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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The way she writes is once again brilliant, but this one is a thinker I'll need to ruminate
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
A maternidade e suas facetas... é bem difícil escrever algo sobre esse livro. Nada que eu escreva expressará a complexidade da maternidade tão bem exposta por Ferrante. Leda é uma mulher de 40 e poucos anos que vai passar férias em uma praia. Lá se vê fascinada por uma família numerosa, dentre eles Nina, mãe de Elena, e sua cunhada grávida. A todo momento ela observa a família e faz análises de seus comportamentos, até que encontra a boneca favorita da pequena Elena. No primeiro momento pensa em devolvê-la, mas vai adiando e vendo o quanto a menina fica dependente da mãe, irritadiça, mal-educada, gosta de ver como vai desenrolando a vida delas sem a boneca. Em um desses encontros, Leda conta para Nina que abandonou suas filhas quando pequenas por 3 anos para dedicar-se a si, o que a princípio é motivo de horror, vai se tornando fascínio para conseguir o mesmo ato. Nina pede ajuda a Leda e esta promete ajudá-la, mas antes devolve a boneca de Elena. Nina, obviamente, fica irritadíssima por ela não a ter entregado antes e rompe contato com Leda. Esta decide voltar para casa e, quando questionada pelas filhas se estava bem, responde: Estou morta, mas bem."
"Percebi há muito tempo que conservo pouco de mim e tudo delas (as filhas). **** Eu observava minhas filhas quando elas estavam distraídas e sentia por elas uma complicada alternância de simpatia e antipatia. **** Que bobagem pensar que é possível falar de si mesmo aos filhos antes que eles tenham pelo menos 50 anos. Queria ser vista por eles como uma pessoa e não como uma função. **** ''Por que você deixou suas filhas?'' ''Eu as amava demais e achava que o amor por elas impediria que eu me tornasse eu mesma.'' ''Se você estava bem, por que voltou?'' ''Porque percebi que eu não era capaz de criar nada meu que pudesse realmente está à altura delas.'' ''Então você voltou por amor as suas filhas?'' ''Não, voltei pelo mesmo motivo que me fez ir embora: por amor a mim mesma. [...] Me senti mais inútil e desesperada sem elas do que com elas.''
"Percebi há muito tempo que conservo pouco de mim e tudo delas (as filhas). **** Eu observava minhas filhas quando elas estavam distraídas e sentia por elas uma complicada alternância de simpatia e antipatia. **** Que bobagem pensar que é possível falar de si mesmo aos filhos antes que eles tenham pelo menos 50 anos. Queria ser vista por eles como uma pessoa e não como uma função. **** ''Por que você deixou suas filhas?'' ''Eu as amava demais e achava que o amor por elas impediria que eu me tornasse eu mesma.'' ''Se você estava bem, por que voltou?'' ''Porque percebi que eu não era capaz de criar nada meu que pudesse realmente está à altura delas.'' ''Então você voltou por amor as suas filhas?'' ''Não, voltei pelo mesmo motivo que me fez ir embora: por amor a mim mesma. [...] Me senti mais inútil e desesperada sem elas do que com elas.''
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
reading this, i thought, i wonder if my mother feels like this. and then, i hope she doesn't. and then, my mother is so nice. and so am i. and i know that i think terrible, nasty things (and for a period of my life, i thought terrible things about her, and frequently). so she must be the same.
it didn't matter if i liked leda, or agreed with her thoughts or her actions, because she was written in a way that made me feel like i understood. i don't know. it always feels strange to read from the perspective of mothers on their daughters - because i have one and am one, respectively, and i am aware that i don't have the kind of access to my mother's world as i do those of my friends or anyone who didn't raise me, and i may never know what she thinks of me, or how it has changed her to have me. and i feel sorry that i will always know her as a mother first and a person second.
while i was reading this, it felt so very vivid, and now i feel already like i don't remember it as well as i should. maybe that's most books? maybe it's that what seems important to remember isn't the plot points but leda's passing thoughts, which are harder to hold on to despite cutting deep when i read them.
this isn't about the book's main themes but i did want to put these two quotes side by side:
"I had always considered sex an ultimate sticky reality, the least mediated contact possible with another body. Instead, after that experience, I was convinced that sex is an extreme product of the imagination."
And this, from "Eurydice" by Ocean Vuong:
"Silly me. I thought love was real / & the body imaginary."
Now that they're together, I don't know if they have as much to discuss with each other as I thought. But I went to the trouble of typing them out, so I'm not getting rid of them now.
it didn't matter if i liked leda, or agreed with her thoughts or her actions, because she was written in a way that made me feel like i understood. i don't know. it always feels strange to read from the perspective of mothers on their daughters - because i have one and am one, respectively, and i am aware that i don't have the kind of access to my mother's world as i do those of my friends or anyone who didn't raise me, and i may never know what she thinks of me, or how it has changed her to have me. and i feel sorry that i will always know her as a mother first and a person second.
while i was reading this, it felt so very vivid, and now i feel already like i don't remember it as well as i should. maybe that's most books? maybe it's that what seems important to remember isn't the plot points but leda's passing thoughts, which are harder to hold on to despite cutting deep when i read them.
this isn't about the book's main themes but i did want to put these two quotes side by side:
"I had always considered sex an ultimate sticky reality, the least mediated contact possible with another body. Instead, after that experience, I was convinced that sex is an extreme product of the imagination."
And this, from "Eurydice" by Ocean Vuong:
"Silly me. I thought love was real / & the body imaginary."
Now that they're together, I don't know if they have as much to discuss with each other as I thought. But I went to the trouble of typing them out, so I'm not getting rid of them now.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ferrante’s style is so addictive and this one was strange and complicated. Felt like being a fly on the wall where motive is assumed but really the plot is driven by a woman who just fucks things up for the heck of having free will/agency. Interesting characters and dynamics and conversations on female agency and motherhood.
Still digesting this one and not sure how I feel about it. Its not a bad book, I just didn’t seem to care about the characters or their stories, or just felt uncomfortable… not sure.
Oh man. This book solidified everything I wanted to turn my own main character into. A complicated mess of a mother who battles with herself wanting anything but the motherhood ascribed to her.
I'd seen the film first and am genuinely surprised at how well it captures the unlikability of the narrator, and in Olivia Coleman's hands, develops it even further.
Women who grow and push against Type, who suffer against the roles they and society give them. I yearn for more literature like this.
"In the first year of Marta's life I discovered that I no longer loved my husband. A hard year, the baby barely slept and wouldn't let me sleep. Physical tiredness is a magnifying glass. I was too tired to study, to think, to laugh, to cry, to love that man who was too intelligent, too stubbornly involved in his wager with life, too absent. Love requires energy. I had none."
"You know how children are, sometimes they love you by cuddling you, other time by trying to remake you from the start, reinvent you, as if they thought you were badly brought up and they had to teach you how to get on in the world, what music to listen to, what books to read, what films to see, the words you should use and those you shouldn't because they're old now, no one says that anymore."
I'd seen the film first and am genuinely surprised at how well it captures the unlikability of the narrator, and in Olivia Coleman's hands, develops it even further.
Women who grow and push against Type, who suffer against the roles they and society give them. I yearn for more literature like this.
"In the first year of Marta's life I discovered that I no longer loved my husband. A hard year, the baby barely slept and wouldn't let me sleep. Physical tiredness is a magnifying glass. I was too tired to study, to think, to laugh, to cry, to love that man who was too intelligent, too stubbornly involved in his wager with life, too absent. Love requires energy. I had none."
"You know how children are, sometimes they love you by cuddling you, other time by trying to remake you from the start, reinvent you, as if they thought you were badly brought up and they had to teach you how to get on in the world, what music to listen to, what books to read, what films to see, the words you should use and those you shouldn't because they're old now, no one says that anymore."