The Story of a New Name

I'm attached to this story of Elena and Lila just as if I were watching it unfold on an HBO series. As soon as I finished this second installment, I picked up the next to keep the story going. Deep and powerfully-drawn characters that move through the setting of Naples and other cities of Italy in the middle to late 1960s, with a strong theme of poverty and social justice as a backdrop, have made this unfamiliar place and time real to me.

I've enjoyed diving deep into Elena's character and her striving with academic and intellectual goals, while struggling against “imposter syndrome”. She is succeeding in this strange academic world, but her inner critic constantly shoots her down with harsh judgments. I'm inspired by her devotion to learning, but I also recognize the real risk she faces as she tries to step out of her family's known world. I love the way this author can make that conflict so concrete in this book.

Looking forward to continuing the story in the third book, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay.

có lẽ mọi sự tóm tắt lại đều sẽ khiến câu chuyện này nghe như một bộ drama giờ vàng giỏi câu view :-s (nhưng quả thật Ferrante cài cliffhanger rất tài, hầu như chương nào cũng kết thúc với cliffhanger mà tập này có hơn... 100 chương)

tình bạn giữa Elena và Lila biến chuyển sâu sắc qua từng chương, khi mà mỗi người, bởi ý chí tự thân và do cuộc đời xô đẩy, rẽ sang một ngả, cả âm thầm lẫn công khai khước từ hầu hết mọi giao điểm, để rồi đến cuối cùng thú nhận rằng không muốn mất nhau trong sự gần như là chắc chắn hiểu rằng họ mãi mãi không thể giữ nhau trong đời mình (if that makes any sense)
một mối quan hệ sâu sắc và phức tạp hơn nhiều mọi từ ngữ nỗ lực định nghĩa nó (tình bạn? kẻ thù không đội trời chung? tình yêu? hay tình thân?) cũng như mọi sự so sánh tầm thường ai là người xấu, ai kẻ tốt?

Ferrante kể chuyện trần trụi khủng khiếp, không cho nhân vật một chỗ trốn khỏi (vô vàn) những secondhand embarrasment và những quyết định xuẩn ngốc mà nhiều khi tui phải ngó qua chỗ khác cho dễ thở :-ss

"I understood that I had arrived there full of pride and realized that - in good faith, certainly, with affection - I had made that whole journey mainly to show her what she had lost and what I had won. But she had known from the moment I appeared, and now, risking tensions with her workmates, and fines, she was explaining to me that I had won nothing, that in the world there is nothing to win, that her life was full of varied and foolish adventures as much as mine, and that time simply slipped away without any meaning, and it was good just to see each other every so often to hear the mad sound of one brain echo in the mad sound of the brain of the other.”Lenù & Lina casually being the bisexual passive agressive queens as they are, we have no choice but to stan.

Has all the chef's kiss elements of #1 - structurationist articulation of social dynamics, the interchanging roles of the brilliant friend, the beats of pure alienation that make you feel like you've been hit by a truck - but falters in 2 ways: seminal moments from #1 are reopened from their packaging unnecessarily in ways that diminish the source, the diary format is unconvincing and a tad too omniscient

This book triggered a lot of emotions in me, my past and my friendship and the way i followed this girl ever so blindly.

though this book talked about various subjects, but all i could focus on was Elena, Elena and Elena. I could only think of her, her pain when Lila stole Nino from right under her nose, how entitled she pretended to be, even though Lila had it tough, with her husband ending up being someone else, beating her bloody, raping her, and forcing her to bear his children. The reality women have to face even today, Elena Ferrante illustrated it all too well and I admire the way she writes.

Yet, the entire Ischia events leading up to Elena loosing her virginity to Donato Sarratore was heartbreaking, to think she gave in to the predator, to the man who molested her, it was heart breaking all of it. I cried. I had tears in my eyes because I felt her pain. I wanted to hug Elena and tell her it will be alright.

sigh

5 stars through and through.

Book 2. Late adolescence for the two girls. A friendship that's loving yet also toxic. How competition between friends is what drives them to success yet also provides so much ugliness and pain. Some of the scenes surprised me, how they seemed to rise above the else rather impartial narration. When Lina and Nino spend day+night together and Elena is tormented by it and her use of explicit language demonstrates her pain. Her recount of what happens on the beach with Nino's father, heartbreaking as in the moment she does not grasp it yet the shame hits her months/years later. And one of the most beautiful and touching moments, put into a sentence: “I was I, I, I.”