One of the first things that interested me in this interview is actually concerning something that we have talked about in class so many times before, and that is “language“. “And then there was the dialect and there was Italian. The two languages referred to different communities, both jam-packed. What was normal in one wasn’t normal in the other. The bonds that you established in one language never had the same substance as those in the other. Customs varied, the rules of behavior, the traditions. And if you sought a middle ground, you would assume a false dialect that was a sort of trivialized Italian”. Language to me is always important. Since I chose Italian as my major, I want to know everything about the language. It’s fascinating how language and dialect play such an important role in the lives of Ferrante’s protagonists. Each one of them uses a different kind of Italian, whether that is the “standardized” form of it, or the Neapolitan dialect. We have noticed so many times that the characters code-switch almost all the time, depending on the environment they are found in, and of course the people they are referring to. It’s also extremely interesting that the book was written in Italian; but the HBO TV Show only used Italian when Elena (the narrator) was talking-the rest of the show was all in dialect. In English it is kind of hard to tell what is going on with language because even though we know that characters like Lenu, Lila, and Nino can use both “formal” Italian and dialect equally well, the parts that say “…said in dialect” or “…said in Italian” is very confusing. Another thing that I though is worth mentioning is the fact that she states that each form of Italian has its own customs and traditions and you shouldn’t mix them up. I would love to read the novels in Italian and make comparisons between Italian/dialect, the English translations, and the TV show we watched.
In Spite of Everything
I found the Ferrante interview with Nicola Lagioia to be quite compelling. On the topic of interdependence, Ferrante states, “I wanted them against the closed, fixed state of the environment, to be mobile, so that nothing could truly stabilize them and they themselves would pass through each other as if they were air – but without ever freeing themselves from the gravitational pull of their birthplace” (Frantumaglia, 367). I find this to be a perfect representation of the relationship the girls have with each other and with Naples. Once Elena physically leaves Naples, there will always be a force that always attracts her back mentally and sometimes physically.
Another quote from Ferrante’s interview that I like is “people move between good and bad almost without realizing it” (367). Lila, Lenu, as well as some of the other secondary characters certainly have their good moments and their imperfect moments where they display unfavorable qualities. I think that both Lila and Lenu are insecure in different ways when it comes to their relationship. The power and competition they possess over each other leads each of them to at times demonstrate harshness. I think both girls more often than not realize how they are acting towards each other because they do so to invoke a reaction.
Lastly, Ferrante states, “Writing is an act of pride” (379). This is visible through many of the characters who write like Elena, Nino, Donato, and Lila. Each of these characters at some point feels a sense of satisfaction based on their own literary achievements or abilities. Writing is especially significant for characters in the Neopolitan Novels because it enables them to assert their awareness of Italian. Elena advances in life, socially and economically, because of her expertise in writing Italian, which for a time being provides her with self-fulfillment.
Narration in My Brilliant Friend
I feel the TV version of My Brilliant Friend took away a lot of the personality from Lenù. I think this is due to the lack of the voiceover/narrator for the most part in the show. Instead of having a running narration as we do in the books, the voice over occurs in the show only to reinforce something’s importance. However, in the books, most of her personality came out in her narration, as we have little direct speech from her, only her narration.
It seems for the most part in the show, Lenù is observing the scenes from the background, rather than being active in the scenes. Many of the times she appears onscreen, she does not participate in the action. I believe this is because, in the novel she must be present in those scenes, so that she knows about them in order to write about it. The fact that she isn’t active in many of the scenes she is in highlights the fact that it is often Lila, or other characters, driving the action, with Lenù as more of an observer looking in.
Of Minor Importance
The minor character that interests me most is Gino. Not much is told about him besides him being the son of the pharmacist and a facist. It is strange how Lenù and Lila have very little relationship with him, especially in comparison to other minor characters. Even if the two do not have consistently good relationships with the other characters, such as with the Solaras, they are still mentioned, and details are known about them.
Gino is spoken of when Lenù is in high school, but afterwards, we don’t know much about his life. We know very little about how he came to become a facist. When Gino is mentioned it is in negative lights. There is a very negative scene when Lila sees Gino at the factory. They both verbally insult each other, before Gino tells her “… yesterday afternoon I asked that cuckold your husband for permission to beat you up and he said yes.” (page 148, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay).
When Lenù is given the news of Gino’s murder, Lenù first thinks “that she was giving me that news because the son of the pharmacist was part of our early adolescence and, fascist or not, certainly that event would upset me. But the reason was not to share with me the horror of that violent death.” (page 293, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay) This shows that even when he has been murdered, Gino is not the main topic. Elena has much more sympathy for Gino’s parents after his death that for him, recalling how kind they are.
Even after his death Elena writes how the murderer shot at his “thug’s body” (page 313, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay). The difference between how the personalities of other minor characters, such as Gigliola, Carmem, are shown much more deeply than Gino’s despite them all having grown up together.
Lombardi’s Lecture on MBF
I am having trouble catching up on all the reading, but I still want to post so instead I want to talk a little about Professor Lombardi’s lecture this past Thursday. I’ll start off by saying that I really enjoyed learning more about the connections between the novel and HBO series and how it helps us better understand the complex nature of the relationship between Lila and Lenù.
In case anyone couldn’t make the lecture, I want to express a point made by Professor Lombardi that particularly struck me and that I believe is a very important peek into the true characters of Lila and Lenù. Lombardi talked about the scene in My Brilliant Friend where Lenù expresses to Lila that she is having trouble with Latin. Lila helps Lenù understand Latin because she too is studying Latin on her own.
“Read the whole sentence in Latin first, then see where the verb is. According to the person of the verb, you can tell what the subject is. Once you have the subject you look for the complements: the object of the verb is transitive, or if not other complements. Try it like that.’ I tried. Suddenly translating seemed easy” (MBF, 111).
Lenù initially looks for the subject/noun within the Latin sentence but Lila suggests that it’s easier to look for the verb first because then it’s easier to identify the subject/noun that performs the verb. Professor Lombardi proposed during his lecture that this interaction is linked to the characteristics that make Lila and Lenù who they are. Lila immediately looks for the verb which correlates to her inclination to act and do as she pleases without really thinking about how it will affect those around her. On the other hand, Lenù immediately looks for the subject/noun which correlates to her inclination to repress her actions and feelings because she constantly thinks about how others will react to them. I had never made this connection so I’m glad that Professor Lombardi shared this connection at the lecture.
Layers from Page to Screen
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.
Post 7 – Background of Communist movement in Italy, 1943-on
Some of the students have either researched or remembered those days of ’68-’69. I’d like to fill in a few of the developments that were left out, plus clarify some references that Lenu’ makes in the third volume.
When Italy tried to make a separate peace with the Allies in September 1943, Germany still occupied much of the Italian peninsula. They maintained Mussolini and his fascist party in power in much of the country (while U.S. and British troops moved north from Sicily). One reason the Italian Communist Party (Partito Communista Italiano — PCI) was so popular and strong in the post-war period is that the Communists were the main organizers of a partisan guerrilla war against the German occupation and the fascists. They were especially strong in the northern part of the country and organized an uprising on April 25, 1945, that liberated those parts from the German occupation before the U.S. troops arrived. There was even an uprising in Naples, which I’ll discuss later.
Not only did the Communist vote grow from about 20% to 35% nationally by the mid-1970s, but the party governed cities; for example, Bologna had almost uninterrupted governance by the party. And the Communist Party was very strong in the working class in the industrial centers of Genoa, Turin and Milan; they led the main unions. Right after the war, because the fascists were completely discredited for destroying Italy, while the smaller capitalist parties were compromised with fascism, it appeared possible that the Communists would take power. The U.S. State Department got these small capitalist parties to unite and along with the Vatican created the Christian Democrats, and the U.S. did everything it could to decide the 1948 election. The Christian Democrats led the national government from about 1948 to 1960 or so and then in alliance with the Socialist Party and others until the 1990s. But I don’t want to get ahead on this.
By the time of the 68-69 massive workers’ strikes and student protests, the more radical students and workers considered the Communist Party of Italy (PCI) to be quite conservative and tied to the existing political structure. (The U.S. and the Italian capitalists and military on the other hand never wanted to allow the PCI into the national government and had secret organizations determined to stop this from happening.) In the novel we see Pasquale, a worker who starts as a PCI member, grow furious at the party leadership, calling them bureaucrats. He is also angry that they didn’t support his father when he was charged with murdering Don Achille, and says his father “had taken part in the Four Days of Naples,” (p116) which was the uprising against the fascists and the German occupation in Naples (an aside, there is a movie of that name about the uprising, which I saw at least twice in the 1960s). Lenu’ also grows disillusioned with the PCI, and at one time she says that she stopped reading l’Unita‘, the PCI newspaper, and started reading Lotta Continua and Il Manifesto. (p249)
The movement was so big that these other newspapers were produced by other political organizations, Lotta Continua and some Lenu’ doesn’t mention like Democrazia Proletaria, Avanguardia Operai that were considered more revolutionary that the PCI. They themselves had thousands of members and tens of thousands of sympathizers although they were small compared to the PCI itself.
Lenu’ also mentions some of the bombings, in particular that of a bank in Milan, which I had forgotten. I remember a bombing of the Bologna train station that killed a lot of people and also one of a train traveling near Brescia in the north of the country. While there was an attempt to blame those bombings on small communist groups that were made up of people even more frustrated than Pasquale, but were unable to, it was too unreasonable. It turned out that there was a right-wing militarist conspiracy that carried out such actions precisely to prevent the PCI from entering the government.
Lila, by the way, is a fantastic organizer on the shop floor, at least how Lenu described it. Well, I’ve written enough so I’ll stop here.
Readings and post 8
Dear All,
For next week (Nov. 13) please finish reading the third volume of the quartet, and this Interview.
For your post 8, please consider commenting on Lombardi’s talk, on this interview, or – again – about history in the novel.
I hope to see many of you tomorrow at the lecture!
PS: I had the wrong information: the new novel will come out in English in a few months. The Italian version comes out tomorrow and it’s titled The Lying Life of Adults.
Coffee and conversation in Italian
For those of you who are learning Italian:
We have Rm 1324HW reserved for Coffee and Conversation on Tuesdays 2:30-4pm (starting today). All levels are welcome. Please follow the Instagram account of the Italian Program: instagram.com/Huntercollegeitalianprogram (the page also includes a link to the Facebook page).
Politics, God and sex
Elena has found a calling writing articles about workers struggles at the Soccavo factory in the local communist newspaper L’Unita. She had taken the paper of demands for improving working conditions written by Lila to create and write an article and instantly becomes somewhat of an expert on and darling of the political left. Does Elena breaks though the margins the smarginatura by writing for the newspaper because a serious novelist at the time in Italy would never consider doing so? I posed a question to Lynn Nesbit renown literary agent, would she discourage her authors from writing journalistic pieces for a newspaper. She answered absolutely not in fact it would help sales of books. But then she added she did not know the publishing business in Italy and perhaps it’s different there.
Although Elena gets the fame and credit it’s Lila that does the heavy lifting. Unwilling initially in getting involved, it is Pasquale who talks her into helping because she has the intelligence that he lacks. So it is Lila that becomes the point of the spear. It is Lila that writes the demands, who takes insults and threats from fellow employee and who bring the paper of demands to Bruno and puts her job in jeopardy.
Julie writes of the turbulent times and social upheaval in the 60s and 70s. That students revolt against a “antiquated , rigid educational system and a capitalist patriarchal society.” But with all history there is conflicting opinions of political movements and their results. Some like respected Italian historian Indro Montanelli states that the sessatotto was a “lost of civility, where horde of illiterates invaded public and private lives with their ignorance” so some may have called it a “myth” others say that what was left behind was the ‘statuto dei lavoro’ workers rights and this in itself was well worth the pain. Kelsey writes that Elena says “I never though of being a freelance journalist. I did it because it made me happy.” She is not only writing behind a typewriter she is taking to the streets and the picket lines. Not like what it seems to me what the elites Gallini and Airota families do, hiding in their crystal towers cheering the working man on to do their bidding. Paraskevi asks the question why have a priest validate a marriage? I would answer Elena mother was raised in cultural Catholicism where it was not a choice and church was a natural part of everyday life and not challenged. What the mother may not understand and a question Paraskey poses is can one be with God without religion? I certainly believe so and in times of hardship we even see Elena struggle with faith when asking the Virgin Mary for help. Ariana writes of the importance of language and how it can hold someone back socially and economically. That was true in Italy in the 60s and 70s as it is true today in America. One’s speech, right or wrong is an indication of upbringing and education.
One importation omission in the blogs was any comment of the “elephant in the room” or as Pasquale says about Lila “she’s not made for sex”. Later we find that Lila does not have or can not experience the full pleasure of sexual intercourse. In my thoughts she’s unavailable either physically or mentally to fulfill a complete organism. To do so would mean abandoning full control which she is unable to do
Indro Montanelli https://binged.it/2WHWGfM
