My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante may be my favorite of the course. The main reason being that of my Italian roots, and how similar the storytelling resembles my grandparents' stories of their childhoods in Italy. My grandparents born and raised in small Italian villages, immigrated from Italy to Canada in the late 1960s, meaning they spent their childhoods in Italy at the same time Elena and Lila would have. I found a couple of correlations in Elena's upbringing to my grandfather, who grew up in a gang-controlled town in Central Italy. Both my grandfather and Elena realized that education was their way out of their town. I also found some personality similarities between Lila to my grandmother, in that they are very stubborn and strong ladies (in a good way). I found myself getting distracted and zoning out while reading this book as a lot of the terminology brought me back to listening to stories of my grandparents, and it often didn't take much, such as "neighborhood shoemaker" (115), which is such a subtle thing to get distracted by but it brought back memories of hearing about "the town restaurant" and "the neighborhood butcher" from my grandparent's stories which brings out the small town feel. I heard about their towns all my childhood, but when I visited their Italian towns a few years back, I saw for myself how truly small their towns were and it was very cool to see. Also names of beaches and towns in the book such as "Spiaggia dei Maronti" (210) sound similar to the beaches near my grandmother's childhood town. 

The things I took away from this book were friendship and how it comes in different shapes and sizes. Although growing up in the same poor neighborhood in Naples, from the start of the book Elena and Lila kind of seem like opposites, with Lila being more courageous, outgoing, and strong-headed, compared to Elena who is quieter and kept to herself. Lila got a lot of male attention and an aura to her that Elena looked up to, whereas Elena was more focused on her studies. I found the friendship kind of strange considering it seemed like Elena would almost fangirl over Lila, yet also get annoyed with her, could be envy? I guess it could be like the saying "opposites attract", and they were always there for each other when it mattered, but it appeared a little strange to me as I've never had a relationship anywhere near this dynamic, could be just me though. 


Question: Have you ever been friends with someone you Envied or Looked up to? if so how were the relationships different? and If it was envy, how did It affect the relationship?

Comments

  1. Daniel Orizaga2 April 2024 at 19:12

    Thank you for sharing part of your family history! I haven't visited that area of Italy yet, but I have some questions, ha! From what you have heard, from what you saw on your trip or from what you read in the novel, how important is the socialization of adolescents in the small towns of southern Italy? Are there patterns of gender expectations that continue to be reproduced or have views on marriage changed, for example?

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