I absolutely loved My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Even though my expectations were high, the novel did not disappoint and I’m very happy I get to end this course on a good note. My Brilliant Friend is a novel that keeps the reader entertained with a multitude of dramatic episodes and characters while also teaching the valuable lessons that Lila and Elena had to learn in their society. Being Italian myself, I identified with many of the themes expressed by the author and it was very interesting to read about Naples during the 1950s and compare it to the Naples of today.
One of the two things that I found most interesting about the novel is how the friendship and development of two very different characters converge into the same type of oppression in a misogynistic world. Elena and Lila are both very smart individuals. The support of their families or lack thereof, though, leads Elena to pursue her intellectual interests while Lila is forced to put an end to her academic career. Nevertheless, both of them try to realize their aspirations — Elena with her article and Lila with the shoe business. What the two protagonists end up facing regardless of their different paths in life is oppression in a male-dominated society. Elena fails to publish her article and Lila’s shoe-manufacturing innovation ends up being instrumentalized by men who want to manipulate her. The girls’ efforts end up being meaningless in the unfair and violent system they grow up in. Ferrante decides to treat the heavy themes of oppression and violence throughout the novel, but I was surprised at how she is able to alternate deep reflections with more lighthearted instances of friendship, happiness, and love.
The second thing that the novel pushed me to reflect upon, especially after I was done reading, is the role of dialect in the story. The sentence “in dialect” is repeated many times in the book to try and represent the symbolic role of dialect in the original novel. However, when I had a look at the novel in Italian (L’amica geniale), I realized how much gets lost in translation. The author’s use of the Neapolitan dialect in the original novel enriches dialogues and really helps the reader grasp the cultural side of Southern Italy that’s being portrayed. The loss of this traditional and cultural quality made me realize how difficult it is to translate novels preserving all facets of what the author tries to portray.
My question for the class is: how important did the use of dialect seem to you when you were reading the book?
– Bianca
Hi, Bianca! Thanks for your post!
By the way, which part of Italy are you from?
I’m glad you brought up the language issue. It is clearly central to the story. There are many things to talk about this, and I hope that we will do it tomorrow in class, but the one that stands out the most for me is how Elena embraces the Italian and how Lila practically rejects it, even though she handles it with great ease. I think it symbolizes Elena’s interest in leaving the world of the neighbourhood and Lila’s decision (or constraint) to stay there. Italian, in this sense, is a sign of social mobility and ambition.
By the way, I didn’t read the Italian version, but I understand that very little dialect is used, although Elena describes whether Italian or Neapolitan is spoken.
Saluti
Hi Biana, great post! I agree with your opinion on the novel, I too really enjoyed reading it. To answer your question, I think the use of Dialect in the text seemed significant in the sense that they would use it in particular cases. This kinda of grouped those moments together and signifies them.
Hi Bianca,
I really enjoyed reading your response, because it has me thinking about something I hadn’t really before in the context of this book, which is dialect! Like all the other books are in this course (at least I think…), My Brilliant Friend is translated. Like you said, some of the meaning in this translation process is lost. I haven’t had the chance to read any of these books in their original language, mostly because I don’t know any of the languages they are translated from (unfortunately). But I think that dialect plays a significant part in the meaning of this novel. It tells you a lot about the characters, where they come from, and who they are. Some of that is lost due to translation, but even with the translation I found that there was a large degree of importance dedicated to this notion of dialect. Thanks for elaborating upon this in your blog post!