gimley reviewed Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
Review of 'Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I understand the next book is not yet translated. I may have to learn Italian.
If we think of Naples as emotional chaos and Northern Italy as order, an attempt to reign in the impulsivity and instability, in this volume, we learn that the price of that stability is an emotional emptiness. Those who leave the chaos, leave life and get rationality in return. They give up dialect and speak Italian or the dead language, Latin, of ancient Rome. It seems a good trade at first. It's a step up, socially and financially, but the sex and violence you've escaped aren't really gone. They are just biding their time.
Lila stayed, Lenu left. At her most distant, she can no longer write. Creativity isn't part of the rational, dead life. Civilization now seems like only discontents. In her ongoing friendship/competition with Lila, she can't tell if she is a winner …
I understand the next book is not yet translated. I may have to learn Italian.
If we think of Naples as emotional chaos and Northern Italy as order, an attempt to reign in the impulsivity and instability, in this volume, we learn that the price of that stability is an emotional emptiness. Those who leave the chaos, leave life and get rationality in return. They give up dialect and speak Italian or the dead language, Latin, of ancient Rome. It seems a good trade at first. It's a step up, socially and financially, but the sex and violence you've escaped aren't really gone. They are just biding their time.
Lila stayed, Lenu left. At her most distant, she can no longer write. Creativity isn't part of the rational, dead life. Civilization now seems like only discontents. In her ongoing friendship/competition with Lila, she can't tell if she is a winner or a loser.
At the "surprize" party at the Solara's, the horror of what Lenu left becomes clear. But Lila tells her that, though it appears to have conquered her, it's really the other way around. She is using them. Lenu isn't convinced, but she can't ignore it either.
In the end, she thinks she can work things out with her family and have both rational order and the satisfactions of her desires. But it's not the end--there's a whole other book. Somehow, even though it looks promising to her, I'm expecting to to fall apart early on in book 4. Can I wait patiently for it to be translated? Or must I resort to violence?
