If there is no grand social background constructed by the original novel, and the TV series emerges out of thin air, will "My Gifted Girlfriend" have such great influence and repercussions among the audience as other HBO series?
After reading the four books and the first season of the TV series, I wrote something as follows:
The first part: mainly discuss the plot dialogue, scene, actor performance, etc. of the TV series (the first season) and the first song of the novel, especially some more important plots such as class competition, disappearance of boundaries, and the first time to go out to watch the contrast of the sea;
The second part: sort out some information that affects the fate of all the protagonists in the novel and is still active in the south of Italy, the criminal organization of Kemora;
Part Three: In a world of violence, no one is immune.
Part 1: The TV adaptation is a little less intimidating
The Neapolitan Quartet, spanning half a century, tells the story of the close and distant friendship between Lila and Lenon, girls who grow up in Naples' old town.
Although it took four years to publish, and in the end the whereabouts of one of our heroines, Lila, is unknown (as was her vanished child), The Neapolitan Quartet is a complete and continuing story.
HBO's current first season is basically the plot of the first novel, and "My Gifted Girlfriend" has also become the first non-English original series produced and broadcast by HBO since its establishment. Produced "The Young Pope" starring Jude Law) co-produced.
Such a first attempt is not just because it is an Italian show, but mainly because "My Brilliant Girlfriend" uses the Neapolitan dialect of the 1950s, which is a native Italian who also needs subtitles to Help to understand pronunciation.
The difficulty of adapting the TV series of the Naples tetralogy comes from all aspects, and the script itself needs a lot of changes. The original novel is advanced from Lennon's first-person perspective, and most of the scenes are interpreted from Lennon's point of view. The dialogue between characters is relatively small in terms of the overall volume ratio, so a lot of increase in the script adaptation is needed. Character dialogue to suit the filming of the TV series.
And this is only an extremely subtle part of the adaptation work. To restore such a world with countless details in the novel, it is necessary to have enough professional teams in casting, scene construction, costumes (Blessed by Valentino's creative director) and soundtracks. , of course, there must be a large enough budget to support.
HBO's TV series version has almost reached everything that novel readers can ask for a film and television adaptation. The casting and scene restoration are almost 100% accurate, and no background introduction is even needed. Just looking at the clothes and expressions of the protagonists in the title, book fans can already blurt out Their names, this is a work with more than 20 protagonists, and it is not easy to remember these names accurately.
Character God Restoration
Elena Ferrante has created a huge number of inhabitants of the literary world of Neapolitan, except for those passing names and our two little female protagonists, who have independent story lines and have played an important role in the growth of Lila and Lennon. There are more than fifty.
This is undoubtedly a nightmare existence and problem for filmmaking, because the film absolutely cannot successfully balance so many characters and the stories behind them in two hours (or so) (the audience can remember the character names in such a short time) It's already pretty good). Even if you squeeze these people into the plot, you have to cut out or reduce the details and stories in the novel that make these characters attractive and lifelike, but this treatment is undoubtedly a rich and magnificent world built by the original novel. a blasphemy and degeneration.
If you take the second place and directly cut off the corner characters, such a choice will inevitably weaken the influence of the protagonist on the audience, because a large part of the fullness of the protagonist's image is also firmly supported by these supporting characters (none of them succeeded. role is independent).
But such a world where relationships are crossed, emotions are complex, and the fates of characters are tightly intertwined is a treasure that every TV drama creator dreams of. It is possible to reproduce the visual form before the reader's eyes.
Don’t get me wrong, the existence of such a possibility does not mean the low difficulty of restoration success. We have all witnessed countless catastrophic TV adaptations in the past and drowned in the audience’s saliva (especially the huge group of book fans) .
But if it can be successfully restored, it is definitely an exciting thing.
And that's something that only a cable station like HBO can have the guts, money (very important), and ambition to support (and, of course, streaming now has more than that).
At present, at least in the casting, it has escaped the saliva of book fans.
The TV version of "My Gifted Girlfriend" is just the CAST of the first season, which already includes 150 characters and nearly 5,000 extras. Compared with "Game of Thrones", this scale is definitely not inferior (the latter). The TV adaptation of the TV series has cut a lot of original characters).
During the casting process, recreating a sense of the times was a priority for the team led by casting directors Laura Muccino and Sara Casni.
Putting aside the question of acting skills, I just look for actors with a figure, appearance, demeanor and skin texture that belonged to the Italian era (Lila is thin but wild and stubborn, Lenon is plump and healthy and has a beauty above the level of ordinary girls, but To live tolerantly and quietly) has become a great challenge, and it must be done with sufficient understanding and understanding of the background of the times at that time.
To be historically convincing enough, the transformation cannot be accomplished simply by makeup. The extensive collection of family photos of Naples in the 1950s became one of the most useful aids to the casting team.
Secondly, in order to restore the complete impression of Naples in the novel as much as possible, the use of Neapolitan dialect has also become a very important aspect of the TV series.
This once again increases the difficulty of casting. Because of the Neapolitan dialect, many Italians do not actually speak it, which means that the HBO team must find local actors from the Candania region where Naples is located (the Neapolitan dialect used so carefully and completely in the play is in the Italian region. When playing, the film side also added subtitles).
Beginning in January 2017, the casting process lasted a full eight months. Laura and Sara interviewed more than 9,000 children, and that was just for the casting of Lila, Lennon, and a few other major kids.
Performance and body appearance are not the only criteria for casting roles. The character of the actors themselves has also become one of the criteria for whether they can be successfully seen by the director. Elisa Del Genio, 11, and Ludovica Nasti, 12, play the teenage versions of Lennon and Lila.
Del Genio is from a wealthy area of Naples, with half Norwegian blood. During the filming, he was always sticking with his mother and sister, and he was a little shy. Nasti, from Pozzuoli, a city around Naples, was just the opposite. He was very bold and even took the initiative to introduce himself to reporters. . Nasti, who received chemotherapy for leukemia at the age of four, may have a better understanding of life than most adults. The sense of powerlessness over his body and his strong grip over life are all hidden in those stubborn eyes.
For the director, this natural character similarity plays a very important role in the performance, which can greatly increase the reduction and credibility of the TV series to the novel.
Facts have proved that casting has become the most eye-catching part of the TV version.
Although the teenage protagonists are not very good-looking (the childhood actors are very cute), the figures and expressions of the characters are completely like they have come out of a book.
Lila (played by Gaia Girace as a youth) with the shrivelled body and fierce eyes, Lennon (played by Margherita Mazzucco as a youth) with her increasingly plump figure and perpetually restless eyes, Stefano's oily and sleek ( Those two thick and dark eyebrows are really super stealing the show), Michele's insidiousness and domineering, Ninosven's scum-like figure and appearance, and Enzo's firmness (of course, the only one in the audience is also indispensable. The blond hair makes him look a few levels higher. BTW, Enzo has an affair with Michele's actor), Antonio's silence and honesty, the dilapidated block (that deep tunnel is restored slightly weaker) a little), the closure of the small courtyard and the lightness of the island of Ischia... The gloomy small town of Naples described in the novel and the small society in which at least twenty main characters live are perfectly perfected by HBO. built out.
fatal attraction in fiction
But still, the TV series lacks the fatal attraction that fills the lines of the original novel.
It is difficult to explain which aspect of this gap is caused, perhaps over a too large time span? But it's too early to make this comment, maybe after the four seasons are completed, it will be more accurate to make an evaluation.
In any case, one obvious point is that the first season of "My Brilliant Girlfriend" was a little thin in building the friendship between Lila and Lennon, and their friendship is the source of the novel's fatal attraction to readers. and foundation.
The mutual games and ordinary conversations that traversed the half-century-long friendship between Lila and Lennon were still slightly insufficient even in four novels, but the author of the novel successfully used a large number of psychological descriptions to build a framework for readers. Create a unified and seamlessly connected world of pathos and emotions. In this world full of strong emotions, the jump of time is no longer a disadvantage, but a way to help readers to interpret the two from a farther and higher perspective. A powerful tool for friendship between protagonists and, more importantly, a lens through which to witness social change.
But in the TV series (at least in the first season that has aired), the emotional connection between the two girls, which is very important in the novel and goes beyond the physical timeline, is not well structured, and even a little rushed . Although director Saverio Costanzo also tried to achieve this goal through a large number of Lenon readings, this method is full of contradictions in the carrier of TV series. Use too little and the audience has no way of resonating, use too much and it becomes an audiobook.
After watching the first season of "Genius Girlfriend", I feel that the director is in the struggle between reading more and less from beginning to end.
Many of the highlights in the novel that are considered to be wonderful are not photographed as expected, either by passing by or by missing the key points. Such as the Alfonso/Lila/Enzo/Lennon quiz in elementary school, Lila and Lennon’s first trip to see the sea (didn’t see success), the disappearance of boundaries (successful, through the portrayal and grandeur of Reno 's soundtrack), Lila's wedding to Stefano (the climax of the first song), etc.
In the first song, the primary school competition between boys and girls (poor Alfonso), this section is described very well in the novel. For the first time, it will include Lila, Lenon, Enzo and Alfonso. The character is vividly and very prophetically portrayed.
But the director seemed to ignore the deep meaning behind this passage, and the final result was bland and tasteless. Although Lila's intention to release water on purpose at the beginning of the game was revealed through the mouths of other children, such a simple treatment could not make the The audience understands that Lila has a complex and precocious mind that is far beyond her age, and she can't show the future of the other three little protagonists, losing the shocking power that this episode should have.
Alfonso's innocence and innocence (the ending is regrettable), Lila's ingenious deliberation, Lennon's ruthless disc, and Enzo's mathematical genius (the big move will come later), there is no such thing as One does not imply the future fate of these four little protagonists.
It is a bit exaggerated to conclude that Lila has carefully planned. At a young age, she may not even understand the specific reasons for what she did, but there is a fear in her heart that she does not know, which makes her dare not defeat Ah. Fonso.
There is also Enzo with such fear, but his heart is too much to attract Lila's attention, and at the same time he is extremely dissatisfied with Lila's evasive attitude, so in the end he can't help but take action. At the same time, Lila's competitive spirit overcomes her unknown fears, and finally drives her to defeat Alfonso unconsciously to compete with Enzo.
In the world of children, behavior is always directly driven by the deepest subconscious, whether it is fear, pride, contempt, or even love, all of which are vividly displayed. In the adult world, on the contrary, driven by desire, emotional intelligence is not high, and IQ is touching.
The first chemistry between Enzo and Lila didn't work out well either, and Alfonso's silly sweetness was very obvious. Alfonso's young actors are really cute, and the appearance of actors in youth has dropped significantly, but considering the future trajectory of life, it is really suitable.
This section is not to say that the filming is bad, but in my imagination, the director can put more thought into showing such an interesting plot.
But the TV version is more similar than the novel, or better than the novel, it allows us to understand Lila more intuitively, and makes the character Lila more intuitive and three-dimensional in front of the audience, providing the audience with a Read this stubborn girl from a perspective other than Lennon's eyes (praise the actor again).
In the novel you can hardly feel Lila's cowardice, although we are sure that in her life with Lennon, there has never been more than one occasion when her confidence has been shaken, overwhelmed, and threatened by Lennon's achievements. Twice, Malchev's forced marriage, Stefano's betrayal before marriage and post-marital violence, brother Reno's expanding heart because of her commitment, Nino's love dream woven in her heart but quickly broken... these Moments, even for someone as strong as Lila, were filled with despair that could not be broken through.
In the novel, the author is also blinded by her own emotions, and the words describing Lila are all tenacious words she can think of, but in the TV version, we can well feel her time from the performance of the actors. Feel the vulnerability.
The first song The Last Wedding has two roles in the novel. The first is the appearance of Marcello, which became the last straw that broke the relationship between Lila and Stefano, which played a very important role in the main plot. Promoting effect (the key is to attract readers to buy the second song); the second one is from Lenon's point of view, which vividly re-interprets the limitations and tragedy of "the common people", which is the first time in the Neapolitan tetralogy. class differences. Here's an excerpt from the book:
At that moment, I knew better what a commoner was than when Mr. Oliviero asked me a few years ago. We are the common people, the common people are fighting over food and wine, it is the order of the food, the service is good and bad, it is the dirty floor - the waiters are walking up and down, it is the increasingly vulgar Toast. The common people are my mother, she drank and now rests her whole back on my father's shoulders. My father was serious because the antique dealer in Florence told an obscene joke.
While underwhelming from Lennon's perspective, Lila's perspective has a brighter presence than the novel, yet another poignant description of "Boundaries Disappear" (although the novel does not There's no specific mention of "Boundaries Disappear" this time around), and that's all thanks to the amazing performances of the actors.
It can be said that the director's grasp of the long time line was out of control and emotional cutting, which was made up by the performances of the actors. The performances of the actors are very good, especially the two little protagonists. In addition to the wedding mentioned above, the crying scene when the border disappears, the look in Lila's eyes when Lennon tells Lila to go on vacation to Ischia, and the two repetitions of It's wonderful are all moving.
BTW, the translation of the curved subtitle group is really bad, I recommend everyone's film and television version.
Rebuilding Naples in the 1950s
The old neighborhood where the main characters of the Neapolitan tetralogy grew up, never named by the author, was inspired by the working-class Luzzatti district. Located near the Naples train station, Luzzatti was built in the 1920s to provide railroad workers with an affordable and affordable accommodation, and then continued to develop. The architectural style of the community at that time had a very obvious rational architectural feature: the space was small. But extremely functional.
Despite this, "My Gifted Girlfriend" was not actually filmed in the Luzzatti area, mainly because this area has been in disrepair for many years, and the current state has no way to restore it to its original state (and, HBO is not so big. The financial resources to support the repair, the repair does not belong to them).
The scenes you see in the TV series were built out of thin air by the set design team on an abandoned glass factory (which has been out of use since the 1980s) an hour away from the city of Caserta. It took 4 In June, the 12 acres of empty suburbs were enough for the team to fully build the small town where Lila and Lennon grew up together in their childhoods, and this also made the "My Brilliant Girlfriend" set shed one of the largest in Europe.
Scenography director Giancarlo Basili drew inspiration from Picasso's famous painting "Guernica", and according to the details described by Ferrante in the book, it took four months to create a surreal atmosphere and complete the construction of 14 buildings (Solara The bar, Lila's little shoe store, Stefano's deli, the facade of the church, the interior scenes of Lila and Lenon, and of course the one who witnessed the first escape of the two young ladies Long, deep, dark tunnels (though not very well restored).
One thing that is different from the real Naples is that the legendary city you see in the TV series is old, dusty, and inhabitants in ragged clothes, but whether it is Lila and Lenon's residence, or between the streets and streets. Both are quite spacious and have a level of cleanliness that would have been impossible in Naples in the 1950s (or even now).
The director has a different opinion on this. Although he tried to follow Ferrante's description in the novel when restoring the scene, he hoped to create a deconstructed-reconstructed surreal atmosphere in the TV series.
Throughout, Ferrante never mentions the name of the bustling and noisy neighborhood of Lila and Lennon's childhood, but as the protagonists walk out of the small town that held their childhood and head to other parts of the city, she is detailed and clear. He wrote down the names of every street that the protagonist walked through, the squares he stayed, and the business districts where he worked. As the story unfolded, the image of Naples in the readers' minds became clearer and richer.
Waterfront Chiaia is another place that appears more often in the novel. Reno said in his mouth and believed in his heart that the only way to make their Ceruro shoes sell well is to have their shoes appear in the Piazza dei Martiri in this area. In the store, while this facilitated the business cooperation between Stefano and the Solara family, it also directly ruined the marriage of Stefano and Lila. From the day of their wedding, Marcello wore Lila's own handmade clothes. The moment the pair of shoes made entered the wedding reception, the marriage was over.
And the Solara store, which was successfully opened in this plaza, not only witnessed Lila's amazing creativity again, but also became a battle fortress where Lila was crazy about love for the first time (and possibly the only time) in her life.
While Ferrante's Naples tetralogy managed to put the Italian city back in the spotlight, it also brought a new source of revenue, as the influx of (and rocket-like growth) tourist visitors because of the novel spawned a The industry dedicated to serving novel fans involves a series of related businesses such as peripheral products, tour guides, catering, accommodation, and sightseeing.
Until now, the major media have not advised readers/viewers to go deep into the real Luzzatti area, because the area is too poor, messy and dangerous.
Addictive soundtrack
I believe everyone is familiar with Max Richter's music (although he may not be able to name it), and it is not the first time for him to cooperate with HBO. The first famous song "On the Nature of Daylight" (from his second solo album "The Blue Notebooks" in 2004) has been adapted by various film and television works many times, including "Shutter Island" starring Xiao Lizi, and Amy in 2016. Arrival by Adams, etc.
"She Was Running", "Elena & Lila" and "Whispers" (opening song) are recommended.
HBO has announced that it has renewed for a second season, returning this September. In The Tale of the New Name and beyond, we will see more clearly how Pasquale's word for the Kemora mafia affects the fate of all our protagonists, a force hidden in the dark, infiltrating In every corner of the Naples ghetto, no one can escape.
Part II: Who Killed Don Archie
Who killed Don Archie, Mrs. Manuela, the Solara brothers? Who got Reno into the habit of taking drugs? Who are Lennon's two younger brothers working for?
Even, who made Lila's daughter disappear?
These characters disappearing in Ferrante's Neapolitan tetralogy, these horrific events that are ambiguous in the novel, and even the author tries to make everyday, may become a little clearer after understanding the real history. And you will easily find that the blame is directly or indirectly directed at the same criminal network that actually exists in Italy and is quite powerful: Cumora.
In "My Gifted Girlfriend", "The Story of a New Name", and even "Leave, Stay" on the third track, you'll be told what happened to Lennon and Lila, what happened to them Good or bad or bad men, those who grow up and tangle with twists and turns, are tightly grasped by the fast-paced plots in the book (the author really knows the rhythm of reading), and they cannot extricate themselves.
But in the last song "The Missing Child", the influence of the social changes in post-war Italy hidden in the first three songs was gradually made clear by the author, and the author was more clearly combined with the protagonists and supporting roles. The first three songs Those things in the book that are still slightly bizarre and incomprehensible, although they were downplayed by the author, slowly have a unified view in the back.
These large environments, which seem to have nothing to do with the lives of the little people, are constantly shaping their life trajectories. Almost all of the protagonists and supporting characters, who have relative control over their lives, are madly and uncontrollably involved in this turbulent era and the rapidly changing social vortex.
Whether it is a film or a novel, whenever it comes to the magical country of Italy (especially the ingenious battle plan of the brain circuit and the great change of the front and rear camps in World War II), the Mafia Mafia is an unavoidable topic.
But few works so naturally and subtly intersperse this element into the story structure. In Ferrante's writing, even this unavoidable force that dominates the vast and poor areas of the South is deliberately normalized (not downplayed, not beautified). ), making it the steel frame of the magnificent building of the Neapolitan tetralogy, secretly supporting the beginnings and turns of all the protagonists’ stories.
The fate of the characters seems to be inevitable between self-selection, but it is always affected by this power hidden in the shadows. Those decisions that seem to be the protagonist's self-consciousness, but behind them reveal a strong sense of personal fate helplessness . This driving force, which is so powerful but almost imperceptible, is exactly what Kemora really looks like in Italy.
When it comes to the mafia, many people will think of the Sicilian mafia for the first time, but the Italian mafia is not the only one. Kemora, which originated in the south, has also become a social problem that has caused the government a headache after World War II (there are also social problems in the south. The other three larger mafia: the Sicilian Mafia/Cosa nostra, the rural Ndrangheta and the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita).
As one of the oldest mafia in Italy, Cumora emerged in the 17th century, with its base in Campania and its central city Naples, and in the 19th century, its forces had penetrated the prison system in southern Italy.
Different from the pyramid-like organizational structure of the Sicilian Mafia, the Kemora criminal group adopts a parallel decentralized organizational structure. There is no highest authority or organization with centralized power. Different regions have their own independent parties. There is partisanship. Precisely because there is not an obvious power center like the Sicilian Mafia, the parallel organizational structure makes it very difficult for the government to attack them.
Interestingly, although almost all of Kemorali are male, there will be a "Holy Mother" soul figure at the top of each system, such as Mrs. Manuela of the Solara family and her legend. Sexual, almost power symbol, Little Red Book (later tricked by Lila).
The activities organized by Kemora can basically be divided into three parts, sponsoring politicians, various enrichment in the community and road robberies.
But they don't have any political ideals. Their interference in politics is purely out of interest. They fund a large number of political elections, attack competitors, do whatever they can to pull votes, and conduct votes against voters who voted against it. Intimidation, assassination, kidnapping, etc., but are rarely sanctioned because they are financially supported by so many politicians.
In the Campania region, the Cumora Group is deeply involved in the lives of almost everyone, creating a close-knit, interdependent community atmosphere that continues to permeate by offering young people a variety of employment opportunities In everyone's life, young people will also be led by them to engage in various criminal acts.
After the government's vigorous crackdown, the Kemora forces seem to have the momentum to be extinguished for a period of time. But in the 1950s at the beginning of the Naples tetralogy, the Camorra ushered in their glorious revival, all for the benefit of America across the ocean.
During WWII, the US military made some kind of agreement with the Sicilian mafia and the Neapolitan quemora, the kemora gang provided the US military with intelligence and protected their shipyards from damage, and in return the US military also allowed They continue to develop locally.
In this way, Naples, which had been impoverished for centuries (which had never received strong support from the Italian central government), became even more dilapidated after the war, with a severe shortage of basic materials, public facilities were also severely damaged during the war, the people were impoverished, and the poor , became the breeding ground for the rapid revival of Kemora. They took the opportunity to develop large-scale black market transactions and make huge profits from it.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Naples became the base of the global smuggling of tobacco, and in the 1970s, it had reached an annual transaction volume of 215 million US dollars (data from "Blood Brotherhoods", author John Dickie). Beginning in the 1980s, tobacco smuggling slowly turned to higher-profit drug (cocaine and heroin-based) transactions, such as the two brothers of Lenon, who were controlled by Marcello for drug smuggling, and the drug problem in Reno and Reno.
In the 1980s, especially after a 6.9-magnitude earthquake in 1980 (another "boundary disappearance" of Lila appeared), the Kemora forces took advantage of the post-earthquake reconstruction to infiltrate government agencies and public construction projects in large numbers. Ra's officials and judges also carried out more blatant assassinations.
During this period, although the forces were very large, they were all in the shadows. The media never dared to mention, let alone report anything related to this gang in person. The third book published by Lennon in the novel , The report written by Lila later, it can be said that it was very rare in the whole of Italy at that time, and the impact was quite large.
Therefore, in the novel, Lennon is completely unharmed and has almost become a major bug in the novel, and the disappearance of Lila's daughter (which is very likely to be regarded as Lennon's daughter) is also very likely to happen.
Lila's missing child Tina, like other murders and deaths in the novel, Ferrante did not give a definite explanation, and until the end did not clearly explain the whereabouts or who was behind it. The dangers of Italy's revitalizing urban construction (somewhat similar to our childhood perception of cars, don't stick your hands out the window, or you will be hit by other passing cars).
But the suspicion of the Kemora organization is the biggest, because whether Lila Company vigorously canvassed for the opponents of the political parliamentarians they supported, or the books and reports written by Lennon at the time, they were always willing to covertly. An exposure and attack from the Kemora group that controls the society. I don't mean that this is what the Solara brothers did. With the feelings and entanglements of Michele and Marcello towards Lila, it shouldn't be so ruthless. .
But as mentioned earlier, Kemora is a criminal network with an equal organizational structure, and Kemora between different regions has its own independent operating organization and power center, but these behaviors of Lila and Lenon are very important to them. The whole network has a very dangerous influence, so even if the Solara brothers don't take action, there is absolutely a reason for the Kemora in other areas to do it, and the Solara brothers have no way to control it.
In the 1980s, in Kemora, a leader named Raffaele Cutolo also had a big dream of reunification like Qin Shihuang. He wanted to unify the southern Kemora and form a system with a clear power center like Cosa nostra. Not only was it unsuccessful, it almost turned the unification war into a civil war. (Crime brother also has big dreams and fails series)
The world that the Naples tetralogy has woven for four years is unforgettable, not only because the author has created a dream and a fairy tale for us to jump out of the original class, witnessing the continuous and tenacious friendship between the two girls , and more importantly, this world is real, not fictional, nor is it history that once existed and has now passed away, but is within reach right now, in the world we are living in, those who Violence and death threats you might encounter as soon as you turn around.
No one is spared.
Part 3: No one is immune
Even at the end, Ferrante has no intention to fill the hole he dug at the beginning of the novel (where did Lila go in the end? Why did he suddenly decide to leave), and give millions of readers around the world a world that does not expect perfection, but at least perfection The ending, even at the end, added a pit:
Why did the puppets that they threw into the basement reappear at the door of Lennon's house?
She/he doesn't seem to care at all about comforting the readers. On the contrary, she wants to put the facts that are clearly in front of us, but we are not willing to see and accept them, and spend four years patiently , little by little, but continually and brutally, forcing us to admit that we live in a cruel world, and no one is immune.
Even if she was as stubborn as Lila, she could not escape.
Those things that we think we understand are not all of the facts, and even our understanding is far from the facts. (In 2018, are there still few reversals of public events that the audience who eat melons have seen with their own eyes? Some of them are left unresolved, and some have an undetermined ending.)
The Neapolitan tetralogy is about the decades-long true friendship between Lila and Lenon, two impoverished girls. Their interaction inspires each other's continuous progress, and at the same time becomes a prism that illuminates each other's inner desires. Friendship is not just an elegy about love, it is also a story of hate.
This is the focus of most media promotions of the Neapolitan tetralogy, but the friendship between Lila and Lenon was not as important to Ferrante as we thought. Although the competition and mutual aid relationship between Lila and Lenon runs through the whole novel, what really affects the trajectory of their lives is the irreversible result of the drastic changes in the Italian social structure after the war.
A turbulent society, whether in a politically or economically chaotic society, is a test of human nature. The short-sighted has a short-lived show of power, the attitude of the wind is swaying, and the upright is oppressed. Prescient people always strive for escape as their first goal, creativity is firmly trapped in power, and human rights are exiled to a place of no light and no man's waste.
Farce-loving viewers see the love and murder between two women in the book, sensitive readers see the sad post-war Italy (society) behind them, and desperate people see a world that doesn't get better after violence.
And this is not limited to Italy. In China in 2018, if it is to be written into a book, there will definitely be more surprising and thrilling magical events.
Adalgisa Giorgio, a lecturer in Italian studies at the University of Bath and a Neapolitan, describes the friendship between Lila and Lenon in the novel: Although it is full of conflict and confrontation, behind this solid friendship is the A silent struggle against a world that always tries to erase their traces.
A world which tries to erase it.
What kind of world is this.
A brutal world, a world that tries to drown everyone in violence and numbness, it requires your obedience and patience, ignoring your presence, forbidding you to step out of its territory, and even more terrifying is that this territory does not have An obvious boundary, you never know if you have walked out, or if you are actually behind bars without knowing it.
The world described by Ferrante is terrifyingly real. There is no simplicity, no reward for treatment, but only a storm in which the vision is forever blurred.
Political corruption, patriarchal society under the guise of domestic violence (father, husband), rape, loan sharks, Kemoran mafia, religious oppression, etc., constitute this brutal world of people who show no mercy to women.
This is their world and ours, a world in which no one can rest in power.
In the eyes of readers, let’s not mention those invisible forces that the author deliberately concealed (at least in the first three songs), domestic violence is something everyone can clearly feel, and Lila was almost killed for defeating Alfonso in class. Stefano ripped off his tongue, was thrown out of the window when he was arguing with his father about his primary school entrance exam, and was raped by Stefano on his wedding night.
As the author writes in the book, men come back with deep grievances when they've been drinking outside, in debt, beaten by others, overwhelmed by work deadlines, robbed or unavailable. When he gets home, any untimely remark from his wife or children can become the trigger for his domestic violence, and mistakes always happen one after another.
Post-war Italian families have long told us that in peacetime, fisting happens more often than guns.
But are the men who have despised or oppressed them really better than the women they oppressed?
The momentary murder of Don Alle, the sudden murder of the Solara brothers, the eventual death of Reno with drugs, Stefano's family downfall, Pasquale's political escape, Franco's suicide, Nino His career was suddenly interrupted and he suffered several prisons... The only one who seemed to be able to stay out of these whirlpools seemed to be Lennon's ex-husband, Pietro, who was devoted to academics. violence.
No one can be spared, human nature has long been out of the scope of discussion, and some are just distorted laws of survival under high pressure.
The people in this violent world are not blind, they see everything that happens, but they can't see anything. In the Naples tetralogy, Lila may be the only one who can really see clearly, as she herself said:
We don't know anything, we didn't know it before, and we still don't know it, because we don't understand what happened. Everything in this town, every stone, or every piece of wood, was there before us. We grew up here, and none of us realized these things, never thought about them, and couldn't understand them. It's not just us, her father pretended to have nothing before, and so did her mother. My parents, including Reno, pretended not to know that Stefano's butcher shop "before" was Peluso's carpenter's shop, owned by Pasquale's father; Don Archil's money, and Solara's family The money was earned "before". She tested her parents, who knew nothing and didn't want to talk about it. No fascism, no kings, no oppression, no oppression, no exploitation, none of this ever existed.
Dovlatov said that we resist all the temptations and fears of life with our only gift, indifference.
Today, we remember the details of how many magical events that have happened. Even the most educated Lenon, who had left Naples and moved to Florence and Milan, often just moved forward passively. Only Lila, every time the boundaries disappear, with the moment when she is awake and unable to control the situation, she sees clearly what she has seen but never understood before.
This is an event that requires wisdom, kindness, courage, and a strong will to experience, none of which are indispensable.
For Lila, every appearance of the disappearance of boundaries is a new understanding of the world, a total breakdown of her loss of control over everything around her.
The disappearance of boundaries often happens to people with sensitive minds. It is a feeling that the world we are familiar with has suddenly become unfamiliar. Everything around us has not changed, but in our hearts it is completely different. The people and things that held us tightly and allowed us to feel the truth suddenly loosened at this moment. This is a feeling of loneliness. This is a shedding-like growth and change, which is irreversible.
Even the example of the bright moon on the sea used by the original author cannot describe this feeling very well, but lonely people will understand that this kind of loneliness is not the loneliness that no one understands, but the loneliness that no one understands the magical world.
The disappearance of boundaries is a blessing and a curse, which depends on whether you still have the courage to move forward alone after experiencing it, and whether you still have the courage to find, establish, and maintain a rational corner of your own side in this absurd world. .
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finally
The true identity of author Elena Ferrante is a bigger mystery than the whereabouts of Lila at the end. From her first book, no one knows whether this mysterious Elena Ferrante is male or female, how old, where she lives, whether the Neapolitan tetralogy is her autobiographical work, or even a collaboration with HBO, she is All communication is in the form of emails and none of the staff members have seen her or him. In 2017, Italy even made a documentary "Ferrante Fever" about her, but she did not appear at all.
By the time a book is finished, it has become disconnected from the author, and the author can no longer control the impact it has on the reader's mind, so if you like, love, or even obsess over the Neapolitan tetralogy, enjoy what it has to offer. The shock it brings, the sigh it brings, and the thinking it brings, these are what you really need to explore. It doesn't matter who the author is anymore, does it?
It's like when you fall in love with someone, you don't necessarily need to know the other person's mother, right?
fuck it.
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