Frantumaglia by Elena Ferrante
This collection of letters, articles, interviews, and thoughts spans more than twenty years, and it offers a singular portrait of a writer who exudes unwavering devotion to her craft. Many of Ferrante’s readers’ inquiries are addressed in these pages. She discusses her decision to take a back seat and allow her books to live independent lives. She talks about her feelings and worries about having her books turned into movies. She discusses the difficulty in coming up with succinct responses to interview questions. She describes the pleasures and difficulties of writing, including the agony of creating a story just to find out that it isn’t good enough.
She thinks about her feelings toward psychoanalysis, the cities she has lived in, motherhood, feminism, and her early years as a repository for perceptions, memories, and fantasies. The end effect is a lively and personal portrayal of a writer in action.
Frantumaglia by Elena Ferrante
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A very thorough, fascinating, and important compilation of Elena Ferrante’s interviews, tale snippets, and thoughts, assembled by her publishers. There are several instances where the author’s response, analysis, and considerations simply take your breath away, even though the queries from the journalists and the brilliant Elena Ferrante’s answers occasionally may appear repetitious. She is a brilliant fiction writer in addition to being a visionary and a profound analyst of our modern environment.
She has a magical way of describing myths, in my opinion. The most amazing parts of Frantumaglia, in my opinion, are when she tells the stories of Dido or Ariadne. The most intriguing theme running through the book, in my opinion, is the protagonist’s obsession with weaving women. She says her mother made clothes, and there are these beautiful passages that describe what it was like to go with her mother to the fabric store to buy fabric and watch her fit outfits to other ladies. A comparison can be drawn between weaving cloth together to make costumes and weaving language together to make stories. Her retellings of weavers who utilize fabric to create entire national story cultures rather than just dresses demonstrate this.
