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emstripling 's review for:
The Story of a New Name
by Elena Ferrante
TW- SA and abuse
Elena Ferrante creates a world of her own- one that holds, at its heart, the ever-present relationship between a woman and her intellect. The intellectual similarities and differences between Lina and Elena are present on each page and every plot point comes back to Elena finding a new way to express her amazement of Lina. Ferrante finds words for the female desire to be considered smart by those around us as well as ourselves.
Elena craves intellectual approval in its rawest form and nothing, not physical affection or familial love, comes close to that feeling for her. Through Ferrante's eyes you see what is important to Elena and why, even if in the moment she doesn't see it herself.
Ferrante refers to the neighborhood that is home to most of the primary characters as, "the neighborhood that watched and committed to memory and still remembers". The whole book is a testament to memory. Forgetting something for the sake of moving forward, clinging onto something with the goal of hurting someone else with it. This world holds a lot of pain, a lot of it (if not all) directed at the women in the story.
The book also manages to continuously explain the brutal existence of physical and emotional abuse in this world, and gives the women both inner and outer expressions of the impact of abuse. At one point the book reads, "Especially at night she was afraid of waking up and finding him formless in the bed, transformed into excrescences that burst and become too much fluid, the flesh melted and dripping...and she herself, his wife, broken, sucked into that stream polluted by living matter".
Ferrante puts into words so many fears and hopes that inhabit the female mind, subconsciously or not. Who am I in relationship to my male partner, who are they to me vs who am I to them.
This story is one of two women finding the ways they need to be intellectually stimulated, the ways they want to expand their minds and the things that help and hinder them. It's beautiful, moving, and able to cover years and years of life in 470 pages without feeling overwhelming.
I don't think I'll read this book again because to me, personally, Ferrante's stories are best read with no knowledge of what's to come. However, excerpts from this book will live in my head forever!
Elena Ferrante creates a world of her own- one that holds, at its heart, the ever-present relationship between a woman and her intellect. The intellectual similarities and differences between Lina and Elena are present on each page and every plot point comes back to Elena finding a new way to express her amazement of Lina. Ferrante finds words for the female desire to be considered smart by those around us as well as ourselves.
Elena craves intellectual approval in its rawest form and nothing, not physical affection or familial love, comes close to that feeling for her. Through Ferrante's eyes you see what is important to Elena and why, even if in the moment she doesn't see it herself.
Ferrante refers to the neighborhood that is home to most of the primary characters as, "the neighborhood that watched and committed to memory and still remembers". The whole book is a testament to memory. Forgetting something for the sake of moving forward, clinging onto something with the goal of hurting someone else with it. This world holds a lot of pain, a lot of it (if not all) directed at the women in the story.
The book also manages to continuously explain the brutal existence of physical and emotional abuse in this world, and gives the women both inner and outer expressions of the impact of abuse. At one point the book reads, "Especially at night she was afraid of waking up and finding him formless in the bed, transformed into excrescences that burst and become too much fluid, the flesh melted and dripping...and she herself, his wife, broken, sucked into that stream polluted by living matter".
Ferrante puts into words so many fears and hopes that inhabit the female mind, subconsciously or not. Who am I in relationship to my male partner, who are they to me vs who am I to them.
This story is one of two women finding the ways they need to be intellectually stimulated, the ways they want to expand their minds and the things that help and hinder them. It's beautiful, moving, and able to cover years and years of life in 470 pages without feeling overwhelming.
I don't think I'll read this book again because to me, personally, Ferrante's stories are best read with no knowledge of what's to come. However, excerpts from this book will live in my head forever!