Category Archives: Meta-post

Meta Post 2.0

There were eight posts for this week, and each brought up very interesting points. Some posts discussed things I have been wondering about myself and others brought up points I haven’t even thought of but really appreciated being exposed to.

Starting with the post titled “Luck and Stealth are for Escape Artists,” there was a particular line that really interested me: “As smart as Lila is, its Lenù who is the one who ultimately understands that she has grown too big for the neighborhood.” I had this same thought but didn’t know how to put it in words, but this explains it perfectly. Lila is incredibly smart, one could say smarter than Lenù, but in the end, the one who clings onto the hopes and dreams for something better beyond this neighborhood will prevail and that happens to be Lenù. Another interesting point was how Lenù picks and chooses the thoughts and feelings she shares with Lila. I think this fact gives us a peek into the type of friendship Lenù and Lila share (which in my opinion is a toxic one).

The next post is titled, “Catcalling and Men’s Behavior towards Women.” I liked the comparison between how Lenù talks about boys and how boys do the same. This post highlights the fact that from Lenù’s point of view the way she describes boys seems to come from an innocent place while the looks and catcalls her and her friends receive from men sexualize them. This contrast is important because it brings up a situation in which many women find themselves in today and I feel like any little experience from which we can relate to in this narrative can help us navigate the novel through Lenù’s point of view.

The post titled, “Rivalry and Teamwork,” also had an interesting point stating, “Lila acts as both Lenù’s inspiration, pushing her to do well in school, and her antagonist, making her feel inadequate.” This really got me thinking about the relationship between Lenù and Lila which I’m constantly confused about. I realize that they both wish the best for each other and push each other in positive ways but they can also be incredibly cruel to one another.  This quote explains the complexity of their relationship. This dynamic is one of the main reasons I question their friendship constantly while reading because in my eyes this is a toxic friendship that should end. Co- dependency is also a huge factor of Lenù and Lila’s friendship that I’ve been thinking about while reading as well and I’m glad that it was mentioned in this post and I’d want to focus in on co-dependency in their relationship in future posts.

In the post, “Lila Becomes a Women,” a quote that stuck out to me was, “The way Elena puts herself down when it comes to Lila is almost scary, as if Elena’s personality is connected to Lila’s.” This also alludes to the topic of co- dependency that I think we should all explore more in posts and in discussion. I also liked how Lenù’s view is described in this post as “obsessive teenager” because I think it’s exactly what Ferrante has managed to capture and put on paper even as an adult. I agree that it’s hard to successfully write in this point of view when in the moment you don’t own the mentality of a teenager. An understanding of the view from which the story is told is necessary in following the narrative.

A point I found interesting in the post titled, “A Look, a smile, a slap” was the “it” factor that Lila possesses that makes her a person to chase after. The post states, “I like to think its an energy, a free spirit which cannot be defined by just physical beauty.” The reason everyone always seemed so attracted to Lila did puzzle me but maybe its because it also puzzled Lenù and tit s her lens from which the story is being told. I want to say that don’t even think Lenù entirely knows why she is so drawn to Lila. Maybe the “energy” Lila possesses not only attracts boys to seek relationships with her but also why Lila seeks friendship with her.

The post, “Childhood: Proving Oneself,” focused on the “… very real struggle f carving your own path and finding your identity.” This theme is very characteristic to childhood itself and I also liked the use of “autonomous virtuosity” by ferrante and that it was brought into this post. Lenù in this time of her life like most children is going through the process of figuring out who she is and how she can navigate her strengths to create a better life for herself while also creating her own identity.

“Finding One’s Value Through Competition,” talks about the very evident and constant competition between Lenù and Lila about literally everything whether its grades or boys. The line in this post, “This is the only way that Lenù could attempt to make herself feel valuable and accepted,” is specifically interesting to me because Lenù does seek a lot of her own validation from being better than Lila and when she fails to be better, her identity crumbles.

A contrast to the previous post is titled, “Elena’s Realization: who is more dependent?”. This post talks about the very important time in Lenù’s development where she changes from thinking she needs Lila to succeed to thinking Lila may need her more than she had previously thought. This post describes it as, “Elena is at a place in her life where she finally feels comfortable and not necessarily inferior to those around her, especially Lila.” I do agree that this change in Lenù’s view of herself is very important and shows a great amount of growth.

Overall, I think the majority of these posts talked about the dynamics surrounding Lenù and Lila’s friendship. Reading these posts has made me realize that I find the interworking’s of their relationship the most interesting and the most confusing. I definitely was to focus more on the co-dependency factor of their friendship and how it affects them both, negatively and positively and maybe even delve into how toxic it really is.

Metapost

This week the posts varied by three categories: focusing on the earthquake, highlighting other aspects of The Story of the Lost Child, or commenting on Lucamente’s article.

Most of the students chose to react to the effects of the earthquake. Ariana focuses on what the earthquake symbolizes by comparing the scientific cause and effect of earthquakes to the experiences the characters must endure from the disaster. She states, “Lenu is experiencing moments which lead to her own personal earthquake,” as she decides to leave the stability of Pietro to return to the chaos of Nino.” Next, Paul pays attention to the significance the earthquake has on Lila and Elena’s relationship. He emphasizes how earthquakes are uncontrollable and unable to be manipulated by humans and this catastrophe, out of Lila’s power, forces her to “finally confess to Elena all the reasons for her behavior.” Similarly to Paul, Kelsey notes how, on account of the earthquake, Lila is “stripped of the ability to precisely calibrate her thoughts, words, gestures, tactics, and strategies.” Kelsey also highlights how Elena notices the difference in Lila’s fear compared to her own fear of the event. Julie concentrates on the comparison between the earthquake and Elena, noting how the literal foundations of Naples and the foundations of Elena’s life overlap and suffer “violent breakage and destruction,” at the same time. While Naples shatters, Elena’s personal life faces catastrophe – she gives birth, her mother dies, and Nino cheats.

Shoshanna and Skevi both chose to focus on different aspects of the novel. Skevi focuses on the compelling passage that took place at the gynecologist. She comments on Elena describing Lila as “malicious” and “anxious.” Skevi finds that Elena has constructed an image of Lila that is inferior to the image she thinks and wants people to have of herself. She also notes how it is contradicting that Elena finds Lila to be “anxious” when Elena constantly questions her own life decisions. Shoshanna’s post discusses Elena’s rocky transition through motherhood. She highlights how the constant turbulence and “unmotherly” actions will affect Dede and Elsa, mentioning the idyllic image the girls hold of Lila, which juxtaposes with the image they have of their own mother. Shoshanna theorizes that is is easy for children to idealize other parents when they don’t witness the punishment and negativity.

Lastly, Katherine focuses on Lucamente’s article. She notes how this piece swayed her view of Elena. Lucamente describes Elena as an exploitative person, rather than a dependent one. Katherine finds that Elena’s actions are usually always self-sufficient and one-sided, as “most of the relationships she creates are because she can benefit from them,” socially, financially, and academically.

From the posts, it is evident that the earthquake had a notable effect on both readers and characters. The event undoubtedly changed Lila and Elena. It is also clear that this volume displays the repercussions Elena faces regarding her life decisions and the complexities she encounters juggling her personal and professional life.

Meta-Post

Even though everybody’s posts were very interesting and nicely written, I chose to focus on the posts of 4 people.

Katherine talks about how Lenu writes about women and feminism, but when it comes down to helping and empowering other women(in this case Lila), she’s not having it. She emphasized the fact that Lenu’s “feminist role model” was Adele, her mother-in-law, who is not the best example of a feminist, either.

Irini also focused on Lenu’s feminism. She specifically mentioned Lenu’s internal conflict regarding love life, motherhood, and her job as a writer. Her quotes explain perfectly Lenu’s struggle to keep up with everything that is going on in her life, but to also follow her own advice. Even though she [Lenu] considers herself a feminist, she depends on a man, and can’t imagine her life without him.

Ariana is still talking about the females of the book, but her central theme was a little different. She talks about how Lenu is always blaming the people around her about all the bad things that are happening to her, instead of claiming responsibility for her own actions. Lila is trying to protect her friend from Nino because she’s been with him in the past and she knows how he is, but Elena just refuses to take her advice, probably because she thinks that Lila is jealous of her relationship with Nino.

Julie focused on the aspect of code-switching in the novel. She talks about the code-switching between Italian and dialect. We notice that Elena is able to use both Italian and dialect fluently, whereas Lila only uses standard Italian when she is around who are not part of the neighborhood- and even then, it does not come out very naturally- it’s like her words come out of a book she’s read. Elena on the other hand uses dialect when she is mad, feels threatened, or wants to sound dangerous.

From what we have read so far in the 4th volume, we can tell that Elena is focusing a lot on talking about herself and her personal life, and I hope the book becomes more interesting later on.

Meta-Post: Nicola’s Interview and Professor Lombardi’s Lecture

Adaptation from the page to the big screen was an all encompassing theme for most of the posts this week. The keen attention to detail to ensure that the emotional expressiveness of the novels are preserved is an arduous task that requires an understanding of the in-numerous threads that hold Lila and Elena’s relationship together. As Ariana describes this admirable endeavor, “The amount of detail put into creating the scene is fascinating. It makes me want to re-watch and analyze the series.” Although I was unable to attend the series, the highlights of Professor Lombardi’s lecture also sparks my curiosity to rewatch the show with shrewd attention to its parallel symbolism to the show. 

On the other hand, other posts remained focused on the interview with Ferrante that gave a fascinating insight into her characters’ developments, their inability to escape the instability of the neighborhood and even the symbolism of some overlooked characters who, nevertheless, have spontaneous appearances throughout Elena and Lila’s lives. Subtle details such as Lila’s effortless ability to teach Elena a simpler way of learning Latin, as Jacqueline points out, and the use of Italian versus the Neapolitan dialect, as Paraskevi discusses, are notable because their importance may escape the readers upon first reading. Irini alludes to Ferrante’s words that particularly reflects the importance of the theme of writing: “Writing is an act of pride.” As she goes on to analyze this quote, she focuses on the advancement or lack thereof that the protagonists experience in different aspects of their lives in relation to the act of learning and engaging in active writing. Meanwhile, Julie’s post takes on the natural instability that attacks the lives of Elena and Lila. Julie points out, “And every time Elena resolves to break with Lila- and she’s done this 3-4 times so far- she can’t.” The truth of this statement ties together the other themes, reflecting the protagonists’ inability to escape one another and not just the neighborhood, itself. All these posts, although they discuss different points of the interview, have one thing in common: they highlight Ferrante’s un-accidental process of choosing details as she laid out the lives of our protagonists, knowing that there would be a precarious thread to hold it all together in a delicate yet elegant manner.

Meta-Post Blog 6

A common theme in the posts this week was the characters of Lila and Lenù wanting to escape from their own childhood and background. As Irini writes “It is evident from youth that the girls want to be destined for a much more fulfilled life than what is traditionally expected for them.” When speaking of what is traditionally expected from the young women, many of us concentrated on what their mothers expected. Julie writes of how the girls break away from the general archetype of “mothers” and how in western literature, stories of women “grappling with the Mother figure, having a friendship with another girl that towers over every other subsequent relationship” is uncommon.

Kelsey wrote of a “generational ‘curse’” inherited from their mothers, which after the birth of her child, Lila is desperate to break away from, and raise her child differently than she herself was. This is in contrast to Paul’s post, where he writes that “every generation does the best they can with the knowledge that has been passed down”. Lila, instead of using this knowledge as a manual to raise her child, uses it as a checklist of what not to do. Irini writes that “Lila … personally dedicates her time to making sure he is brilliant… Lila does not want her son to turn out stuck like her..” Kelsey adds to this by saying Lila nurtures not only her son’s wellbeing, but also his intelligence. This is something her own family does not to do, and another way of breaking the “generation curse”.

The way Lenù breaks from what is the norm, specifically in terms of mothers and motherhood is also discussed this week. Ariana writes that “Through assimilating to her new environment ( in Pisa), Lenù searches to become less of a Neapolitan and less like her mother in order to have a better chance in life”, meaning that through speaking differently than her mother and assimilating somewhere other that Naples, she avoids becoming like her mother, which Irini writes  was also a fear of Lenù’s and “a major factor in how hard she pushed herself to success.”

Annabella writes not of how Lenù breaks away from her mother, but from Lila. A relationship that has slowly been deteriorating, Annabella’s post explains that in the wake of their vacation to Ischia, the two young women are in completely different mental states; “Elena is beginning to find it in this newfound sense of what it means to live life passionately and bravely, while Lila is discovering it in the depths of Nino’s soul that has taken her own as refuge”.

Another topic this week was the importance of names. Jackie and Zevi wrote on this topic, writing about the power names can have. Jackie writes that when Lenù chooses the nameGreco to be the name on her book, and not the last name of her fiance, “Lenù changes the Greco name from that of a porter to that of a writer. In doing so she simultaneously increases the power behind the name Greco. Her name printed on the cover of a book ties the name to higher education and success which holds a lot of power. “

Zevi, conversely, writes of the power of Lenù’s fiance’s last name. She writes of how after being associated with Pietro Airota, she is given more respect by other students, and that as the Airotas are a prestigious family they therefore a good name, and Lenu benefits from being associated with it

Meta-post: The Story of a New Name

In the second novel of the series we have reached the point at which Lila has recently gotten married and is a housewife. There were 5 posts and a major common theme was the idea of Ferrante’s Women. The way in which we have seen just how complex Lila and Lenu’s relationship is displays this concept. As seen in what we have read so far, these two characters seemingly have codependent relationship which may come across as unhealthy at times. Some common points included Lila’s desire to live vicariously through Lenu while she is trapped in marriage and vice versa. The contrasts between the characters is clear throughout the texts. Lila sticks out while Lenu is more prone to blending into the background. However, despite being trapped in marriage, Lila still manages to keep the complexities that make her an individual. We see these characters craving each other’s lives and constantly displaying the layers to their relationship that evolve as they enter different stages of life and forge their own paths. Ferrante shows how seeing their parents in abusive relationships have set the standard for their relationships as well. These are all well thought out points that made me consider how the relationship between Lenu and Lila though not sexual, fulfills them in ways that they may never experience in other relationships.

Delight Within The Structure Of Naples

As porous as this stone is the architecture. Building and action interpenetrate in the courtyards, arcades, and stairways. In everything they preserve the scope to become a theater of new, unforeseen constellations.(Benjamin 167-168)

This quote above is from Walter Benjamin, “Naples” and it resonated with me for I saw Naples as a stage where it was easy to hide true intentions. The way this city was built allowed some force or someone who is pulling the strings decide what the audience gets to see. Everything else that was considered to be too harsh or extreme were kept behind the stage.

I wasn’t the only one who saw “Naples” as place where one can succumb to delight without the need to attract attention. Jacqueline Vargas’s post, Porosity: Private is Public touches the contradiction within how life is depicted in Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. The private vs. public life is at a equilibrium here. Lila has the life of the city within her home, but It’s not necessarily public to everyone around.

Irini Belitsis bought up an interested notion in her post The Clichéd View of Naples in which tourist don’t see Naples as it truly is. A city that has seen its fair share of chaos. Everyone else in the novel My Brilliant Friend is well aware of its harshness but the international audience don’t see it as so. When people who are not from Naples think of this place as a magnificent paradise that is untouched by the outside world. You and I know that it’s false, but Naples does not reflect that sense. This city is isolated to the effects of the world, and I wonder if there a isolation within the isolation. Specifically, the realness the depicted in the novel and how it’s not public knowledge and the deeper isolation from the world that is oblivious to this.

Ariana Guzman’s excellent post Naples as a Theater mentioned what I wanted to touch in my meta post that Naples is a stage in itself. As Guzman said herself that Lila’s name carries weight and value that only has structure because it’s an element within the stage. With that in mind, as William Shakespeare coined the phrase in Act-II, Scene-VII of the play As You Like It “All the world’s a stage,/ And all the men and women merely players”.

Time for the meta-post!

People chose passages about the impersonal violence of Naples, the violence in the girls’ families, and a resulting early loss of innocence; there is the violence that the girls witness or hear about (for example, the murder of Don Achille) and the bodily violence they experience directly. Finally, Lenù and Lila experience intense, violent emotions. Blood makes its appearance in the story Lila fabricates about Don Achille’s death, as well as when Lila threatens Marcello. The girls cannot escape any of this violence, and thus Lila comes up against a fate she cannot escape because, in this place, the father’s word goes. Lila’s brilliance is a bad fit with their environment and social and economic conditions.

There is also the theme of time: that of a child’s – being always in the moment – versus an adult’s. Yet the girls’ early acts, such as going up the stairs to Don Achille’s, create consequences that work on their lives for decades.

Competition is part of the friendship from the beginning. As they hit puberty, Lenù tries to ease her anxiety about Lila’s brilliance by finding ways she is better than Lila, however petty those ways are. Even the book is purportedly written so that Lenù will win “this time” (23). Lenù gets to tell this story; Lila never gets to tell her own story or the story of the friendship. Whoever controls the narrative controls the outcome of the story and how it is told.

In this historical period there are many narratives by authors who are women, oppressed/colonized, young, queer, survivors of genocide, etc., which are readily accepted and can even gain critical acclaim and an enthusiastic readership. The multiplication of narratives is a postmodernist construct and perspective. Yet – at the same time, to quote Stefania! – Lenù, the one who got out, who made a life that is different than what the poverty and narrowness of that slice of society dictated – in other words, the ultimate victor – gets to tell the story, not Lina. In the end Lenù writes the story, while Lina disappears herself. Yet, paradoxically, she cannot disappear from Lenù’s memory (Guzman), and Lenù writes not one but four volumes about them, their friendship, and Naples.

Welcome and things to do for class #2

Dear All,

It was a pleasure to see you again or meet you for the first time. I hope this semester will be a great semester for all of us. Here is what we did today and what we should be thinking about during this week:

We talked about Ferrante’s international success and some criticism against her works. We read and discussed part of Walter Benjamin’s essay on Naples. We introduced some of the recurring topics of the novel (the reflection on writing, women, maternity, Naples). We discussed the requirements for this class.

For next week:

Please read the text by Walter Benjamin (when I say “read” I actually mean “study”) and the first part of My Brilliant Friend (cover to page 119, as stated in our course schedule).

Write your blog post by Monday night at 9pm, using the category “Post 1” and inserting tags of your choice (a good post has at least 2 tags). The “meta-post” is due any time before the next class (please use category “meta-post”).

Think about one semester long project that you would like to pursue (after reading). It is ok if your topic is vague. I just want you to focus on something that you are already interested in. Possible topics include but are not limited to: translation, camorra, meta-literature, women (this are very broad topics that you will need to refine for your presentation or paper).

Think about skills that you want to learn in this course (something that you don’t master yet, but you know is useful in our discipline, that is, literary studies).

If you have questions please comment on this post so that other students can see the discussion.