Book Review: My Brilliant Friend

My first book of the year, 'My Brilliant Friend,' is by Elena Ferrante.  The author uses a pseudonym, which has both created its own mystery and a suspicion that the book is biographical.  Originally published in Italian, it has been translated into English to much praise and has found its way into best seller lists.

I was attracted to the book since it is set in Naples.  Our summer vacation this past year was in Italy.  After touring Rome, Florence and Barga in Tuscany, we finished off our trip in Naples.  Mount Vesuvius looms over Naples, and of course at the foothills of it is Pompeii.  Pizza originated here, that's something ...

The other aspect of the book that attracted to me to it was that it is set in post WWII Italy.  Whether it is Joseph Kannon's, 'The Good German,' or James Hilton's, 'Random Harvest,' there is something about post-war societies that is magnetic.  The transformation of social mores, influx of thinking from outside of society (due to the war), advent of new technologies, all make for interesting story telling of how communities, families and individuals deal with this change.

This book is about two young girls, Elena and Lila, who meet in primary school and their growing friendship over the years.  This book is the first in a series of four books called the 'Neapolitan Series', and it ends when they finish high school and one of them gets married.

Post WWII Naples is depicted as poor, gritty, influenced by organized crime and feels very much like the Italy in Fellini movies such as 'Nights of Cabiria.'

There are a couple of themes in this book that are striking.

The first theme that runs through the book is how both girls are very smart, and top their class.  Elena is the book's narrator and the lens is primarily on Lila.  Lila has more street smarts and is a tough cookie, fending off teachers, rough housing boys and street gangs with equal felicity.  Not in a cartoonish way, but in a tough gritty way - often ending up getting physically hurt.

Elena is equally bright, but surfs along as a close second, avoiding the kind of trouble the Lila gets into, but observing it in full, all the same.

The second theme that runs through the book is the relationship between the two girls, and the choices that they make; given their rough and tumble, mostly poor families and their own smarts.

Neither family (Elena's dad is a porter at City Hall and Lila's family are shoemakers), encourages the girls to get educated.  So who persists in getting educated and who goes with the social mores of the times and gets married through a set of choices is that second theme that builds to the novel's climax.

This book reminded me most of R.K. Narayan's, 'Swami and Friends,' which was the author's debut novel discovered by Graham Greene and given worldwide fame.  R.K. Narayan's book was set in pre-Independence rural India and was about characters who were quite  innocent.

In Elena Ferrante's book there is almost no innocence.  Even when the girls are very young and in primary school, there is always the awareness of the situation, manipulation of adults, and rough violence hovering just outside the four walls.

I am not sure I am a fan of Elena Ferrante's writing which is a bit labored and dry.  In some sections, it felt like notes from a diary made their way into a memoir, bypassing the services of a good editor.  Having been to Naples in person, in my minds eye, I can see the city described with more flair than what I read on the pages of this book.  And the transition of societies in the aftermath of a transformative war are better described in the books by Joseph Kannon and James Hilton, mentioned above.

I enjoyed this book and will continue the series.  But I am not breathlessly waiting to crack open the first page of the second book.  Indeed my next book of the year, my February reading, is by Tyler Cowen, the well known economist  and is titled, 'An Economist Gets Lunch.'