Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
I think this book basically qualifies as horror. :) It felt like I held my breath through almost the entire middle.
"What was I? A woman worn out by four months of tension and grief; not, surely, a witch who, out of desperation, secretes a poison that can give a fever to her male child, kill a domestic animal, put a telephone line out of order, ruin the mechanism of a reinforced door lock."
yeah this was good. i doubted it for the first half, mainly because i felt like i was in no way the target audience, that maybe i would appreciate this better if i had any of our narrator's - olga's - lived experiences, if i was older, married or had children. but i was wrong. as soon as olga reaches her breaking point, or the "absence of sense" as she puts it, the book opens up in remarkable ways. ferrante definitely has themes and subjects that are repeated regularly in her work (or what i've read of it), but she manages to ascribe them new meaning, turning them inside out in different ways. the entire episode when gianni is sick, the dog is poisoned, olga is losing sense of herself, and they discover they are locked in felt nauseating, i felt like i was there with them, experiencing the same anxiety, the same absence of my sense of self. i loved in this chapters little details added to prove this unmaking of the self, with olga starting to refer to herself in third person, no longer narrating in first person.
as with the neapolitan series, i think the days of abandonment has a very banal premise - olga's husband, mario, leaves her for another woman, and as she struggles to make sense of this new life, olga feels that she is losing sense of reality, and falls into a sort of abyss. however, i feel that despite the banality of the premise, it is olga's rich inner life - her need to make sense of what is happening to her, who she is in this new context, destroy herself and everything around her, then put herself back together - that make the book so fascinating to me.
i still feel, overall, that i might appreciate this better in ten years time, but it was really good. i was afraid to start another ferrante book after how much i loved the neapolitan series, mainly in fear that it wouldn't live up to those books (and it doesn't, really, but it's also a much shorter, more pointed book) or that i would feel the need to constantly compare them - which didn't happen.
yeah this was good. i doubted it for the first half, mainly because i felt like i was in no way the target audience, that maybe i would appreciate this better if i had any of our narrator's - olga's - lived experiences, if i was older, married or had children. but i was wrong. as soon as olga reaches her breaking point, or the "absence of sense" as she puts it, the book opens up in remarkable ways. ferrante definitely has themes and subjects that are repeated regularly in her work (or what i've read of it), but she manages to ascribe them new meaning, turning them inside out in different ways. the entire episode when gianni is sick, the dog is poisoned, olga is losing sense of herself, and they discover they are locked in felt nauseating, i felt like i was there with them, experiencing the same anxiety, the same absence of my sense of self. i loved in this chapters little details added to prove this unmaking of the self, with olga starting to refer to herself in third person, no longer narrating in first person.
as with the neapolitan series, i think the days of abandonment has a very banal premise - olga's husband, mario, leaves her for another woman, and as she struggles to make sense of this new life, olga feels that she is losing sense of reality, and falls into a sort of abyss. however, i feel that despite the banality of the premise, it is olga's rich inner life - her need to make sense of what is happening to her, who she is in this new context, destroy herself and everything around her, then put herself back together - that make the book so fascinating to me.
i still feel, overall, that i might appreciate this better in ten years time, but it was really good. i was afraid to start another ferrante book after how much i loved the neapolitan series, mainly in fear that it wouldn't live up to those books (and it doesn't, really, but it's also a much shorter, more pointed book) or that i would feel the need to constantly compare them - which didn't happen.
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Not my favorite Ferrante book, but even then I found myself wanting to return to it every time I put it down to see what happens next. It definitely grew on me as the story went on.
Most of this book felt like a fever dream. Ferrante’s writing really captures the mentality of manic despair of Olga’s breakdown.
That said, this one didn’t compare to Ferrante’s other works (Neapolitan novels, The Lying Life of Adults) for me.
That said, this one didn’t compare to Ferrante’s other works (Neapolitan novels, The Lying Life of Adults) for me.
I read this book in one breath (Not surprising for a Ferrante novel, but nonetheless I’m thankful)! To fall into a hole of loss, despair, and mania, so peculiarly familiar, to become a myth, and to come out whole on the other side. Now I can go to bed feeling like I took a gulp of air after not having many days of breathing.
This book made me question my sanity. It was great.
I was talking to a friend about Knausgaard and she brought up Ferrante, and because I had this on my Kindle and was between books I started reading it even though I knew it was a bad idea. And then suddenly to my surprise I'd read a third of it and had to keep going. But I didn't exactly enjoy it, and it really made me angry at one point, because I'm the same age (38) as the protagonist but (after a couple of failed long-term relationships) could represent Australia in singledom and childlessness. And at one point it seemed to me the message of this novel was almost - the one permissable and understandable and universal reason for a woman to have a break with reality is when her long-time lover and father of her children leaves her; that is the betrayal that supersedes all traumatic female life events, and if you are not that woman and your life experiences haven't allowed for a husband and children then the luxury of a breakdown is just one more thing that will be denied to you. Or something like that; it's hard to recapture exactly why it rubbed me the wrong way in that instant. But it's a powerful book, particularly It's kind of an ugly book, very visceral and corporeal, but I liked that about it, especially because women aren't encouraged to write like that. My heritage is Italian and for the first time I imagined myself if I'd grown up there instead of in Australia, where (despite visits to Italy) I was very removed from anything particularly Italian (my dad wasn't part of the local Italian community and only English was spoken at home).
EDIT 01/06/15: A few days after finishing this I was standing in McNally Jackson bookstore in New York City looking at the Ferrante display (which was pretty alluring) and one of the staff rushed over to recommend the first book of the Neopolitan trilogy to me; she said that she too had read The Days of Abandonment first and found it hard going, but that she loved [b:My Brilliant Friend|13586707|My Brilliant Friend|Elena Ferrante|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1343064947s/13586707.jpg|19174054] and would be very happy if more people read it. Because staff there seem to really know their shit when it comes to books I will probably follow her advice.
Spoiler
the sequence where Olga is locked in the apartment with a sick Gianni and dying Otto; and the reveal of Carla as Mario's lover I found pretty horrific.EDIT 01/06/15: A few days after finishing this I was standing in McNally Jackson bookstore in New York City looking at the Ferrante display (which was pretty alluring) and one of the staff rushed over to recommend the first book of the Neopolitan trilogy to me; she said that she too had read The Days of Abandonment first and found it hard going, but that she loved [b:My Brilliant Friend|13586707|My Brilliant Friend|Elena Ferrante|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1343064947s/13586707.jpg|19174054] and would be very happy if more people read it. Because staff there seem to really know their shit when it comes to books I will probably follow her advice.