Originally published in 3000Melbourne magazine.
My Brilliant Friend is the alluring first part of a quartet following the lives two young women growing up in a poor village in 1950s Naples. This is the fourth novel of Italian author Elena Ferrante to be translated into English, and presents a compelling portrait of a friendship that is as fiercely intimate as it is full of rivalry.
As young children at elementary school, Elena, the porter’s daughter, and Lina, the shoemaker’s daughter, quickly become inseparable. The prospect of intellectualism as a path out of their shabby town captivates them, and they dream of one day writing a book like Little Women. Lina is naturally brilliant, coasting through their lessons with remarkable ease, while Elena works hard to keep up with her, finding herself perpetually second best. This unequal dynamic comes to define their friendship as they grow up – the fiery and charismatic Lina always outshining her friend, leaving Elena to at turns envy, resent and worship her.
Things start to shift when it’s time for the girls to continue on to high school. Elena, permitted by her reluctant parents to keep studying, works furiously to become an academic star, but Lina is made to drop out and work in her father’s shop. Angry and conflicted, the irrepressible Lina continues to find small ways to show up her friend and treat her triumphs with disdain. As Elena flourishes academically, she notices “with increasing clarity that it made (Lina) somewhat uneasy, as if it were ultimately she who felt the need to continuously prove that she could talk to me as an equal.” The ‘superior’ friend, as it turns out, may not be the happier one. Yet at the same time, Lina has found new areas in which she excels, blooming into an astonishing beauty that bewitches all the neighbourhood boys – and the attention brings drama and unrest into both their lives.
The post-war Neapolitan neighbourhood itself plays a large part in the tensions simmering beneath the girls’ story. It’s a small and volatile community, where everyone knows everyone and the culture of violence and family feuds pervades every aspect of their lives. There are guns, knives, murders and a motley assortment of personalities. As Ferrante follows the slowly diverging trajectories of the two girls, they become increasingly aware of how claustrophobic the limitations imposed on them by their poverty and their status as women can be.
Much of the intensity of the novel is tampered by the classical, episodic structure, and language that is both solemn and beautiful. As a standalone novel, it’s an engaging snapshot of life – but the masterful shift towards the end will leave you yearning for the next installment.