“L’Amica Geniale” or “My Brilliant Friend” — Guest Review by Christopher Nazzaro
L’Amica Geniale (2011-2014), or My Brilliant Friend (2012), is a series of novels by the pseudonymous Elena Ferrante. Composed of four books that span the lifetimes of two friends, the series is both epic in scale and intimate in detail, and is known as The Neapolitan Novels, reflecting their setting. Much has happened since the original publication of the first part, the eponymous My Brilliant Friend: the books have been widely translated, achieving international best-seller status; three of the four parts have been released as a streaming series for Italian television (RAI) and American premium cable (HBO, now Max); and the identity of the once mysterious author has been uncovered (perhaps) and covered up again.
The novels are worth doing a bit of research for; I even argue that it is worth learning Italian for them, or at least it is worth trying your hand at learning to read them. The whole series, all 1,717 pages, can be had in one bible-sized tome for around $100. An entire summer, or a nice chunk of a pandemic, could be spent in the company of two Neapolitan friends and their wide network of intertwining families, lovers, husbands, and children. Right on page one, we are drawn into this set of complex, mirroring relationships. Raffaella (Lila) Cerullo has gone missing, and her son, Rino, petitions her childhood best-friend, Elena (Lenu) Greco, to find her. Embittered by their mutual past, Elena does not take up the chase, or set to solving the mystery. Instead, she searches through her memory and attempts to capture Lila in writing.
These entwined friends, who in many ways represent parallel-universe versions of one another, are thus conveyed to us through the writing of a character whose first name, Elena, doubles that of the author’s own pseudonym. The resulting fictional memoir ranges from early childhood through the birth of Lenu and Lila’s friendship in a schoolhouse rivalry, to the many ways their friendship unfolds and unwinds. And the reader is certainly lucky that much of it unwinds in many gorgeous Italian locales.
Elena eventually flees Naples for the higher status northern cities of Pisa and Florence, and in doing so, develops into the very author we are reading; on the other hand, Lila spirals further and further into the mysterious disappearing persona whose sudden absence begins the book. Meanwhile the persona of Elena Ferrante gained renown, leading to further book deals and a series on television.
The streaming series is definitely worth a binge (especially because of those gorgeous Italian locales). The show can even serve as a good entree into the books, especially if you are reading them in the original Italian as a learning project. Of course details are lost in translation to TV. (I know nothing of the translation to English, as I read the Bible-sized complete edition in the original Italian). For instance, the scary, mafioso Don, whose looming, threatening dominance over the rione (neighborhood) terrifies and transfixes the girls, is explained to be a distant cousin of Lenu’s mother, a connection that is not essential to the story, but that ties the dangers of the Neapolitan periphery directly to the narrator, and perhaps obliquely to the author herself.
Sadly, though the gorgeous regional language of Naples appears in dialogue on the show, it is not captured, or even much used, in the book. Neapolitan Italian is technically my first language, and the language of my mother and grandfather, both born in a town peripheral to Naples that we would never attempt to visit again: My eldest aunt visited the relatives there and was met with the opposite of the typical Italian abbondanza of food and hospitality, and missed a tour of local sites due to arguments over who would act as her tour guide. Evidently, those who stayed can be quite cold to those who left. Not coincidentally, that is the theme and title of one of the books in the series: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. While we know that Lenu makes it out and makes good, Lila, her troubled, ingenious friend, stays in the orbit of the old rione and gets lost in its internecine struggles: workers’ struggles; her own escape from her unfaithful, mob-connected husband; raising a child as a single mother; seeing her family caught up in the workings of organized crime, and finding herself caught up in the gears of the powerful Dons as well. It all makes for high drama and beautiful scenery in your mind’s eye or on the screen; and for those wanting to improve their Italian, there are vast oceans of ink spilled on conversation, family matters, the bonds of friendship, daily life, and all of the tribulations of the lives of two brilliant women, who are geniuses, rivals, and friends.
