Neapolitan saga
Neapolitan saga is the name commonly used in German-speaking countries for a 4-volume cycle of novels by Elena Ferrante , which tells the life stories of two friends from a poor district of Naples , both of whom are exceptionally talented, but fundamentally different in their natures. The Italian original edition was published from 2011 to 2014 under the title L'amica geniale ( My genial friend ). In the German-language edition, translated by Karin Krieger and published from 2016 to 2018, only the first volume is called that. Ferrante wants her tetralogy to be understood as a novel. She rejects the label as "saga".
Benefiting from the fact that Ferrante's writing was easier by hand than was customary up to then, the Neapolitan saga differs from her earlier novels in many ways, be it in scope, richness of figures, or the narrative style, which is committed to realism . The success was also far greater, with literary criticism as well as with the reading public. So far, the novel has been translated into around 40 languages and over 5 million copies have been sold worldwide. The first volume was voted into the BBC's selection of the best 20 novels from 2000 to 2014 in 2015.
content
My brilliant friend
Both born in August 1944 and growing up in families with many children in a poor district of Naples , the porter's daughter Elena and the shoemaker's daughter Lila get to know each other as neighbors' children and classmates. The one who woos friendship is clearly Elena; she is impressed by how independent, fearless and determined Lila appears in everything - ideal for overcoming her own fearfulness and insecurity. The greatest of their childlike tests of courage together is their encounter with the dreaded Camorrista and "fairytale fiend" Don Achille Carracci; While playing, the girls pushed their dolls into each other's basement hole, never found them, and then decided to face him personally by demanding that they be returned. They only get money, but they invest it wisely in the purchase of their favorite book, which in turn arouses the desire to write themselves - and what Lila, as so often, quickly puts into practice ( The Blue Fairy ).
At the time, compulsory schooling ended with elementary school, purple is the victim. Her committed teacher, who works equally for both girls as the best in class, is only able to persuade Elena's parents to bear the financial burden of a longer school career for their daughter. Lila, who finds employment in her father's shoemaker's workshop, continues to satisfy her thirst for education in her own way. Even before school she had taught herself to read and write by herself; now she is becoming the most passionate reader of the regional lending library. Elena benefits from her wise advice; it also drives the competition to the friend who still appears to be superior. Based on her secondary virtues, such as diligence and discipline, she gradually develops into the best of the year after initial difficulties in middle school and high school, which in turn strengthens her self-esteem.
It is not enough for a clear confession of whom she loves; instead of the most brilliant high school student, Nino Sarratore, for whom she raves, she “catches” the auto mechanic Antonio Cappuccio. For her part, Lila is already a candidate for marriage at the age of 15. She is being courted by two young men in their early twenties who, both sons of Camorristi, are also business competitors. As a young girl she had bravely put one of the contenders, Marcello Solara, in their place with a knife; she finally gives in to the other, Stefano Carracci, not least because he promises to make one of her lifelong dreams come true. His offer to her family is heard: he wants to convert the shoemaker's workshop into a small shoe company with his money, provided that Lila's designs are realized. The only existing pair of shoes - made years earlier, disapproved by Lila's father and then bought by Stefano - leads to the first deep rift between the couple at their wedding. Stefano had promised to prevent Marcello from coming; but it appears, and in those shoes too!
The story of a new name
Lila, not appeased by Stefano's appeasement, refuses to have sex on their wedding night and is raped by him. As a wife, she is now in constant resistance; the most visible sign is the lack of pregnancy. In Stefano's two Salumerias , she shows business acumen , but also spends generously. A classy shoe store, in which the models she designed will be sold, opens in a prominent location, albeit under the name Solara; the brothers Marcello and Michele are financially stronger and better connected than Stefano. After a miscarriage, the doctor advises Lila to take a cure. She ensures that, in addition to her mother and sister-in-law, Elena also accompanies her, and that she goes to Ischia . Elena, whose never quite honest relationship with Antonio ended, knows that Nino is also there. However, he jumps at Lila, who mentally defies him. Both fall in love. Elena enables them to have a night of love by covering up Lila's lies to her mother, and at the same time gives in to the insistence of the man she knows as a notorious philanderer and who had stalked her in her first summer on Ischia - Ninos father Donato.
In Naples, Lila secretly continues the relationship with Nino for a year, and when she becomes pregnant, openly. After a few weeks, however, Nino leaves the apartment they share and disappears without a trace. On the advice of friends, Lila returns to Stefano; she gives birth to a boy and from then on takes on the role of mother. Stefano, on the other hand, is becoming more and more unpredictable, whether his fatherhood is in doubt and under increasing pressure as a businessman. Lila is leaving him for good to start all over again in another neighborhood with her son and Enzo Scanno, who had offered to help her in need, from the bottom up: living in poor conditions and with heavy physical work, in a sausage factory, earning their "daily bread". This is how Elena meets her when she returns to Naples years later for a visit. It comes like from another planet. As a scholarship holder , she completed a degree in classical philology in Pisa and graduated with top marks. She is also the new author of a little novel. With him she succeeded in writing the act of defloration from her soul, which in retrospect was felt to be shameful. Her text found its way to the public about her fellow student and now fiancé, Pietro Airota, and his mother, who works for a small Milanese publisher. Lila grants her friend the success, but her own story from childhood - the blue fairy that Elena gives her with the remark that she is the nucleus of her novel - throws her into the fire.
The story of the parting ways
Standing in public is not easy for both friends: Elena as an inexperienced writer, Lila as an involuntary identification figure of left-wing students as a result of a spontaneous speech and a pamphlet in which she reveals the grievances in her sausage factory. Fighting between communists and fascists breaks out at the gates, and Lila becomes involved in them and suffers a physical breakdown. She asks Elena for help, who stands by her for weeks without hesitation and makes herself useful in many ways. In her mid-twenties, Elena marries her long-time friend Pietro, who holds a well-paid professorship at the University of Florence . Their first daughter is born and, until then, often enough appearing to be the born mother, she brings her to the brink of desperation for a year. The somewhat unworldly father, commuting between his beloved domestic desk and university duties, is fixated on his second scientific publication. He ignores Elena's literary ambitions as well as her lack of fulfillment in the marriage bed. After the birth of her second daughter, she sees herself all the more reduced to the role of mother and housewife.
With Lila, however, things are going uphill. Since moving back to her old quarter, she has not only shared an apartment with Enzo, but also a bed. Professionally, they have been a “couple” for a long time. Enzo, a classic school refusal and a passionate greengrocer like his father, gradually qualified on the second education path; Lila has accompanied him almost from the start and is now at least as good as he is in his profession, IT . IBM is now offering both of them well-paying executive positions in one of their new plants. Michele Solara, who wants to earn money in this still young, booming industry, tops their offer, but only for Lila, whom he has long been trying to win as a creative force and woman. Lila chooses him, the Camorrista, which stunned Elena. But soon their lives will be mixed up too. Nino reappears: first as a visitor, with whom Pietro surprisingly comes up, then as the initiator and critic of her new beginning as a writer, and finally - as her lover. A long-cherished dream comes true for her. But now she too has to make a difficult decision.
The story of the lost child
A trip to Montpellier together is the decisive factor for love, for Nino. Nevertheless, it still takes three years until the mutual separation from Pietro. In order to be permanently close to Nino, Elena returns to Naples and moves into an apartment financed by him with her daughters, although she knows that he has not separated from his wife despite promises to the contrary and that she is also expecting the second child from him. Elena soon becomes pregnant too, at the same time as Lila. Both give birth to a daughter. In contrast to Enzo, Nino is anything but a caring father, but a notorious cheater; Elena catches him red-handed and breaks away from him. The pressure on her, as a single mother of three children and an author without a fixed income, is all the greater. Without further ado she slips her urgent publisher with a text that is older than her new book; and following a hint from Lilas, she moves into an affordable apartment directly above her, although she never wanted to return to her old quarter.
Lila and Enzo have meanwhile founded their own small computer company and compete with the Camorra as potential employers. Elena knows her daughters are in good hands with Lila when she is on the road, but she also suffers from the continuing loss of authority and trust in her two elders. With her youngest, who grows up almost like a sister with Lila's daughter, she worries that the same thing will happen to her as she does to Lila: to feel like "second" in everything. - Elena's “new” book is a success, contrary to expectations. However, it also sets off a chain reaction. A journalist uses it for a story that exposes the dark machinations of the Solaras; they threaten to file a lawsuit; the two friends then write another revelatory story together, based on Lila's material and signed with Elena's famous name. - Years pass before a real disaster happens: Lila's daughter Tina suddenly disappears in broad daylight and in public. Another act of revenge? A mix up? The case remains unsolved. The hope of Tina's return, never completely fading, but never being redeemed, made Lila embittered and aged prematurely in the following years. Elena follows a call to Turin , where she takes over a small publishing house. As an author, she succeeds once again with the story A Friendship . After completing the present novel, which she began in response to Lila's - apparently deliberate - own disappearance, she receives a package from her missing friend: It contains the two dolls believed to be lost from their childhood together.
characters
Network of relationships
The Neapolitan saga is a novel with many characters. The previous editions of the book take this into account and offer the reader quick orientation through two lists of people sorted by family: a limited one (on a mobile reading card) and an almost complete one that precedes each volume and that not only clarifies the identity of the individual characters, but also briefly recapitulates what they have contributed to the novel's plot up to then. The catalog introducing the fourth volume, and thus the most comprehensive one, shows 10 families and more than 50 characters. Gathering them all in one graphic would be one way of illustration; another is to reduce the tableau and look at it from a certain angle. The following shows how family, business and marital (or love) ties overlap.
Relationship network related
Relationship network marital etc.
Business relationships
literature
Text output
- Elena Ferrante: L'amica geniale: Infanzia, adolescenza. Edizioni e / o, Rome 2011, ISBN 978-88-6632-032-6 .
- Elena Ferrante: Storia del nuovo cognome. L'amica ingenious. Volume secondo . Edizioni e / o, Rome 2012, ISBN 978-8866320326 .
- Elena Ferrante: Storia di chi fugge e di chi resta. L'amica ingenious. Volume terzo . Edizioni e / o, Rome 2012, ISBN 978-8866324119 .
- Elena Ferrante: Storia della bambina perduta. L'amica ingenious. Quarto e ultimo volume . Edizioni e / o, Rome 2014, ISBN 978-8866325512 .
- Elena Ferrante: My brilliant friend . Suhrkamp, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-74797-1 .
- Elena Ferrante: The Story of a New Name . Suhrkamp, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-518-42574-9 .
- Elena Ferrante: The story of the separate ways . Suhrkamp, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3518425756 .
- Elena Ferrante: The Story of the Lost Child . Suhrkamp, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3518425763 .
Secondary literature
- Grace Russo Bullaro, Stephanie V. Love (Eds.): The Works of Elena Ferrante: Reconfiguring the Margins. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-137-59062-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interview with Elena Ferrante in the French magazine L'Obs on January 17, 2018 (German translation), accessed on March 4, 2018.
- ↑ Exchange with a phantom. Interview with Elena Ferrante , in: Der Spiegel, August 21, 2016, accessed on July 7, 2017.
- ↑ Elena Ferrante, Art of Fiction No. 228. Interview with Elena Ferrante (English; own translation) , in: The Paris Review, issue no.212, spring 2015, accessed on August 26, 2017.
- ↑ Marc Reichwein: The global friend , in: Die Welt Kompakt, 23 August 2017, accessed on 26 August 2017.