Those who leave and those who stay is the third installment of the
Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante.
If you
forgot what happened in the previous volumes, there is a handy list with
characters and a brief overview of what happened in the back.
Lina
Lina lives
with Enzo and works in Bruno’s meat-factory. Her position here is not an easy
one, her character does not lend itself for compromise and she is not capable
of being nice for the sake of being nice.
Almost against her own will she gets
involved with the communist parties attempt to change the horrible
working-conditions for the people who work at the factory.
You cannot
help but notice that the communists who want action, are usually from the
middle and higher classes, who joined up to show how much they loathe their own
families and who now try to tell the real workers what needs to be done. This is
exactly what Lina has against them.
She asks
too much of herself and her health is suffering, but then the situation
changes. She and Enzo have studied the new computer-techniques and they can get
a new job, with better pay and a better future. At the same time there is also
somebody from the past who shows interest in Lina and what she can do.
Elena
Elena has
written her book and this has become quite a succes. She marries Pietro and it
is as if his family comes from a completely different planet than her own.
She tries
to write and dabbles a little in journalism, but this is more an exercise in
writing than that she really knows what she is writing about. Her new novel
never gets past a few notes and she is all too happy to be distracted by her
marriage and her children.
Pietro is
in a difficult situation. Despite his modern views, he is actually a very
old-fashioned man and he does not need or want Elena’s point of view. He is
also quarreling with his students who want change at the university and despise
his way of teaching. All this causes a lot of tension between Pietro and Elena
Elena is
constantly trying to get out of the old neighborhood. She does this literally
by moving to Florence and copies the fashion, hair, books etc from her
family-in-law. But that does not really help, she never arrives at the level
she wants to be, her civilization is nothing but a thin layer and it never
becomes something she owns.
She is
dissatisfied and this shows in different ways. She wants contact with her
in-laws, and also her own mother, she wants contact with Lina, but not really,
she wants Nino, the boy she was once in love with, but never makes a real
choice.
Hard to review
It took me
quite a while to write this review, because I do not really know what to think
of this book.
I come to the weird conclusion that I like Elena Ferrante better while I am
reading her, than after I finished the book.
The book is
written well and you do want to read to the last page, but somehow it did not
make the impact that the first book My
brilliant friend did make.
This third
book is not my favorite, but that is also because I do not really like the time
it is set. I have little sympathy for the activists and feminists of those days
who honestly sought change in the beginning, but all too soon became so fanatic
that there was no reasoning left.
I do not
like Elena, I just want to kick her. I feel she is never honest. She just goes
from here to there and back and just complains and never makes an honest
connection to something. She never stands for anything. And when she does
finally make a choice, you can spot from a mile this will not make her happy,
as the person she runs away with has shown himself as not really reliable.
Lina stays
in Napoli and even returns to the old neighborhood. She even has Michele Solera,
her old enemy dancing to her tune, but the question is who is manipulating who?
Lina is
bitter, but she is honest. She grabs life by the throat and does not back down.
She has difficulties that Elena cannot phantom, but she perseveres. She is not
a nice or a kind woman, but I admire her tenacity.
Why are
these two women friends? Habit, old loyalties? They do not even seem to like
eachother very much, but at the same time they do ask eachother for help when
the need is there.
I do not
really understand their relationship, but I am curious to see how this
relationship will continue and what will happen next.
The English
translation of the fourth book is out already, but I will have to wait until
October, when the Dutch translation will be published. I am looking forward to
it, despite the fact that I did have some reserves with this book.
Original Italian
title: Storia de chi fugge e di chi resta
Published in 2013
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