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A review by erine
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
3.0
I didn't like this book. I did not enjoy living in the mind of a fifteen year old, wallowing in the mire of adolescence, self-doubt, destructive decisions, awkward experimentation, and strange pressures from all sides. And then the idea that the end of adolescence is .
That being said, however, there were parts within the whole that I really liked. Giovanna gets swept up with this idea of ugliness -- but it's not just a physical ugliness that bothers her, it's the idea that her soul and entire being are ugly. This concept carries throughout the book, popping up in her interactions with her estranged Aunt Vittoria and elsewhere. Behavior is as ugly as physical appearance.
Relationships are also heavily explored -- between parent and child, between siblings, between widow and mistress, between friends. How these webs of relationships catch other people unawares and have far-reaching impact. And (relating back to the whole idea of what makes someone ugly) the way that different people perceive a single person and how that affects their relationship. Vittoria is a polarizing figure, and opinions on her differ greatly in the beginning, but as the story continues, a single narrative begins to coalesce around her. Compare that to Giovanna and how different people (including herself) see her throughout the book. How she sees herself always in relation to how others see her.
So yeah, I did not like this book. And yet somehow I still enjoyed it. Both of those things are true because somehow Ferrante captures a fifteen-year-old girl's mind well enough to make this story relatable and revealing, and yet not a place I ever really wanted to go back to.
Spoiler
as simple as losing one's virginity is just... well... it's as irritating as the idea that as a woman your happy ending was getting marriedThat being said, however, there were parts within the whole that I really liked. Giovanna gets swept up with this idea of ugliness -- but it's not just a physical ugliness that bothers her, it's the idea that her soul and entire being are ugly. This concept carries throughout the book, popping up in her interactions with her estranged Aunt Vittoria and elsewhere. Behavior is as ugly as physical appearance.
Relationships are also heavily explored -- between parent and child, between siblings, between widow and mistress, between friends. How these webs of relationships catch other people unawares and have far-reaching impact. And (relating back to the whole idea of what makes someone ugly) the way that different people perceive a single person and how that affects their relationship. Vittoria is a polarizing figure, and opinions on her differ greatly in the beginning, but as the story continues, a single narrative begins to coalesce around her. Compare that to Giovanna and how different people (including herself) see her throughout the book. How she sees herself always in relation to how others see her.
So yeah, I did not like this book. And yet somehow I still enjoyed it. Both of those things are true because somehow Ferrante captures a fifteen-year-old girl's mind well enough to make this story relatable and revealing, and yet not a place I ever really wanted to go back to.