'My Brilliant Friend' by Elena Ferrante

A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante's inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists.

MY THOUGHTS:
All reports that this is a fascinating book are quite true. I'd call it a psychological suburban novel. The prologue introduces us to the narrator Elena, a senior lady who's just found out her lifelong friend Lila has disappeared. But rather than being concerned, Elena suspects it's just something Lila imagined doing for a long time and finally pulled off.

So she gets out her pen to write about the history of their friendship, which comprises the rest of the book. It describes how Lila helped Elena through all sorts of challenges, including school assignments, which she never got the chance to study herself. And it draws in a whole lot of their friends and family, since everyone's story crosses those of others.

My first impression of Lila had a negative tinge, because I thought, 'Who does that?' Who's mean enough to pull a deliberate disappearing act, putting those close to them through hell? As the story heats up though, it's easier to absolve her, when we see how people have thwarted this girl's ambition and creativity for years. It begins when she's the smartest kid in her class, yet her controlling father decides she's had enough formal education. Whenever Lila tries to re-direct her flair and intellect into the narrow channels left, some other bozo pops up, with the power to stuff her up. She tries to design her own line of shoes in her father's shoemakers' shop, and you have to read it to see what happens. Whenever Lila's stifled, it's as if her brilliance tries to leak out of any crack it can find. But one by one, they're all patched up by clueless people.

So it's easy to understand why removing herself entirely might appeal to her. But is her best friend Elena's reaction passive-aggressive, rather than the loving act it may appear on the surface? Perhaps writing her memories of their past down in a book becomes the latest way of foiling Lila's intentions. Basically, she's saying, 'If she thinks she can erase herself, I'll leave a trace of her that she can't touch.'

The main story starts when they're small girls living in a poor, struggling suburb in 1950's Naples. Her relationship with Lila means the world to Elena, although it causes pain as much as happiness. Lila's life shows that being feisty can't get you everything,  but she still has something Elena can't stop envying - the knack of making everything she touches seem more desirable than anything else.

Elena has everything Lila ever seemed to want, but finds it hard to enjoy. 'What I did by myself couldn't excite me. Only what Lila touched became important.' Even though Elena is living what appears to be the life of both their dreams, she can't stop feeling second rate and hackneyed. And to add yet another layer, we wonder whether this inferiority is even based in reality, or just in Elena's own head.

It's all told from Elena's point of view, but we can't help wondering whether or not Lila is even aware of the power of fascination and originality she wields. Every so often, she lets something slip which suggests that she considers Elena the superior one, because of her tact and ability to get along with people. Lila wonders if she herself has a knack of bringing badness out of others. And there's an impossible to miss ironic moment when she calls Elena her brilliant friend. What a role reversal.

Here's a tribute from Elena to Lila. 'She took the facts and in a natural way, changed them with tension. She intensified reality as she reduced it to words. She injected it with energy.' That sort of subtle detail really gets to the crux of what makes Lila shine as special. But does Elena stand out herself, for having the perception to detect these details?

The school chapters remind me what a nightmare that phase of our lives can be. It's the time when pecking orders are set up, based on performance and one-upmanship. We're completely fixed on comparing our reputations and abilities to others, and although we're not one hundred percent sure they're playing the game as hard and sneakily as we are, we assume it's true. As time progresses in this story, everyone grows up and puts on their pleasant adult masks. But we readers are aware of the childhood issues of a whole range of characters, and a simmering impression that they've just been swept under the carpet.

The male characters are super touchy, which comes across as a learned, cultural behaviour, especially when something like a sister's honour is at stake. Aggression and a quick fuse is a sign of perfect masculinity in their time and place. If someone mentioned such things as staying aloof or taking the higher ground, I doubt these fellows would even understand what they were talking about.

In case you haven't guessed, there's not only the two main characters, but a whole cast of friends and siblings to keep track of. And that takes some effort at times, with all the similar sounding Italian names. Three of the boys are called Nino, Gino and Rino for a start. I have the feeling that when we move on with the rest of the Neapolitan series, this mob is going to keep giving us a real soap opera. Even minor characters are depicted with a similar depth as the main pair of girls. You could easily write a whole essay on every single one of them.

Apart from her body of work, there's the mysterious legend of author Elena Ferrante herself, who pulled a similar stunt to her character Lila, as far as the world of celebrity authors is concerned. Her name is a pseudonym and her identity remains unknown. She insists on staying anonymous, and makes a lot of sense when she says a novel being launched into the world doesn't really need its author. The characters and plot are surely all we really care about, so shouldn't their creator be allowed to enjoy peace and quiet if she wants to?

 Human nature being as it is, many people have chosen to take her stance as a challenge, rather than a preference. Even style experts have joined the quest, carefully comparing her prose to those of other established authors, hoping to strike a match. But all to no avail so far. I can't help hoping Ferrante always stays successful at keeping herself a secret, for as long as that's what she wants.

I won't give it full marks, because some of the characters and their poor choices caused me to groan and face-palm so much. Some might argue that's actually a good reason for giving it five stars, and although I'm inclined to agree, I'm going with four. Just for interest, has anyone read all four novels in the series?

This counts toward my 2019 European Reading Challenge as a selection set in Italy. 

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Great words about the Sea

This week marks our first anniversary in our new house. We moved from our town in the Adelaide Hills where we've lived for over twenty-five years to a seaside suburb. The need to move was fairly sudden, and I felt devastated at the time. But it didn't take long for the beauty of living so close to the beach to win me over. To mark the occasion, I thought I'd collect a list of quotes from authors who have agreed with me about the restorative power of the ocean, and put it in their own unique words. 

'The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach, waiting for a gift from the sea.'
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

'I had my first view of the Pacific Ocean. To say it is beautiful does not half express it. It is simply beyond words. The water is such a a deep, wonderful blue and the sound of the waves breaking on the beach and their whisper as they flow back is something to dream about.'
Laura Ingalls Wilder, (during a visit to San Francisco, in a letter home to her husband. Here's my review of West From Home.)

'The waves rolled in like metal tubes carrying an egg white of foam on their peaks that broke into a thousand glittering splinters'
Elena Ferrante, from My Brilliant Friend (Review coming soon.)

'There is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it is sent away.'
Sarah Kay

'How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when it is clearly Ocean.'
Arthur C. Clarke

'You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the whole ocean does not become dirty.'
Mahatma Gandhi

'To me, the sea is a continual miracle. The fishes that swim, the rocks, the motion of the waves, the ships with men in them. What stranger miracles are there?'
Walt Whitman

'I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray.
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing
And hear the wild roar of their thunder today.'
Anne Bronte

'When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.'
Rainer Maria Rilke 

There are many others, but those are some of my favourites. That's me wading in the photo above, taken by my daughter. 

Literature's Most Awkward Marriage Proposals

Here's an old blast from the past in honour of Valentine's Day.

I understand that guys may have an anxious time when planning how to pop such a vulnerable, potentially life-changing question. Most of these books were written by women who either wanted a bit of a laugh, or to prove that being put on the spot and having to come up with an answer isn't always easy either. So here are several cringe-worthy examples from the pages of great novels, ranging from the mildly awkward to the truly terrible.

1) The Indirect Approach - Almanzo Wilder to Laura Ingalls
Putting out feelers may be fine, but look out for quick witted girls.

Almanzo: I was wondering if you'd like an engagement ring.
Laura: That would depend on who gave it to me.
Almanzo: If I should?
Laura: Then it would depend on the ring.
(From 'These Happy Golden Years' by Laura Ingalls Wilder. My review is here.)

2) The Ultimatum - Maxim de Winter to his second wife
Such sternness isn't the traditional way to go, and may lead to confusion. Following up with an insult doesn't help either. 

Maxim: Either you go to America with Mrs Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me.
Young Heroine: Do you want a secretary or something?
Maxim: No, I am asking you to marry me, you little fool.
(From 'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier. My review is here.)

3) The Proxy - Billy Andrews to Anne Shirley
Guys, however nervous you feel, please be man enough to at least ask her in person.

Jane: Anne, what do you think of my brother, Billy?
Anne: I don't understand. Why... I like him, of course.
Jane: Would you like him for a husband?
Anne: Whose husband?
Jane: Yours of course. Billy wants to marry you. He's always been crazy about you, and now father has given him the upper farm in his own name, and there's nothing to prevent him from getting married. But he's so shy, he couldn't ask you himself if you'd have him, so he got me to do it.
(From 'Anne of the Island' by L.M. Montgomery)

4) 'Just let me check' response - Jimmy Pendleton to Pollyanna
This was a delicate situation, and no fault of the hero. Pollyanna was in love with her childhood friend Jimmy, but suspected that his adopted father, John Pendleton, intended to propose to her himself. Since Pollyanna's mother had broken John's heart, she felt obligated not to repeat history. Poor Jimmy didn't know the craziness he was entering into. 

Jimmy: You mean you'd marry him, Pollyanna?
Pollyanna: No! I mean..er... yes, I suppose so.
Jimmy: Pollyanna, you wouldn't, you couldn't. You're breaking my heart.
Pollyanna: I know it, I know it! I'm breaking mine too. But I'll have to do it. I'd break your heart, I'd break mine, but I'd never break his.
Jimmy: Alright little girl, it'll have to be as you say. But surely never before was a man kept waiting for his answer till the girl he loved, and who loved him, found out if the other man wanted her.
(From 'Pollyanna Grows Up' by Eleanor H Porter. My review is here.)

5) The Condescension Approach - Fitzwilliam Darcy to Elizabeth Bennett
Don't ever begin a marriage proposal by telling the lady that it was against your better judgment!

Darcy: In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how much I admire and love you.
(Then when she ticks you off as you deserve, don't stick your foot in it even more!)
Darcy: Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?
Elizabeth: You are mistaken, Mr Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner. You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.
(Bravo Elizabeth. He's lucky he got another chance.)
(From 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen)

6) The Tactless Approach - Rhett Butler to Scarlett O'Hara
If you want to propose to a lady, don't go on the very day of her former husband's funeral! She'll consider it bad taste.

Rhett: My news is this. I still want you more than any woman I've ever seen, and now that Frank's gone, I thought you'd be interested to know it.
Scarlett: I... you are the most ill bred man in the world, coming here at this time of all times, with your filthy... and Frank hardly cold. If you had any decency... would you leave this...?'
Rhett: Hush, I am asking you to marry me. Would you be convinced if I knelt down?
(From 'Gone with the Wind' by Margaret Mitchell)

7) The Divine Edict Approach - St John Rivers to Jane Eyre
Claiming that you speak for God as well as yourself must be the ultimate pressure. This has got to be one of literature's most unromantic proposals. 

Rivers: Jane, come back with me to India. Come as my helpmeet and fellow labourer. God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife. It is not personal but mental endowments they have given you. You are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary's wife you must, shall be. You shall be mine. I claim you not for my pleasure but for my sovereign's service.
(From 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte. My review is here.)

8) The Role Reversal Approach -Valancy Stirling to Barney Snaith
It's a very brave move for a girl to propose to a guy. Expect him to be surprised, and it might help to have something up your sleeve.

Barney: Going home, Miss Stirling? 
Valancy: I don't know... yet.
Barney: I thought I'd run down and see if there was anything I could do for you.
Valancy: Yes, there is something you can do for me. Will you marry me?
Barney: Come now. I knew luck was just waiting around the corner for me. All the signs have been pointing that way today.
Valancy: Wait. I'm in earnest. Of course with all my bringing up I realise this is one of those things a lady shouldn't do.
Barney: But why... Why?
Valancy: For two reasons. The first is I'm crazy about you. The second is... this.  
(From 'The Blue Castle' by L.M. Montgomery. My review is here.) 

I hope you enjoyed this face palming post, brought to you from my memory and a quick bit of flipping back through books. Do you see any favourites there? 

'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau

Originally published in 1854, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, is a vivid account of the time that Henry D. Thoreau lived alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond. It is one of the most influential and compelling books in American literature. This new paperback edition-introduced by noted American writer John Updike-celebrates the 150th anniversary of this classic work. Much of Walden's material is derived from Thoreau's journals and contains such engaging pieces as "Reading" and "The Pond in the Winter" Other famous sections involve Thoreau's visits with a Canadian woodcutter and with an Irish family, a trip to Concord, and a description of his bean field. This is the complete and authoritative text of Walden-as close to Thoreau's original intention as all available evidence allows. For the student and for the general reader, this is the ideal presentation of Thoreau's great document of social criticism and dissent.

MY THOUGHTS:
Not many authors have more of a romantic vibe than this guy. Maybe a deep desire to simplify and slow down keeps tourists flocking to the replica of his little house at Walden Pond. Even though he's been dead for over a century, people still hope to catch some of Thoreau's inspiration from just sitting where he sat. He was living the self-sufficient, off-the-grid dream of many of us, which made me choose to read this book for the American classic category of the 2019 Back to the Classics Challenge.

Basically, Henry David Thoreau decided to escape from the hustle and bustle of normal life and be his own master. So he built a tiny house a mile from his home town, furnished it with basic essentials and figured out that he could live off 27 cents per week. He stretched six weeks of work a year to cover expenditure for the remaining 46, which he spent getting up at his leisure, enjoying nature and recording his thoughts. It sure does sound like an appealing lifestyle.

Walden is an eye-opener though, making me consider that Thoreau might have been an intimidating person to get to know. I was used to thinking of him as a hero who gives eloquent encouragement to jump off the treadmills of public opinion and modern living. But the Thoreau I find within the pages tends to be a hardcore fanatic whose views swing further than I thought in the other direction. I've no doubt that no matter how well we feel we've pared down our lives, the real Thoreau might still dismiss us as worldly conformers. Here are just a few things he has to say about various subjects.

Decorations and Ornaments
'I had three pieces of limestone on my desk but was terrified to find they needed dusting daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust.'

Clothing
'Remember their main objectives are to retain the vital heat and cover nakedness. When you do wear them to pieces, they meld to your character.'

Worldly Goods
'When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all, I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry.'

The 7 Wonders of the World
'As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some degraded booby, whom it would have been manlier and wiser to have drowned in the Nile and then given his body to the dogs.' (I guess that ties in with his opinion on working for bosses.)

Also, he maintains a sort of smug tone, that's a bit on the nose. Being confident in your own ethic while going against the norm is great, yet sometimes it's hard to turn a blind eye to Thoreau's show-offy, superior attitude. It's like sitting in on one man's long back-patting session. A prime example is the way he pays out John Field, a destitute Irish immigrant with a wife and several small children, for struggling not to starve. 'Poor John Field, thinking to live by some derivative old mode in this primitive new country. I trust he will not read this unless he can improve by it.' I wonder if any of Thoreau's friends ever reminded him of the following points, which indicate that his case was different from Field's in other ways too.

1) You're single, which means only one mouth to feed.
2) You don't even own the land you're living on. Ralph Waldo Emerson is letting you squat. Others aren't so lucky.
3) Being a local boy, you have frequent visitors from friends and family, who no doubt bring potluck dinners.
4) There's always the option of packing up and moving back to your parents' place in Concord. In fact, you only lasted two years anyway.


That last point was one of the biggest surprises for me, as I'd picked up the book imagining him settled on the banks of the pond for at least a decade. He only did it for two years! It sounds like such a short time for anyone not to lose a bit of face, but he explains it with his usual dash of pomposity. 'I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.' Yeah, okay Thoreau. 

Some of the people he stumbles across are the unsung heroes of the book, whether or not Thoreau intended them to be. I love the self-professed dumb guy, who said he'd always been intellectually deficient from childhood, but guessed that the Lord loved him just as much as the smart guys, since he made him that way. Maybe he's the smartest of all. Thoreau called him a 'metaphysical puzzle.' But he balances it by having digs at clever people too, who he calls, 'men of ideas instead of legs. A sort of intellectual centipede that made you crawl all over.' Nobody is spared from his sharp pen.

In spite of being disillusioned in the ways I've mentioned, his legend continues. He's still such an enigma, and so much irony surrounds him. 'I say let your affairs be two or three, not a hundred or a thousand.' Even though he was such a stickler for not taking on multi roles, so many people from different walks of life still want to claim him as their own, including philosophers, nature writers, poets, minimisers, self-help gurus, relaxation therapists, business men, environmentalists, and the list goes on. I'm glad I read it, although I feel inclined to give it two stars, since it was a bit of a slog and very hard to wallow through at times. Maybe I'm just one of those more intellectually dense people he discusses, who don't fall under its spell. But because I admire the dude for making himself a celebrity by doing nothing much at all for a period of time, I'll add an extra one.

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'Little' by Edward Carey

In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and . . . at the wax museum, heads are what they do.

MY THOUGHTS: 
Oh wow, there are some rare books which you know will be a benchmark for the rest of the year, and this is one of them. Eccentricity and wisdom makes for a dynamite duo, and this novel has both in spades. Its weirdness is used to reveal subtleties about how our world chugs along, and Edward Carey keeps it coming through his main character, Marie.

It'd be fair to call it a faction (blend of fact and fiction) since it's based on the life story of Madame Tussaud, told from her own fictional perspective. About time it was done, because she lived an incredible life. Marie Grosholtz was orphaned very young, and became an apprentice to Philip Curtius, a skilled wax sculpture, with whom she moved to Paris and helped set up a house of exhibits. In young adulthood she spent a stint at Versailles as art tutor to Princess Elisabeth, the younger sister of King Louis XVI. She also witnessed Marie Antoinette giving birth. And later during the French Revolution, her services were in high demand, as former celebrities were being guillotined in droves, and she was given only their heads to work with.

It was all so long ago, Carey had the right to use some poetic license to fill gaps, but he's done heaps of research and I'm awed by his version of Marie, and the endearing voice he's given her. She starts off as a premature, undersized newborn who survived despite the odds. 'A pig-headed, pocket-sized thing', which sets her up as a stubborn survivor all through the story. There was so much against her, including self-professed terrible looks and no extended family to look out for her. (Believe me, her likeness shown here is far more attractive than her description in the novel.) Yet Marie is left standing, often to her own surprise, long after some of the more privileged and pampered characters have passed on.


I believe her resilience is partly because of her unique way of taking life's twists and turns in her stride. Marie has the skill of noticing tiny details others overlook. She always describes her revelations in her own strange, slightly dark way, and accepts unfairness and injustice on the chin, because she latches onto the deeper reasons. About her nemesis, the Widow Picot, she says, 'Perhaps she needed someone beneath her to know for sure she wasn't on the bottom rung. Perhaps being cruel was proof of her success.'

I think there's a combination of true and made-up characters, and I won't forget Curtius' pushy, loud business partner, widow Charlotte Picot, and her pale, self-effacing son Edmond. Or Jacques Beauvisage, the street kid they hire who collects stories of murders. And they all live in a house which is believed to be haunted by the ghosts of former monkey occupants. I'll finish with a few examples of my favourite human nature lessons that emerge from Marie's experiences.

1) It dawns on the household that casting figures of murderers and villains is often an even greater draw card to the public than beloved heroes, because of human fascination with evil and depravity. This eye-opener prompts the widow to tell their good friend Mercier that his wax likeness will have to hit the trash, because, 'We accept only the very best and very worst heads. And yours, like the great multitudes', lies somewhere in between.' How true.

2) There's Marie's Eureka moment, when she twigs that her own creativity gives her an emotional tie to the work itself. 'There's the queen, but not only she, but Marie Grosholtz too, both alive in that head. The moment I realised that, I couldn't stop.'

3) But sadly, she discovers the tendency for people to want to believe they're greater than they really are. She knows that wax is a limited medium because it's too honest, while others, like portraiture, can get away with all sorts of flattering lies. She gets into hot water at the palace, when the royal family think she's judging them as pigs in a sty, while Marie didn't set out to do any such thing and knows her models are accurate.

There are great descriptions of pre-Revolutionary France, which I'm sure would've been authentic. 'Here, opposites mixed; flour-covered wig-makers' assistants beside coal carriers, thick with black dust.' I love the images such sentences create in our minds. And Edward Carey's art work and illustrations all through the book prove that there really is a place for pictures in adult novels. If I haven't convinced you all to read this book yet, it also has one of the best and most deserved punch in the face scenes. The entire story took Carey 15 years to write, and the quality shows.

This counts toward my 2019 European Reading Challenge, as a selection set in France.

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