The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set by Elena Ferrante
The four Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, starting with My Brilliant Friend, follow Elena and Lila through various periods of their lives—along paths that differ greatly—starting with their rough-edged upbringing in Naples, Italy, shortly after WWII. Even though jealousy, hatred, or physical distance may occasionally keep them apart, their link is unshakable for better or worse.
All four books—My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child—are collected in this book.
The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set by Elena Ferrante
14 used from $35.95
Free shipping
Amazon.com
All of Ferrante’s books are told from the perspective of women who work in the literary field in some capacity (as writers, editors, or journalists), are typically from Naples, and have children who are of a certain age. Because we frequently make this presumption about female authors, there is a tendency to assign these traits to Elena Ferrante.
My Brilliant Friend, a four-volume novel, very seductively plays into it. These criteria apply to the narrator, also known as Elena and known by the nickname Lenù, who is also a writer and hails from Naples. We follow Lenù and her buddy Lila through their formative years in the first book. They were both raised in a very underprivileged area and are both ambitious girls. That’s about it, then. The story is that.
The majority of the book, however, is devoted to describing the setting, the locals, and the political climate of Italy in the middle of the twentieth century. The book’s premise revolves around education and how it sends these two women down contrasting paths. When they purchase a copy of Little Women, it is one of the most poignant scenes. It becomes their book as they read it aloud in this courtyard. It is evident that this is a friendship that has been affected and mediated by literature everywhere, both in terms of the ways in which it may draw people together to share a common worldview and the ways in which it can push them apart…
