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A review by libby
The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism by Katherine Hill, Merve Emre, Sarah Chihaya, Jill Richards
4.0
I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I love Elena Ferrante, and this project was extremely exciting to me. The idea of intentional, collective, feminist criticism is something I care deeply about, and the aims of this project are admirable - to "[offer] one model for encoding the intimidate labor of conversation as part of a scholarly work... to formalize the texture of togetherness to show that this, as much as putting one word next to another, is the labor of writing." The brilliance of this practice which "offers another model for feminist praxis, a way of tying ourselves more closely together, not just as mothers and daughters but as friends, colleagues, mentors, and confidantes... dislodges the fixation on individual productivity and its coldly quantified standards of academic success, refusing the culture of competition that defines" our life in a capitalist system.
This such an enjoyable read if you like Ferrante, because it feels like talking to a bunch of very smart friends about the book, helping you see parts you might not have appreciated before. It's enriched my reading of the Neapolitan Novels, and I look forward to rereading them now that I've had this conversation by reading these letters.
Thanks Netgalley & Columbia University Press!
I love Elena Ferrante, and this project was extremely exciting to me. The idea of intentional, collective, feminist criticism is something I care deeply about, and the aims of this project are admirable - to "[offer] one model for encoding the intimidate labor of conversation as part of a scholarly work... to formalize the texture of togetherness to show that this, as much as putting one word next to another, is the labor of writing." The brilliance of this practice which "offers another model for feminist praxis, a way of tying ourselves more closely together, not just as mothers and daughters but as friends, colleagues, mentors, and confidantes... dislodges the fixation on individual productivity and its coldly quantified standards of academic success, refusing the culture of competition that defines" our life in a capitalist system.
This such an enjoyable read if you like Ferrante, because it feels like talking to a bunch of very smart friends about the book, helping you see parts you might not have appreciated before. It's enriched my reading of the Neapolitan Novels, and I look forward to rereading them now that I've had this conversation by reading these letters.
Thanks Netgalley & Columbia University Press!