The power to cure a commitment-phobe
Outside of my relational life (I’m committed and loyal in the familial, friendship, and marital departments), I’ve always been a bit of commitment-phobe. Clock it up to me being an Aquarius (you have to allow me this astrological indulgence, as it’s not only Aquarius season but also my birthday eve), but I’ve been known to indulge in a passing fancy. In fact, it’s the theme of my newsletter, in a sense. I’ll get (literally) obsessed with something for a matter of weeks. It will be the only thing I think about. Then, one day, inevitably, I’ll wake up and feel indifferent. A new obsession comes to replace, and flightily we roll along.
That’s why, even though I waxed poetic on the, well, brilliance, of My Brilliant Friend when I read it back in 2015, I didn’t surprise myself when I abandoned the remaining three books of the series in favor of pastures new. And, in fact, none of this is news to any of you, if you read the review I did about my recent MBF re-read.
Even after loving the second pass of Ferrante’s novel about the friendship between Lila and Elena even more than my first foray, I wasn’t sure I’d commit to the entire series. They’re long, and I have a book review to write every week, and no one is going to read a review of the second, third, and fourth books in a series if they haven’t even read the first.
However, once I started reading the second book…I simply couldn’t stop. The Story of a New Name is undoubtedly my ALL-TIME favorite book, and I had a hard time believing the third volume in the series would surpass it. In ways it did, and in ways it didn’t. But before we get into it, because I didn’t review The Story of a New Name (thinking, and probably rightly so, that it appeals to a very narrow demographic of people and will contain quite a few spoilers), I’ll share a few details as to what happens here for context, without spoilers (to the best of my ability). Basically, Lila and Elena begin to grow apart. Lila slowly and steadily starts to course correct her life after it fell off the rails at the end of the first book, while Elena grows in prominence and begins making the decisions she believes are expected of a woman of her station.
This last bit - about Elena making the decisions she believes are expected of her - is the through line of Ferrante’s third volume in the Neopolitan quarter, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. I’ve always rolled my eyes in the past when I’ve heard people say “this book wrecked me,” but there was something about the ending of this one that really did. Not in the sense that I was inconsolable - in fact, quite the opposite. In no way is this book “trauma porn,” a cheap trick that many critics accuse authors of employing these days in order to provoke a reader reaction (and given the state of our social media-addled brains - I really do get it).
Ferrante, though, is the exact opposite. It’s in the final third of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, when major conceptual spoilers (though no spoilers on what specifically happens) Elena, who has been examining the trajectory of her career, the state of her marriage, and the weight of motherhood, begins to quietly, forensically toy with the idea of dismantling it all - before she blows it up entirely. But it’s not dramatic. It’s slow, painful, and uncomfortable to read. Though I hope I’m never on either side of the experience she puts her family through at the end of this book, it feels like Ferrante has been. There’s something eerily realistic about it. And that’s what makes this book so special.
The first two novels are fast-paced and exciting; the second in particular is bursting with activity. But that’s because the Lila and Elena of the second book are emerging from adolescence into young adulthood, arguably the most exciting time of life. Everything is still interesting. At the start of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Lila and Elena have children and are in their thirties. They’re feeling the weight of existence and the monotony of life. First love has come and gone; youth and beauty have faded (Elena is constantly looking in the mirror and observing the spread of her postpartum body with dismay). And, because of that, the book is, in the middle, a bit dull. You feel the burden of domestics responsibility Elena shoulders; you understand her frustration at her inability to revive her career after her children. And, after sitting in this monotony for hundreds of pages, while you’re (likely) horrified at what happens in the end of the book, you also understand how a life like the one she leads - lived entirely through the prism of what she believes others want from her, and never as she wants to live it - can only hold for so long.
It’s the toughest book (so far) in a series that I loved but didn’t know I’d stick with. But, now, having ridden the rhythms of Elena and Lila’s lives for so long, I almost feel that they fall into the aforementioned “relational” category - such is the raw humanity of Ferrante’s characters - once you’re in, you feel like you know them - you’re going through it with them, and you’d never abandon them - they’re too powerful even for self-proclaimed commitment-phobe.