Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Wednesday 18 March 2020

"La vita bugiarda degli adulti" by Elena Ferrante (Edizioni e/o, 2019)

In the first sentence we're told that 2 years before he left home, the narrator's father said to her mother that the narrator's ugly. The first-person narrator, Giovanna, is nearly 13. Puberty isn't easy. Her parents (André and Nella) had her late. She's worried that she disrupted their lives - they seem sadder than other parents. Her father's sister Vittoria has a bad reputation in the house. He claims that he saved her from a relationship with Enzo, a married delinquent with 3 kids. She's been blacked out of photos.

They live in Naples, which feels like many cities rather than one. She doesn't like speaking Napolitano - her parents don't. She reads a lot. So does Angela, her friend. Angela has a younger sister Ida, who reads even more. She asks her friend if she's ugly, if puberty has made her more ugly. Angela's parents, Mariano and Costanza, are the best friends of Giovanna's parents.

Giovanna wants to visit her aunt because Giovanna thinks she's becoming like Vittoria. But when a meeting's arranged, Giovanna thinks Vittoria's beautiful despite her nasty personality. Vittoria still hasn't got over Enzo even after 16 years. She claims that Enzo's death was because André told Enzo's wife about the affair. And he wasn't a delinquent, he was a policeman, though he threatened André with a gun. Vittoria encourages Giovanna not to think of herself as the daughter of a narrow-minded intellectual, but as belonging to a wider family of non-intellectuals.

Who is Giovanna to believe? She's attracted by the strength of Vittoria's passions - at home she has to hide emotions. She starts lying to her parents, and lying to friends. She bunks off school for her second meeting with Vittoria, to visit Enzo's grave. Giovanna's never been to a cemetery before. At the grave-side Vittoria talks to Enzo, then is anatomically explicit about her relationship with Enzo.

Vittoria's very friendly with Enzo's widow Margherita and her 3 children - Tonino, Corrado and Giuliana. She takes Giovanna (Giannina) to visit them. Giovanna's friends are fascinated by her newly discovered relatives and want to meet them.

Giovanna thinks Mariano and her mother are having an affair. Before long her parents divorce. Apparently André and Costanza had been lovers since before Giovanna's birth. She has to re-take a year at school, but isn't supposed to tell anyone about it. Angela and Tonino get engaged. Giovanna and Corrado get friendly.

A bracelet that André's mother owned gains significance. Was it a gift from Vittorio to Giovanna? How did it get into Costanza's hands?

Giovanna, nearly 15, gets dressed to lose her virginity to Corrado, but she finds herself in church and falls in love at (nearly) first sight with the priest, Roberto, who's the fiancé of Giuliana. He was born in the area, trained in Milan, son of a well-known lawyer. He plans to return to Naples to repay some kind of moral debt, and marrying Giuliana is part of that repayment. But he doesn't send her the articles and papers he's had published

Vittoria is Giovanna's point of contact with Roberto, so she make friends with her again, and studies the bible. This commences the least believable phase of the book. She wants to be friends with Roberto, a high-flying (albeit unpretentious) intellectual 10 years her senior. She had been envious of Vittoria's everlasting love for Enzo, then was introduced to sex (she's growing fast), then she learned the power and politics of attraction. Having looked down on her father's intellectualism she now uses him to prepare for discussions with Roberto.

Tonino and Angela break up. Tonino leaves in a hurry, to Venice. Tonino was the chaperon for Roberto and Giuliana when Giuliana went to Milan. Giuliana's having doubts about Roberto. Giovanna offers to phone him, and later agrees to act as chaperon. She and Giuliana take the train. They're invited to a gathering with Roberto's colleagues. Giovanna notices how hard Giuliana tries to show Roberto that they're made for each other. She notices how his presence at the gathering is what holds the group together. That night (Giovanna's 16th birthday) Roberto and Giuliana sleep together - not for the first time. On their return journey they discover they've left the bracelet behind. Giovanna goes beck to collect it, hoping to sleep with Roberto - the ideal being to lose her virginity to. Yet when he invites her to his bed, she refuses.

Back in Naples she discovers that Ida has a failed her exams but doesn't care because she wants to spend all her time writing. Giovanna has a chance to compare herself again with Vittoria - her body and future - and is keen to lose her virginity to someone or other. At the end, as an educational exercise and on her terms, she choose Rosario.

A primary theme's Nature vs Nurture - how much upbringing and education affect outcomes. Loyalty to self needs to be balanced against loyalty to family and clan. Idealised Love loses out to pragmatic considerations. In the end, Giovanna turns out ok.

There were hints that the men who treat girls with dignity are gay. I expected more to come of it.

Why do the teenagers let Vittoria have so much control over their relationships?

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