Who By Fire Online Book Group discussion
Elena Ferrante tetralogy
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Hello Mary. I was just catching up here on all the insightful posts about this book. I have the second on order and am intrigued by all these comments about it.
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We so hope that your literary acumen will become part of this lively and we hope insightful conversation about this extraordinary writer and her tetralogy.
Welcome to the conversation Shannon! Look forward to hearing your thoughts on the books. What did you think of the first one?I'm progressing quickly through the 3rd book (it's a real page turner) and I already know I'm going to feel desolate when I finally reach the end of the series... I'm going to miss these characters!
Hello Oliver.I'm not so good at this sort of thing. At reviews. I'll give it a shot, though. I am definitely open to vigorous contradiction or pointing out of flaws in my comments.
The first book was a quick read that held my interest all the way through. The author is very skilled at using conflict to keep the reader engaged, waiting to see what will happen next.
I enjoyed the fact that it is a story about girls, and more so that it is about the lives of vulnerable children, at least at the beginning of the book.
I would have enjoyed reading a lot more about the experience of childhood in a town in recovery from a war, and about the experiences of children amid all that violence. Also, the massive cultural changes happening in that place and time are so very interesting to me and I would have liked more focus on that.
I like how so many of the choices the characters make are unexpected, but that is rather expected these days. Even so, it is good to read something from such a capable writer that is also exciting.
Many of the ideas she considers are compelling and enjoyable to see through the story's lens, such as those about innocence, deception, cruelty, and poverty. The way these are explored through a deeply personal story appeals to me. But the author's messages are too blatantly written at the cost of enjoying the story, and when she overtly makes connections for the reader, just in case we miss the point, that bothers me. For example, Lila is an exceptional character, but I feel she is overly manipulated by the author to support arguments. Maybe that's another tier to the writing, but I'm not so sure.
I think the author is purposely illustrating Lena as she does, through the interaction with Lila, to make a point and for the writing to move so quickly, and some of the writing of Lena's thought's on this is beautifully done, but it feels wrong somehow to me. Again, too much technique is rendered visible.
There is an emotional flatness to many of the secondary characters that puzzled me. Some are fully considered, for example Pasquale and the school teacher and Don Achi and Enzo feel like living people. Then, there are so many characters that are sketched too lightly and/or stereotypically, almost cruelly so. I wonder why, given that the writer is clearly capable of so much more.
I enjoyed the book, but was holding my breath and waiting for some miracle, I guess. Which is unfair.
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I'm not so good at this sort of thing. At reviews. I'll give it a shot, though. I am definitely open to vigorous contradiction or pointing out of flaws in my comments.
The first bo..."
Hello, Shannon and a super welcome to our conversation. What if I said I've concluded that Lila and Lena may even possibly be in some sense the same character? After all, we know at the novel's opening that Lila has disappeared and we know, dangerous to go autobiographical here about Ferrante, but we know that she has chosen to in some sense be highly visible while never appearing in public. What if I said the Elena Ferrante is very hard on her first person narrator Elena Greco whose writing talent is always in question? I have read all four books--so no spoilers here. I will only say that I am now convinced that the layered story is about the life lived in Naples, but even more about the writing life, particularly as a female author, that there is a feminist strain here deeply explored, that the dangers of living and writing are explored, that the stretch toward the intellectual is explored, how dangerous that is in the writing and that the writer must be fearless? I am sure of only one aspect of all this: Ferrante is fearless. Admittedly, I am totally taken with her. I haven't been blown away this way by any writer since the first time I read Roth.
Shannon, and Ollie, and Connie--whom we've not heard from yet--and Krista, more please. And others please join us. We learn so much when we stick our necks out a bit, take a chance and say what we think.
We are a respectful group and all opinions on the tetralogy are welcome. Join us and let's talk,
Mary
Hello Mary,Your ideas make perfect sense to me. I had the impression while reading that Lila is a character intended to explore a sort of 'what if' possibility of Lena's life had she not chosen or been able to continue her education.
I'm looking forward to Book 2 and will let you know when I've read it.
Thank you for your reply, and I hope you are doing well.
Shannon
Hi Shannon, Mary and all others following this discussion - happy weekend! :-)Shannon, completely take on board your thoughts on the 1st book - half of my bookclub felt the same, and I've read some reviews here on GoodReads that also echo that perspective.
Some people have wondered if it's due to Ann Goldstein's translation, and others have felt it was "soapy" in its storytelling, but with unusual twists in the tale to elevate it above your typical family saga.
Mary has mentioned this before, and I agree with her, that this is actually one giant novel split in four, and this really becomes more noticeable as you get through the books - in the sense that characters that were just names in the 1st novel gain more flesh and depth by book 3 (Lenu's mother being an example that springs to mind). So this may explain a little why some characters seem just like walk-in parts.
One reviewer made a good point, I felt, that the storytelling seems lacking in some elements (e.g. more detailed descriptions of what was happening around Italy or the world when the girls were growing up) because the characters themselves lacked that exposure to the outside world. So it seems that as the books develop and the characters grow older, more of the world begins to intrude in and their understanding of themselves and the people they grew up with grows richer.
Mary, I think you hit the spot about Elena the author being a mixture of Lila and Lenu! In fact, it made me wonder... most people trying to track down the original author have concentrated on finding someone similar to her that went to university, etc. But what if the real Elena is more like... Lila? What if they are looking in the wrong place? Maybe they should be checking on who worked in factories in the 60s but had an aptitude for writing?
But I hope they never find the real Elena. I like the mystery, I like that we don't know.
Just for fun, I've started a board on Pinterest with images from Italy from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s - mostly from Naples and Ischia, but a few from Rome too. Here it is:
https://uk.pinterest.com/oredfern/ita...
Enjoy your weekends,
Ollie
Oliver wrote: "Hi Shannon, Mary and all others following this discussion - happy weekend! :-)Shannon, completely take on board your thoughts on the 1st book - half of my bookclub felt the same, and I've read so..."
Hello Ollie
Happy weekend to you as well. Thank you for the link to your pinterest. I checked out that collection of photos and they are stunning. Wow. I lived in Italy briefly as a teenager, not in Naples but near to it, and it is amazing how little so many things have changed over time.
I love your idea that perhaps the author is more like Lila. I would like to believe that it is possible.
As for hiding one's identity as an author, I wondered long and hard about that after the scene of sexual abuse with Donato Sarratore.
Thanks for the dialogue Mary and Ollie.
Shannon
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Shannon, you've been totally supported by Ollie's reading group--and I find it hard to disagree. I think perhaps because I found the novels so engaging and couldn't stop reading that the full four books came to me as one. And then there is that layer of the writer's task revealed in all its difficulties and aggressiveness.
And, Ollie, your Pinterest board is truly gorgeous (am following).
xoxo
Mary
Mary wrote: I think perhaps because I found the novels so engaging and couldn't stop re..."Hello Mary and Ollie,
Such an interesting point to make, about reading the four novels together. I can see how that would make for such a different experience, allowing the reader to hold off on forming final impressions until the whole story is told. Thank you for sharing that.
Shannon.
Happy Friday everyone!Hope you're all well.
I just wanted to drop by and say that I'm speeding through book 3 and should be done with it this weekend. It's absolutely brilliant.
Shannon, look away now! :-)
I have some thoughts that I will share later in a longer review. Yesterday, I think I was struck for the first time that maybe Lenu isn't such a reliable narrator. This was during her conversation with Pietro (in Marcello's home) where he tells her Lila is evil.
There's so much to think about... I'm sure I'll read these books again at some point.
Enjoy your weekends,
Ollie
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Hope you're all well.
I just wanted to drop by and say that I'm speeding through book 3 and should be done with it this weekend. It's absolutely brilliant.
Shannon, look ..."
Hi, Ollie, All I'll say at this time--more in my _Writing Tips_ coming--is that in fiction with a first person narration reliability is always at stake even with narrator who earns our trust--as I believe Lenu does. That reliability in a fictional narration lies on a continuum. More on this soon here and elsewhere.
So glad you are still commenting and reading,
Mary
Hi everyone, hope you're all well.I've been meaning to post about the 3rd book, which I finished about a month ago, but it's still being digested... I still need to rise to the challenge of talking about it!
After finishing the book I went to visit a very close friend in Germany and I had an epiphany about the whole series. I think the whole thing is about love (or the lack of in the lives of all these characters) and how they all crave for it in their different ways (and come to compromises in many instances.)
The final 50 pages of the 3rd book... were intense for me. I think those pages elevate the series from great literature to literary masterpiece. I can just imagine the punch coming in the 4th book, so I'm holding myself back from reading it... but at the same time I can't wait to dive back in with all these characters.
I convinced a new colleague to read the first book and she loved it - we just had lunch together and discussed it. I've told her about Goodreads - if she gets an account, I will direct her here! :-)
x Ollie
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xoxo
Mary
Happy weekend everyone! I've finally posted some thoughts on the 3rd novel here on GoodReads - will copy and paste it here. I'm currently 1/3 of the way through the fourth book, which is an amazing read (as expected) and has already thrown up some questions for me.
Here's my review on the 3rd book:
I finished reading this novel in the summer of 2016. The final 50 pages were like an emotional rollercoaster, and after I was done I knew I couldn’t rush straight into the fourth book, I had to take a break. I also knew that Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels had been raised in those final pages from great fiction to masterpiece.
The original title in Italian has the word “fugge”, which means run away, escape. In the brasilian translation the same word is also used, “foge”. It hints at what the novel is about: escapes from marriages, from neighbourhoods, from children, from friendships. It’s perhaps a shame that the English translation chose to go with “leave”, a sort of watered down substitute I feel.
The 1st novel, “My Brilliant Friend”, ended with a marriage, which turned out to foreshadow one of the main theme’s of the 2nd novel (Lila’s marriage to Stefano.) The 2nd novel, in its turn, ends with the publication of Lenu’s novel, which again works as a prelude to the 3rd novel’s themes of being a female writer vs. mother and housewife, of reality and fiction being indistinguishable in some people’s minds, of the question of authorship, of what is art.
There was a feeling throughout this 3rd novel for me of accumulation, of gathering force, from all that had been raised and created in the first two novels. Some characters really came alive, like Lenu’s mother for example. In its final pages – with Elena leaving her family for Nino – I had to ask myself if it foreshadowed the main theme of the 4th novel. Would it be about their relationship? Would Lila’s warning at the end of the novel, that Nino would suck Elena’s blood dry, come true? And there were some questions that remained unanswered, like who or what had killed Gigliola. Was her corpse another foreshadow of the 4th and final book, that Lila would finally turn into Michele’s lover? Or that Michele's family would be destroyed?
One aspect I find intriguing in this series is how Ferrante uses the beach and the sea as key settings for transformative, sexual or traumatic experiences. The first novel had Lenu’s break in the island of Ischia, where Donato abuses her. In the 2nd novel, she gives herself to Donato on the beach out of anguish for Lila and Nino spending the night together. Then in the third book, she cements her sexual relationship with Nino at her apartment while her family is away at the beach. I’m curious to see if Ferrante will have some final use for the sea in the 4th and final book.
Another topic I found intriguing was the subject of Lenu's 2nd book, about male writers only able to create females that are actually men in female form. I wondered what this said about the men Elena herself created in her retelling. Are female writers exempt from this shortcoming? Are women, unlike men, able to create the opposite sex in art because they have always inhabit their world in a way that's not the same the other way round? On one hand, this seemed to strengthen Lenu's voice for me, make her a very reliable narrator. But then, once in a while, another voice would break through (Pietro's, for example), questioning Lenu's decisions, and I wondered whether Ferrante was leading the reader down a path filled with red herrings...
This whole series has been wonderful so far, growing in strength with every new chapter. I can't wait to read the final installment and see how Ferrante ties everything together.
I finished reading the final book a few days ago... and just wow. That final paragraph!! Did it just flip everything on its head?!
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I think everything is marvelously flipped on its head in the last pages of the last book, including the question of who had used whose body and whose story to bring the emotional truth of these books so alive, so heartrending and so powerful.
More soon,
Mary
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Oh, man, a play in London I think--and I thought it was going to be a movie, but a tv series! Wow, can't wait!!!
xoxox
Mary
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And here's my review (finally!) of the second book:
he second novel in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan tetralogy, The Story of a New Name (or "The New..."
Brilliantly done here, Olli. More on this and more on the mirror effect from me later.