Two themes in Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend

My comments over past few days about Elena Ferrante's flat writing style aside, let's look for a moment at the overall themes of My Brilliant Friend (vol 1 of her Neapolitan Trilogy). Though there have been countless novels, YA novels, films about the coming of age of young girls (and guys as well), what separates MBF from the crowd is its sense of place: Ferrante creates a portrait not only of the two best friends, Elena and Lila, but of a working-class Neapolitan neighborhood in postwar Italy. We've seen these streets in films but none of the Italian neo-Realist films that I can recall focused on (a) girls or (b) schooling (Shoeshine was about two young boys of this time and place, but they were on a rung below the children in Ferrante's working-class neighborhood - they were street children one step away from prison). We see over the course of MBF how family feuds echo across the generations, or perhaps move through the generations, up and down in waves, like a Slinky: kids may fight in the streets because of a dispute among their parents; brothers go after one another because of something said to one of their sisters - the whole novel is about these feuds and shifting alliances - and in particular the effect on children - whom they can befriend or date and who is a blood enemy - like Montagues and Capulets played out in a "lower" social class. There are unexpected shifts in the family alliances - truces, forgiveness - often because of a couple's getting together. BTW these relations are extremely difficult to follow in this novel, as Ferrante really never clearly enough delineates or differentiates among the many characters and families, w/ the exception of the two central figures. The other thing that strikes us is this expose of the Italian education system and of the extremely limited opportunities for intelligent young women, regardless of class. It's astonishing that in the 1950s education beyond high school required payment of tuition and cost of books and materials. Almost all kids in this neighborhood stopped after elementary school and simply joined the family business - or, for women, got engaged by about 15. Those who stayed in school, like the narrator Elena, were a rarity - and the heart of this novel examines the different pathways that Elena and Lila - forced by her family to leave school and join the family shoe-repair business - follow. Toward the end, Lila is about to "marry up" to the wealthy son whose family runs a food store (if I remember right), and we have to wonder where all his money comes from - there are hints and references throughout to organized crime an the money accumulated by a much-feared gangster family, while others live just above the line of poverty. 



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