pickThere's a read along of this happening on Substack, for women in translation month, so decided to give it another shot. The first time I tried it, I only got a few pages in and have been a little dismissive of "Ferrante Fever" ever since. But, timing is everything, and this go-around I devoured and loved it. Really looking forward to the rest of the quartet.
This is the third book in a four-part series so I have to finish to learn what happens but I am getting so bored with Lila, one of the friends in this complicated relationship. There is page after page about her. If it was not a series, I would not finish this particular book. Just saying.
Every intense relationship between human beings is full of traps, and if you want it to endure you have to learn to avoid them. I did so then, and finally it seemed that I had only come up against yet another proof of how splendid and shadowy our friendship was, how long and complicated Lila‘s suffering had been, how it still endured and would endure forever.
We would have written together, we would have been authors together, we would have dravn power from each other, we would have fought shoulder to shoulder because what was ours was inimitably ours. The solitude of women's minds is regrettable, I said to myself, it's a waste to be separated from each other, without procedures, without tradition.
My Current Read fits with the prompt! Yay! #CharacterCharm #Mother&child
This is the third in the four part series. It is the best one yet, to me, so far in the first few pages. It‘s interesting though that its start is entitled “The Middle Part” but the narrator is now in her sixties. I am curious now about the last novel. I highly recommend these books.
Inside was the struggle to leave her, the old conviction that without her nothing truly important would ever happen to me, and yet I felt the need to get away . . . Her life had overwhelmed me and it took days for me to restore clear outlines and depth to mine.
pickThis is the story of the early adult years of this friendship, the epitome of a love-hate relationship. The nature of the relationship vacillates from one extreme to another. The proclaimed writer of the story, so far, one of the two friends, is named Elena. I can‘t help but believe that this is her true story of a life with Lia. The emotional intensity and astute observations regarding human nature in these novels are amazing & unforgettable. 4/5
Sent husband to store for bread with dinner, he comes back with maple donuts too. Not mad about it. 🤤
so-soLenu strives and studies, fed by a hunger to be perceive well. Lina, in contrast, hurls herself to get what she wants with a “I will burn it all to the ground if I need to” air but without the “you just watch” footnote. She abandons all care for what others think. She garners respect, even if you can‘t like her. While you know you should be cheering Lenu‘s carefully crafted accomplishments, instead you are watching for what Lila will do next.
pick“She took the facts and in a natural way charged them with tension; she intensified reality as she reduced it to words, she injected it with energy”
