Book Club: 'My Brilliant Friend,' by Elena Ferrante

The book is the first novel in Ferrante’s so-called Neapolitan quartet, which tracks the lifelong friendship between Lenù and Lila, two women from a rough neighborhood in Naples, Italy, even as family, relationships and work pull their lives in different directions.

In this week’s episode, MJ Franklin discusses the book with fellow editors Joumana Khatib, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles. 

[julialavilla]

I’ve read Days of Abandonment in English - and loved the style. Curiously, I came across My Brilliant Friend at the Powell’s Bookstore in Portland - and it was in Russian (my native language) - so I decided to try it in Russian to see if the language of translation will impact my perception. I have to admit that my impression if Ferrante’s prose in Russian turned out to be the same! That means that the connotation of Ferrante’s writing is so strong that the language if narration (denotation in linguistics) does not matter as much. Currently, I ‘m starting the third book of the Neapolitan cycle in Russian - because I started reading the cycle in Russian and don’t want to jump between language versions - I can’t stop…

[juleofthetarot]

After getting through the first 60ish pages, I loved this series of books and read them all one after the other. Brilliant!