest. It’s astonishingly beautiful and simple the way Elena Ferrante sets this train up to crash. Lenù is a complex character who is also absurdly simple. Her love for Nino overshadows any moral judgement she should make for her own safety or for acknowledging the pain he caused her best friend.
One passage strikes me as even more impressive in this regard:
I opened the door with Dede hanging on my dress, and a single glance at Gennaro was enough to know that Melina, five years earlier, had seen correctly: the child, now that he was ten, showed plainly that he had in him not only nothing of Nino but nothing of Lila; he was, rather, a perfect replica of Stefano.
The observation provoked an ambiguous sentiment, a mixture of disappointment and satisfaction. I had thought that, since the boy would be with me for so long, it would be nice to have in the house, along with my daughters, a child of Nino; and yet I noted with pleasure that Nino had left Lila nothing.
Lenù’s disappointment comes from not having a part of Nino in her life, and yet, she’s satisfied that, actually, that just means that Lila won’t have this one bit over her. This is an incredibly vulnerable confession, but it’s another clue that Ferrante has given us to show that nothing Nino will ever do will make Lenù realise the most probable outcome of their relationship. Is this where it will end? I can’t tell you, but I think you can read between the lines.
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay is a phenomenal book that presents many stories, not just to fill a universe, but to connect the dots that fill the night sky of this story. The decisions these characters make also feel more consequential because they are grown up. It’s not just a matter of following your one true love, especially if you consider a family life has already been built. Quitting your old luxurious life to start working in a factory and expecting your lifestyle and what you can give your son to remain the same is never going to be as simple as it seems. Sometimes, context dictates the decisions we make, and at other times, our decisions only exist within that context.
Ferrante skilfully presents two characters who should be loved, yet we can never decide whether to love or despise them. After all, sometimes that’s just what being human is.
See you in The Story of the Lost Child. Thanks for staying.
See you in the next Insomnia,
Pedro Barreiro
