The Story of a New Name: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 2)

Here is a taste of Ferrante's "The Story of a New Name": Lena, the narrator, has finally broken away from Naples to become a university student in Pisa. She is reflecting on her relationship with Lila, her closest friend, the one who married at 16 and is now carrying on an affair with Nino, a radical university student, whom Lena first loved:

"Yes, it's Lila who makes writing difficult. My life forces me to imagine what hers would have been if what happened to me had happened to her, what use she would have made of my luck. And her life continuously appears in mine, in the words that I've uttered, in which there's often an echo of hers, in a particular gesture that is an adaptation of a gesture of hers, in my less which is such because of her more, in my more which is the yielding to the force of her less. Not to mention what she never said but let me guess, what I didn't know and read later in her notebooks. Thus the story of the facts has to reckon with filters, deferments, partial truths, half lies: from it comes an arduous measurement of time passed that is based completely on the unreliable measuring device of words."

What's so fascinating to me about this novel is that we are dealing with two brilliant working class women, one of whom, LIla, drops out of high school to marry a man who turns out to be both violent and a criminal, while Lena, breaks away from Lila, their families and their neighborhood against all odds to attend university, going on to a life of academic success and writing. It is Lena who narrates the novel. It is her language, her voice. both objective and intellectually searching, while still deeply immersed in the native dialect, that we hear in the novel.

There is a knowingness in this novel, an inescapable maturity, which you often only find in European fiction. Behind Ferrante there is Moravia, Morante, La Capria, the great Modernist novelist of Naples, and possibly even Pratolini, who wrote so surely about working class life in Florence. But Ferrante is also herself. She writes about women as no Italian novelist since perhaps Grazia Deledda, who won the Nobel Prize in 1926, has written about them. Her psychological acuteness is breathtaking. The third and final volume of the trilogy "Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay," will be released in early September. I can't wait to read it.

The Story of a New Name is the second in Elena Ferrante's highly-praised Neapolitan Quartet. In it, we again meet the two friends. Lila and Elena, both born in August 1944 and now in their late teens and early twenties.

By the end of the first book, My Brilliant Friend, teenaged Lila was already married to the wealthy grocer Stefano. Their marriage had continued the neighborhood pattern of rape and beatings. The "brilliant" Lila, who, like Elena, had longed for a different kind of life away from the impoverished neighborhood where they grew up, had escaped the poverty of her childhood in her marriage to Stefano, but she couldn't escape the culture of male domination and physical abuse. That was simply the accepted way of the world.

It was inevitable that the spirited Lila would eventually rebel and seek more from life. The only surprising thing about that was where and from whom she sought that "more."

Elena, meanwhile, with the help and encouragement of her teachers and her own hard work, as well as a little bit of luck, continued her progress through the educational system. She escaped the trap of an early marriage and managed to continue to college, which opened up a whole new world to her.

The story of Elena's first trip away from her neighborhood to go to the college at Pisa brought back some vivid memories for me. I could relate very well to the apprehension and anxiety of a girl who had lived all her life in an insular neighborhood as she struggled to find her way and her place in this new world she had entered. Been there. Done that. Got the tee shirt.

This really is, in so many ways, a heartbreaking story. The barriers that life throws up for these two young women must seem almost unreal to younger women readers living in Western societies today, but their older mothers, aunts, grandmothers can testify that the barriers really did exist and, in all too many instances, still do, even if in modified form.

Elena continues to be the narrator of this story, but her narration is informed by some notebooks of Lila's. Lila had given them to her and pressed her to keep them - but not read them - so that Stefano would not find them. They were notebooks containing her writing about her feelings and experiences from the time of childhood right up through her marriage. Of course, Elena could not resist the temptation of reading them, and so she is able to tell us what Lila was feeling concerning many of the events of both their lives.

The two young women had always been competitive, especially about school, but, as they reach adulthood, they also become competitive about men. They are attracted to the same young man, although Elena denies her attraction. This attraction will have important consequences for their friendship and for their lives.

Throughout these years, the friendship undergoes repeated trials. The lives of the two have diverged in very significant ways and, at times, they are emotionally distant as well as physically distant from each other. But always something brings them back together.

I loved this book. I thought it was even better than My Brilliant Friend. From the very first page of The Story of a New Name I was mesmerized. I would have liked to read the entire book in one sitting, but, unfortunately, life intervened. I had work to do, places to go, appointments to keep, but I always returned to it as soon as I could, because I just couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next.

My only real problem with the book was one of the same ones I had with the first entry, namely trying to keep the cast of thousands straight! All those confusing names and all those families and their interrelationships. Had the author not again included that index of characters at the beginning as a handy reference, I might have been irretrievably lost.

As it is, I now feel that I know and understand Lila and Elena. The drama of their lives seems so real, so well-written, and so engrossing that one can't help feeling that it must be based upon real life. The author herself is something of a mystery, but she grew up in Naples and it seems likely that she experienced or observed events similar to the ones that she describes in her books.

Or maybe she just has a really vivid imagination.

I've just downloaded Book 3 as I write this.

Ferrante, as if part Forensic Pathologist, part Historian, is able to dissect every thought, every feeling, every nuance, and every breath that both Lila and Elena experience throughout their daily lives.

These books will make many uncomfortable as they can be dark, depressing and violent at times and are not “friendly” books or very uplifting (at least through Book 2). In fact, it’s difficult to find any spark of happiness between the pages of the first two books. If they are there, they are quickly diffused.

Ferrante’s raw look into the lives of two very different women is astonishing and exposed. One, Elena, who seems to only live through the other, insecure and driven by the other, and Lila, who is too smart for her time, too independent and confident. One who obeys, one who does not. One who is studious and rigid, disciplined and focused, and one who is creative, manipulative at times, and meanders through life with the weight of her poverty and the mistakes she has made bearing down on her. Both touching on brilliance, or at the very least, the capacity to be successful. Choices.

It is a slice of the lives and friendship of two women close-up and personal, but universal in reach.

I empathize with the sadness and frustration that some other reviewers have stated, and perhaps it is that sadness and frustration that compels one to read the next – to find that silver lining in life. The hope that love and friendship will overcome, no matter how hard a path is set before you.

I've just finished this second book in the trilogy. What a wonderful read. Ferrante has captured the raw emotions of a Naples neighborhood populated by working class people fighting for money, love, respect, and most often fighting with each other. Their lives are circumscribed by tradition and more doors close on these Neapolitans than open for them. Opportunity is rare and of the two brilliant friends, only one will succeed in getting a higher education. Elena will surpass her best friend Lila by gaining an impressed teacher's mentorship and going to high school and then college. But the bittersweet affection and competition that marks their friendship will continue despite their different life pathways. These dual traits are as recognizable in turbulent Naples or cosmopolitan New York. Today we talk about toxic friendships. But this female bond unit is loyal, hurtful, and as competitive as the Williams sisters on a tennis court. Lila defines herself by co-opting the knowledge accrued by her friends and eventually her husband, whom she married for money and status by the age of sixteen. Many suitors' hearts break when this marriage occurs, but the bride's heart turns stone cold when she sees an avowed enemy wearing shoes she made years ago to the wedding reception. These were shoes bought by her fiancé and destined to be saved. Lila will never forgive this betrayal and takes revenge on her new husband by withholding her love. Their wedding night becomes an assault and the physical violence she suffers becomes a way of life. While Lila lives a life of drama and danger, Elena moves toward intellectual fulfillment in Pisa and romance tinged by respect. The second book ends with Lila out of the marriage and Naples, but enslaved in a degrading job in a sausage factory. She has hit bottom while her childhood friend and alter ego Elena continues to soar.