Something that has fascinated me while reading the first 3/4 of Ferrante’s series is the way in which a scene from the text can be interpreted and imagined in the mind. Since the series has been translated to screen in the form of a T.V series, the reader can see how that particular director has envisioned the characters in order to transform the texts into another medium. This can be applied to the emotionally charged moments of the texts that more often than not involve Lenu and Lila.

An interesting interpretation from page to screen can be taken from a particular passage in the third novel of series. The text states , “I began to have some ugly thoughts on the beach. Lila, I said to myself , deliberately pushes away emotions, feelings. The more I sought tools to try to explain myself to myself, the more she, on the contrary hid. The more I tried to draw her into the open and involve her in my desire to clarify, the more she took refuge in the shadows. She was like the full moon when it crouches behind the forest and the branches scribble on its face (The Story of A New Name 310)”.

This passage makes me think about what Professor Lombardi said during his lecture in regards to how scenes are interpreted by the Director. In particular how he pointed that in the HBO series of Ferrante’s series, there was a scene where Lenu was a child and Lila clearly in adolescence, can be seen extending her hand toward Lenu and telling her to look deeper, in the dialect of course. He pointed out that while this depiction was not realistic, it would provide the necessary reaction and depth of the overall story being told. It most certainly did. This passage and in particular, the descriptive imagery used made me think of Professor Lombardi’s words in respect to this aspect of storytelling. I more specifically thought about how a director would bring this scene to screen and the creative way that they would approach the scene while keeping its emotional intensity.