Tag Archives: competition

Rivalry and Teamwork

At the beginning of their friendship, Lila and Lenú’s lives are following fairly similar tracks. Just as they were when standing on the threshold of Don Achille’s door, Lila and Lenú are again on the verge of something that will change their lives. However, this time they are not facing it together. Lenú is about to start high school, and Lila beginning her life of work in her father’s shoe store. Rather than finding solace and a sense of bravery with each other, Lenú is angered when Lila attempts to follow along her path.

Lenú finds that even with all this difference between their lives now, Lila still manages to keep close. Before Lenú has even started high school Lila reveals she has already learnt some Greek, before Lenú has.  “She had done it on her own, while I hadn’t even thought about it… Would she always do the things I was supposed to do, before and better than me? She eluded me when I followed her and meanwhile stayed close to my heels in order to pass me?”

Lenú is angered by the idea that Lila is still beating her in her studies despite no longer attending school. She is not comforted by the fact she can share in her studies with her friend, but rather dislikes Lila for not only keeping pace with her, but going ahead of her.

At the same time, Lenú is equally affected when Lila stops studying. Lenú finds that she has no interest in her studies if they do not involve Lila. “…since Lila had stopped pushing me, anticipating me in my studies, and my reading, school… had stopped being a kind of adventure and had become only a thing that I knew how to do well and was much praised for” (P 187)

Lenú no longer feels consoled by Lila being with her. She seems to feel no relief whether Lila is with her or not. She is intimidating when Lila studies with her. When Lila show no interests in studies, Lenú does not either. Lila acts as both Lenú’s inspiration, pushing her to do well in school, and her antagonist, making her feel inadequate. Whether in competition with Lila or not, Lenú can not find a balance in her relationship with Lila. Their friendship has turned into one of codependency, Lenú needs competition with Lila to give herself an aim of what to do, ie Lila is the best students so Lenú needs to be second best. But at the same time, Lenú is always devastated when she cannot reach Lila. She wants Lila to be the best, but is upset that she herself will always be second best. It is a paradox, she both wants herself to be the best, but also wants Lila to be the best.

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.