Is my brilliant friend gay
I have some scattered thoughts about rereading this book though, which I would love to hash out a bit in the comments if anyone has any extra thoughts! I can’t vow a super sequential post because these are just things that popped up while I was reading. (Do not read this send if you don’t want to be spoiled! Also it mentions some sexual violence, general physical violence, and some ableism.)
Firstly, this publication still strikes me as such an amazing description of coming into womanhood—the fluctuations in confidence to do with beauty and smarts, the realizations of what a womanly body means to men, the insufferable competition between girls we are taught to perform. Lenù’s insecurities are at first about whether she can be loved by a man because she does not locate herself attractive, while Lila, sharp and generally ahead of Lenù, is immediately aware of how women can obtain hurt by men in the neighborhood and beyond. In rereading this novel, I can observe how Lenù is naive and naive, and Lila might seem aggressive and overtly violent, but it’s so apparent that Lila knows more about the world than Lenù. Still, Lenù’s effort with her sexuality after she is sexually assaulted by the D
My Brilliant Friend, the acclaimed Elena Ferrante novel and recently released HBO reveal, centers around Elena “Lenu” Greco and Raffaela “Lila” Cerullo, two best friends growing up in Naples, and the people in their neighborhood. The adaptation is not quite as good as the books, because the interior lives of memorable literary characters are never so easily reproduced for the camera. But the exhibit is charming, and enjoyable, because it effectively mimics dusty mid-century Naples; because it faithfully recreates the plot and characters of Ferrante’s first novel; because that plot and those characters are so compelling that to watch the action play out on screen is nearly as fine as watching it play out on the page, even if you neglect Elena’s monologues.
The eight episode miniseries isn’t yet finished, so I’ll reserve verdict for the finished product. I execute want to speak about one element, though: The teenaged Michele Solara, as portrayed by Alessio Gallo.
Who is Michele Solara? Michele and his brother Marcello are the preening, rich bullies of the lot, heirs to a shady black market established by their parents. The Solaras
The Volume
Date: Sep 2 2015
With Tuesday's publication of The Story of the Lost Youngster, Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels have come to the end. (Breathe. Breathe.) The fourth and final installment wraps up the tale of friendship, class effort, political upheaval and the search for identity that has hooked so many readers over the four years since the first volume was published in Italy. Between My Brilliant Friend and The Story of the Lost Minor, the novels cover some five decades and a wide cast of characters, leading Elena Greco and her compatriots from childhood through higher education and early careers, marriages and breakups, motherhood and the death of parents.
Inception in the late 1970s and ending in 2010, the fourth book suggestions the widest span of years for its characters to grow, tying up many of its plot elements while leaving several mysteries in place. The friendship between Elena and Lila remains central to the story, yet its sprawling reach leaves room to follow well over a dozen of their friends and neighbors.
Here's a quick look at how some of them have transformed throughout the four novels. (Please Note: I'll be talking about the full arc of the
[Getting] Down with Gal Pals
There’s a moment in Laura Kaye’s underrated novel English Animalswhen the protagonist Mirka, sitting in the village bar with her married lover, notices that they can caress fairly openly by virtue of their both being women.‘Nobody was looking,’ she thinks to herself. ‘I realised they probably thought we were only two friends who liked to contact each other a lot when they talked.’ While the obliviousness of those around them is conducive to their affair, this moment encapsulates a problem gender non-conforming women frequently encounter when searching for their counterparts in publish and on screen. So brief attention is paid to women’s relationships with each other that amity and eroticism are too often confused, to uncomfortable effect: such blurring shows the lack of significance regularly attributed both to lesbianism and to dense female friendship. When I was younger and first looking for media that represented my have experiences, this inchoate model of relationships used to make me cautious about ever getting too close to my female friends, in case they or I became similarly confused. I was already lonely without a gender non-conforming community, and this