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La frantumaglia
Questo libro ci porta nel laboratorio di Elena Ferrante, ci permette di lanciare uno sguardo dentro i cassetti da cui sono usciti i suoi due romanzi, L'amore molesto e I giorni dell'abbandono, offre un esempio di passione assoluta per la scrittura. La scrittrice risponde a non poche delle domande che le hanno fatto i suoi lettori negli ultimi dieci anni. Dice, per esempio, perché chi scrive un libro farebbe bene a tenersi in disparte e lasciare che il testo faccia il suo corso. Dice i pensieri e le ansie di quando un romanzo diventa film. Dice com'è complicato trovare risposte in pillole alle domande di un'intervista. Dice delle gioie, delle fatiche, delle angosce di chi narra una storia e poi la scopre insufficiente. Dice dei suoi rapporti con la psicoanalisi, con le città in cui è vissuta, con l'infanzia come magazzino di mille suggestioni e fantasie, con il femminismo. Le pagine sono densissime. Ci sono le memorie della città natale, Napoli. Ci sono brani narrativi brevi e lunghi che non hanno trovato posto nei romanzi. C'è un modo sorprendente di interrogare la memoria, i libri amati, la vita di tutti i giorni. C'è soprattutto - al centro - lo scrivere, l'affollarsi intono alla pagina di esperienze e letture. La frantumaglia è nato in buona parte da alcuni dei materiali che negli anni Elena Ferrante ha inviato alla sua casa editrice: lettere, scritti, risposte a domande di lettori e intervistatori. Il risultato è l'autoritratto narrativamente vivacissimo di una scrittrice al lavoro.
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Elena Ferrante
33 books15.6k followersElena Ferrante is a pseudonymous Italian novelist. Ferrante's books, originally published in Italian, have been translated into many languages. Her four-book series of Neapolitan Novels are her most widely known works.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 342 reviews
January 17, 2021
UN LIBRO CHE ACCOMPAGNA ALTRI LIBRI
Ogni libro è pieno di parole.
Questo in modo particolare. Le parole di questo libro sono così pregnanti, e sature, da sembrare di più. Più parole.
Non posso, non riesco, non voglio aggiungerne altre.
Ecco perché uso le parole di Elena.
Che non è Delia, non è Olga, non è Leda, non è Lila, non è Lenù.
Le parole di Elena, che sono quelle di Delia, di Olga, di Leda, di Lila, di Lenù.
E adesso sono anche le mie.
La sincerità, per quello che mi riguarda, è il tormento e insieme il motore di ogni ricerca letteraria. Si lavora per tutta la vita cercando di fornirsi di strumenti espressivi adeguati. In genere il quesito più urgente per uno scrittore pare che sia: di quali esperienze io so di poter essere la voce, cosa mi sento in grado di raccontare? Ma non è così. È più pressante chiedersi: qual è la parola, il ritmo della frase, la tonalità del periodo adatti alle cose che so? Sembrano domande formali, di stile, tutto sommato secondarie. Eppure sono convinta che senza le parole giuste, senza un lungo addestramento nel combinarle, non viene fuori niente di vivo e di vero. Non basta, come si usa sempre più oggi, dire: sono fatti realmente accaduti, è la mia vita vera, nomi e cognomi sono quelli veri, descrivo proprio i luoghi in cui gli avvenimenti si sono verificati. Una scrittura inadeguata può rendere costituzionalmente falsa la più onesta delle verità biografiche. La verità letteraria non è fondata su nessun patto autobiografico o giornalistico o giuridico. Non è la verità del biografo o del reporter o di un verbale di polizia o di una sentenza di tribunale, non è nemmeno il verosimile di una narrazione costruita con competenza professionale. La verità letteraria è la verità sprigionata esclusivamente dalla parola ben utilizzata, e si esaurisce in tutto e per tutto nelle parole che la formulano. Essa è direttamente proporzionale all’energia che si riesce a imprimere alla frase. E quando funziona non c’è stereotipo, luogo comune, bagaglio consunto della letteratura popolare che le resista. Riesce a rianimare, resuscitare, piegare alle sue necessità ogni cosa.
That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.
Raymond Carver
Tutte le foto sono di Francesca Woodman, inclusa quest’ultima riprodotta nella copertina del libro.
Ogni libro è pieno di parole.
Questo in modo particolare. Le parole di questo libro sono così pregnanti, e sature, da sembrare di più. Più parole.
Non posso, non riesco, non voglio aggiungerne altre.
Ecco perché uso le parole di Elena.
Che non è Delia, non è Olga, non è Leda, non è Lila, non è Lenù.
Le parole di Elena, che sono quelle di Delia, di Olga, di Leda, di Lila, di Lenù.
E adesso sono anche le mie.
La sincerità, per quello che mi riguarda, è il tormento e insieme il motore di ogni ricerca letteraria. Si lavora per tutta la vita cercando di fornirsi di strumenti espressivi adeguati. In genere il quesito più urgente per uno scrittore pare che sia: di quali esperienze io so di poter essere la voce, cosa mi sento in grado di raccontare? Ma non è così. È più pressante chiedersi: qual è la parola, il ritmo della frase, la tonalità del periodo adatti alle cose che so? Sembrano domande formali, di stile, tutto sommato secondarie. Eppure sono convinta che senza le parole giuste, senza un lungo addestramento nel combinarle, non viene fuori niente di vivo e di vero. Non basta, come si usa sempre più oggi, dire: sono fatti realmente accaduti, è la mia vita vera, nomi e cognomi sono quelli veri, descrivo proprio i luoghi in cui gli avvenimenti si sono verificati. Una scrittura inadeguata può rendere costituzionalmente falsa la più onesta delle verità biografiche. La verità letteraria non è fondata su nessun patto autobiografico o giornalistico o giuridico. Non è la verità del biografo o del reporter o di un verbale di polizia o di una sentenza di tribunale, non è nemmeno il verosimile di una narrazione costruita con competenza professionale. La verità letteraria è la verità sprigionata esclusivamente dalla parola ben utilizzata, e si esaurisce in tutto e per tutto nelle parole che la formulano. Essa è direttamente proporzionale all’energia che si riesce a imprimere alla frase. E quando funziona non c’è stereotipo, luogo comune, bagaglio consunto della letteratura popolare che le resista. Riesce a rianimare, resuscitare, piegare alle sue necessità ogni cosa.
That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.
Raymond Carver
Tutte le foto sono di Francesca Woodman, inclusa quest’ultima riprodotta nella copertina del libro.
December 18, 2016
If anything, this book confirmed my absolute love for and devotion to Elena Ferrante. Not written for the intention of publication, Frantumaglia is a collection of correspondences, interviews, and essays. In it (and more importantly in her novels), Ferrante proves herself to not only be one of the greatest writers of the last fifty years, but also one of its greatest thinkers. She writes with conviction and humility. What I wouldn't give to sit down to a meal with her, whoever she is. I don't care if we ever truly know who Ferrante is, as long as she continues to publish. And if she doesn't, thank God we have her existing body of work to devour over and over again. 4.5 stars
Sidenote: Don't read this book until you've read all of Ferrante's novels (Troubling Love, The Days of Abandonment, The Lost Daughter, and The Neapolitan Quartet). It includes some spoilers, and I believe you'll have a greater appreciation for it knowing what exactly she is discussing in her interviews.
Sidenote: Don't read this book until you've read all of Ferrante's novels (Troubling Love, The Days of Abandonment, The Lost Daughter, and The Neapolitan Quartet). It includes some spoilers, and I believe you'll have a greater appreciation for it knowing what exactly she is discussing in her interviews.
August 9, 2018
Great stuff here for those interested in the writing process, on how it is sieved from memory’s ambiguous fragments. To read of the many levels on which Ferrante proceeds as a novelist is—for the deep reader or writer—riveting. The autobiography in Chapter 1.16, which describes the childhood she plumbed in order to write her first two novellas—Troubling Love and The Days of Abandonment—is very interesting. Most fascinating to me were the two sections of text, one from each of the first two novellas, inserted here that had been cut from those books. Ferrante's rich comments about why she cut these sections serve as a veritable workshop in creative writing. Let me add, that I've never heard of another writer doing this; that is, displaying rejected text from his or her own novel and explaining its deficiencies. There are also Ferrante's written exchanges with the director Mario Martone who turned her first novella into an Italian-language movie. No, to my knowledge that film was never subtitled or distributed for an English-speaking audience. But coming soon to HBO will be an Italian-made, English-subtitled treatment of Ferrante’s four magnificent Neapolitan Novels. Let me conclude with a few quibbles: I take exception to Chapter 2.8, in which Ferrante answers questions from listeners of the Italian radio program Fahrenheit. Her answers are well worth reading, but the letters from the readers, save one or two, range from dreary to bonkers. Another annoyance comes in the form of incessant questions from interviewers about her decision to remain anonymous and not junket her books. When they outted her a year or so ago, I actually read her real name, but I haven't retained it. Who cares? Only, as she articulately explains, the media, and that's because journalists possess no critical vocabulary for dealing with writing alone. So they must constantly have personalities to fete. It's the author’s face that interests them, biological fodder they can write, but they can’t discuss fiction critically, and even if they could who would read them? Media is celebrity and nothing else, and celebrity, Ferrante argues, has nothing to do with whether or not a book is worthwhile. Yet the topic comes up so often in these pages it grows tedious. Enough. Some of this repetitiveness might have been edited out. If the book can be said to have a weak point, that’s it. But there are scads of goodies here that will delight those who care for and think deeply about literature.
August 23, 2018
Read this collection of letters and interviews if you’ve read all of Ferrante’s fiction and loved all her words, words, words—which I do. (Otherwise, forget it.) My only regret is that I didn’t read it sooner after finishing her novels, but the details I’ve forgotten don’t really matter: it’s the themes that are paramount.
It’s also not a book to read straight through, as some of the questions (and answers) of the written interviews are repetitive (mostly those dealing with her choice to not use her real name), as if the interviewers hadn’t read any of the earlier interviews, or as if they thought they’d get a different answer. The interviews become more interesting as the book progresses, however, as Ferrante becomes more comfortable with the process, and even more voluble. (For this reason, don’t read the much shorter, earlier edition.) At one point Ferrante says the process of answering the questions has helped to elucidate her own ideas for herself.
My favorite part was learning about the word frantumaglia,"a jumble of fragments”. Ferrante’s mother used the word (from their dialect) often, to describe “contradictory sensations that were tearing her apart”, though Ferrante admits she doesn’t know if she’s correctly interpreting her mother’s meaning. Ferrante expands the definition of the word even further for herself as the interviews go on. Now I have a word for the “miscellaneous crowd of things” I’ve always experienced in my own head, though I know I’m not pronouncing it correctly.
It’s also not a book to read straight through, as some of the questions (and answers) of the written interviews are repetitive (mostly those dealing with her choice to not use her real name), as if the interviewers hadn’t read any of the earlier interviews, or as if they thought they’d get a different answer. The interviews become more interesting as the book progresses, however, as Ferrante becomes more comfortable with the process, and even more voluble. (For this reason, don’t read the much shorter, earlier edition.) At one point Ferrante says the process of answering the questions has helped to elucidate her own ideas for herself.
My favorite part was learning about the word frantumaglia,"a jumble of fragments”. Ferrante’s mother used the word (from their dialect) often, to describe “contradictory sensations that were tearing her apart”, though Ferrante admits she doesn’t know if she’s correctly interpreting her mother’s meaning. Ferrante expands the definition of the word even further for herself as the interviews go on. Now I have a word for the “miscellaneous crowd of things” I’ve always experienced in my own head, though I know I’m not pronouncing it correctly.
April 14, 2017
A fabulous collections of correspondence and essay like responses to interview questions over a period of twenty five years since the publication of her first novel Troubling Love.
The title 'Frantumaglia', a fabulous word left to her by her mother, in her Neapolitan dialect, a word she used to describe how she felt when racked by contradictory sensations that were tearing her apart.
And so for her characters, this is what suffering is, looking onto the frantumaglia, the jumble of fragments inside.
The first half chiefly concerning communication around Troubling Love and The Days of Abandonment, the latter written ten years after the first, although other stories were written in between, but never published, the author not happy with them as she so succinctly reveals:
The second half indicates a delay in the publication of this collection as it includes interviews and question - responses around the Neapolitan Quartet, beginning with the renowned My Brilliant Friend.
Readers ask poignant questions, while the media tend to obsess about her decision to remain absent (as opposed to anonymous) from promotional activity, to which she has many responses, but one i particularly liked in a letter to Goffredo Fofi:
She shares some of her literary influences (works of literature about abandoned women) from the classic Greek myths, from Ariadne to Medea, from Dido to Simone de Beauvoir's The Woman Destroyed and refers to recurring themes of abandonment, separation, and struggle. She mentions literary favourites, such as Elsa Morante's House of Liars.
One interviewer asks why in her early novels, her characters depict women who suffer, to which she responds:
And on comparing Olga to Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, who she sees as descendants of Dido and Medea, though they have lost the obscure force that pushed those heroines of the ancient world to such brutal forms of resistance and revenge, they instead experience their abandonment as a punishment for their sins.
In an interview, Stefania Scateni from the publication l'Unità, refers to Olga, the protagonist of The Days of Abandonment as destroyed by one love, seeking another with her neighbour, asks what Ferrante thinks of love?
She agains refers to the Greek classics, to Book 4 of the Aeneid, where the construction of Carthage stops when Dido falls in love.
The correspondence with the Director of Troubling Love, Mario Martone is illuminating, to read of Ferrante's humble hesitancy in contributing to a form she confessed to know nothing about, followed by her exemplary input to the process and finally the unsent letter, many months later when she finally saw the film and was so affected by what he had created. It makes me want to read her debut novel and watch the original cult film now.
Frantumagli is an excellent accompaniment to the novels of Elena Ferrante and insight into this writer's journey and process, in particular the inspiration behind her characters, settings and recurring themes.
The title 'Frantumaglia', a fabulous word left to her by her mother, in her Neapolitan dialect, a word she used to describe how she felt when racked by contradictory sensations that were tearing her apart.
She said that inside her she had a frantumaglia, a jumble of fragments. The frantumaglia depressed her. Sometimes it made her dizzy, sometimes it made her mouth taste like iron. It was the word for a disquiet not otherwise definable, it referred to a miscellaneous crowd of things in her head, debris in a muddy water of the brain. The frantumaglia was mysterious, it provoked mysterious actions, it was the source of all suffering not traceable to a single obvious cause...Often it made her weep, and since childhood the word has stayed in my mind to describe, in particular, a sudden fit of weeping for no evident reason: frantumaglia tears.
And so for her characters, this is what suffering is, looking onto the frantumaglia, the jumble of fragments inside.
The first half chiefly concerning communication around Troubling Love and The Days of Abandonment, the latter written ten years after the first, although other stories were written in between, but never published, the author not happy with them as she so succinctly reveals:
I haven't written two books in ten years, I've written and rewritten many. But Troubling Love and The Days of Abandonment seemed to me the ones that most decisively stuck a finger in certain wounds I have that are still infected, and did so without keeping a safe distance. At other times, I've written about clean or happily healed wounds with the obligatory detachment and the right words. But then I discovered that is not my path.
The second half indicates a delay in the publication of this collection as it includes interviews and question - responses around the Neapolitan Quartet, beginning with the renowned My Brilliant Friend.
Readers ask poignant questions, while the media tend to obsess about her decision to remain absent (as opposed to anonymous) from promotional activity, to which she has many responses, but one i particularly liked in a letter to Goffredo Fofi:
In my experience, the difficulty-pleasure of writing touches every point of the body. When you've finished the book, it's as if your innermost self had been ransacked, and all you want is to regain distance, return to being whole. I've discovered, by publishing, that there is a certain relief in the fact that the moment the text becomes a printed book it goes elsewhere. Before, it was the text that was pestering me; now I'd have to run after it. I decided not to.
...I wrote my book to free myself from it, not to be its prisoner.
She shares some of her literary influences (works of literature about abandoned women) from the classic Greek myths, from Ariadne to Medea, from Dido to Simone de Beauvoir's The Woman Destroyed and refers to recurring themes of abandonment, separation, and struggle. She mentions literary favourites, such as Elsa Morante's House of Liars.
One interviewer asks why in her early novels, her characters depict women who suffer, to which she responds:
The suffering of Delia, Olga, Leda is the result of disappointment. What they expected from life - they are women who sought to break with the tradition of their mothers and grandmothers - does not arrive. Old ghosts arrive instead, the same ones with whom the women of the past had to reckon. The difference is that these women don't submit to them passively. Instead, they fight, and they cope. They don't win, but they simply come to an agreement with their own expectations and find new equilibriums. I feel them not as women who are suffering but as women who are struggling.
And on comparing Olga to Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, who she sees as descendants of Dido and Medea, though they have lost the obscure force that pushed those heroines of the ancient world to such brutal forms of resistance and revenge, they instead experience their abandonment as a punishment for their sins.
Olga, on the other hand, is an educated woman of today, influenced by the battle against the patriarchy. She knows what can happen to her and tries not to be destroyed by abandonment. Hers is the story of how she resists, of how she touches bottom and returns, of how abandonment changes her without annihilating her.
In an interview, Stefania Scateni from the publication l'Unità, refers to Olga, the protagonist of The Days of Abandonment as destroyed by one love, seeking another with her neighbour, asks what Ferrante thinks of love?
Ferrante: The need for love is the central experience of our existence.However foolish it may seem, we feel truly alive only when we have an arrow in our side and that we drag around night and day, everywhere we go. The need for love sweeps away every other need and, on the other hand, motivates all our actions.
She agains refers to the Greek classics, to Book 4 of the Aeneid, where the construction of Carthage stops when Dido falls in love.
Individuals and cities without love are a danger to themselves and others.
The correspondence with the Director of Troubling Love, Mario Martone is illuminating, to read of Ferrante's humble hesitancy in contributing to a form she confessed to know nothing about, followed by her exemplary input to the process and finally the unsent letter, many months later when she finally saw the film and was so affected by what he had created. It makes me want to read her debut novel and watch the original cult film now.
Frantumagli is an excellent accompaniment to the novels of Elena Ferrante and insight into this writer's journey and process, in particular the inspiration behind her characters, settings and recurring themes.
April 10, 2020
If you read all of her books and still want more, this is full of insight, wisdom, and context. It's interesting to watch her approach to participating in journalism change over the years.
Want to read
November 16, 2016"My mother liked to use the word frantumaglia—bits and pieces of uncertain origin which rattle around in your head, not always comfortably".
in Paris Review, Art of Fiction No. 228
"I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors"
Letter to her publisher, Sandra Ozzola,
(Ferrante's note)
"I’m still very interested in testifying against the self-promotion obsessively imposed by the media. (on the anonymity question)
in Interview to Paris Review
http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...
"There is nothing mysterious about her, given how she manifests herself – perhaps even too much – in her own writing, the place where her creative life transpires in absolute fullness."
"I was not born or brought up in affluence. Climbing the economic ladder has been very hard for me,..."
Elena Ferrante in e-mail interview to The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
Anita Raja, ....really???
OR
Domenico Starnone?
"...there has been much speculation about the writer’s identity."
"....new revelations from real estate and financial records point to Anita Raja, a Rome-based translator whose German-born mother fled the Holocaust and later married a Neapolitan magistrate".
in:
Elena Ferrante: An Answer?
by Claudio Gatti
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/10/...
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/10/...
BUT, according to Brazilian writer Marçal Aquino, Ferrante lives in Portugal.
"Dizem-me que ela vive aqui em Portugal, naturalmente com outro nome, porque Elena Ferrante é um pseudónimo"
Interview to "jornal i"
You figure,...mystery persists.
PS Let us not forget Marco Santagata's guess on Ferrante's identity; a professor at the University of Pisa, he believes Ferrante is a Naples woman, who studied in Pisa before 1966; she lectures Contemporary History and knows a lot about organized crime. He ventured this name: Marcella Marmo. Yet, the real Marcella Marmo when asked about that hypothesis denied being Ferrante.
http://video.corriere.it/here-s-elena...
PPS Judith Thurman: "impossible to be a man"
2nd October 2016
UPDATE
Well, I've written yesterday the above piece, and little I knew that The Guardian was writing also about the issue at stake; so here goes more on Ferrante:
Elena Ferrante: literary storm as Italian reporter 'identifies' author
in:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/201...
and, today's NYer's:
THE “UNMASKING” OF ELENA FERRANTE
By Alexandra Schwartz , 10:40 A.M.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cult...
3rd October 2016
UPDATE
And, of course, there are those who think that anonymity is good, and letting things be as they are/were would be a better option; see here: https://electricliterature.com/we-may...
5th October 2016
UPDATE
"Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey by Elena Ferrante review – astute, revelatory ruminations"
in: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
1st of November 2016
UPDATE
Oh, now there's fever; quite wintery; Ferrante Fever, a documentary in the making about the hyped phenomenon;
see here: http://variety.com/2016/film/global/i...
16th Nov 2016 2016
June 10, 2023
made me want to rate all of her novels 7/5 stars
January 15, 2017
"You say it's necessary to do interviews, at least, and that's fine, you're right. Tell Fofi to send me the questions, I'll answer. In these ten years I hope I've grown up.
In my own defence, however, I will say only this: in the games with newspapers one always ends up lying and at the root of the lie is the need to offer oneself to the public in the best form, with thoughts suitable to the role, with the makeup we imagine is suitable."
Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey starts with the much-quoted letter that the author known as Elena Ferrante wrote to her publishers in 1991, at the time her first book was written:
"I won’t participate in discussions and conferences, if I’m invited. I won’t go and accept prizes, if any are awarded to me. I will never promote the book, especially on television, not in Italy or, as the case may be, abroad. I will be interviewed only in writing, but I would prefer to limit even that to the indispensable minimum
I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. If they have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won’t."
And it ends with a, I suspect deliberately provocative, "About the Author" section, which simply lists her published books followed by several blank pages.
However, as the opening quote, from a similar letter but written 10 years late at the time of her 2nd novel, suggests, Ferrante did ultimately soften her stance. Increasingly she answered questions from journalists on her books, and indeed questions on her anonymity, although any requests for biographical detail were curtly dismissed, quoting Italo Calvino's “Ask me what you want to know, but I won’t tell you the truth, of that you can be sure.”
Many of her replies were lengthy expositions on her works, not really tailor-made for newspaper publication, often not even sent to the journalist. In one case she manages to answer five brief, albeit open-ended, questions from a magazine with a 70 page analysis of her first two books.
And it is this piece, printed in this volume, that gives rise both to the title of this book and indeed its very origin as she accepts (or rather doesn't refuse) her publisher's suggestion to publish the piece and similar correspondence as a book, describing it not so much as a stand-alone work but rather an appendix to her novels, "a sort of slightly dense afterword."
The book we have in English is this original book updated for the publication of Ferrante's later novels, right up to her latest, in English and Italian, the Neapolitan Quartet (which incidentally she regards as a single novel).
"Frantumuglia" is a term her mother used to describe "contradictory sensations that were tearing her apart ... a jumble of fragments", much like the condition experienced by Lila in My Beautiful Friend. But Ferrante increasingly used the term in interviews to describe the origin of her own writing, "fragments of memory. ... bits and pieces whose origin is difficult to pinpoint, and which make a noise in your head, sometimes causing discomfort. ... splinters of a possible narrative" from which she pieces together a story.
Ferrante's manifesto of anonymity does raise some rather challenging issues.
Crucially, and as many of her interviewers point out, far from distracting attention from the author's identity, the sense of mystery created has actually served to focus attention on it: rare is the review (including, regrettably, mine) of a Ferrante novel that doesn't at least mention the topic. And that in turn begs the question of whether the whole concept isn't actually designed to drum up publicity.
She responds rather aggressively to journalists raising this, pointing out that they raised the topic not her and claiming her readers (as opposed to journalists) don't care. But one of the longest and certainly the most revealing interview in the book [largely because it is a genuine two-way conversation rather than simply answers with no opportunity for the questioner to follow-up on points raised] is between Ferrante and her Italian publishers (*), and they also spend as much time discussing the issue of her anonymity as they do her works.
Indeed reading between the lines one does rather conclude that the author herself would genuinely prefer if no-one cared or wrote about her identity, whereas her publishers do, understandably, sense and to an extent exploit the commercial potential of the stance.
[* The Paris Review printed a shortened version of the same piece in their wonderful Art of Fiction series https://www.theparisreview.org/interv...]
Ferrante's consistent stance is that the author of a book is not to be confused with the complete individual who wrote the books. There are parts of her in the novel but not all of her:
"I am not a supporter of the idea that the author is inessential. I would like only to decide what part of myself should be made public and what instead should remain private. I think that, in art, the life that counts is the life that remains miraculously alive in the works."
But interestingly she pushes back on the concept that the author itself can be absent from a novel, arguing that, in the Neopolitan books, "Elena" the author is different from "Elena" the narrator. She believes in the importance of "providing the reader with the elements that enable him to distinguish me from the narrating "I" ... The passionate reader deserves to be enabled to also extract the author's physiognomy from every word or grammatical violation or syntactical knot in the text, just has happens for characters, for a landscape, for a feeling, for a slow or agitated act...this seems to me much more than signing copies in a bookstore, defacing them with trite phrases."
Ferrante's anonymity has also led to many questions as to whether "Elena Ferrante" is more than just a pseudonym and actually a false front, that the limited biographical details she has acknowledged are false, that the pseudonym might disguise an already famous author, different people writing each book, or, most perniciously in Ferrante's eyes (and the one detail she insists in contradicting, since this would be a betrayal of her writing) that she may be a man.
As to the accusation that there may even be more than one writer using the pseudonym Ferrante, turns this back to support one of the very points her anonymity makes, that one has to work hard as a reader to detect the author if there is no picture on the cover:
The experts stare at the empty frame where the image of the author is supposed to be and they don’t have the technical tools, or, more simply, the true passion and sensitivity as readers, to fill that space with the works. So they forget that every individual work has its own story. Only the label of the name or a rigorous philological examination allows us to take for granted that the author of Dubliners is the same person who wrote Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The cultural education of any high school student should include the idea that a writer adapts depending on what he or she needs to express.
The other accusation sometimes levelled at Ferrante's novels is that they are little more than up-market chick-lit. This isn't helped by the branding and covers of the English editions:
This Frantamuglia very successfully refutes, mostly not by assertion but instead by the brilliance of Ferrante's writing on her own works, her themes, her influences, even unpublished sections from some of her works that explain her thought processes.
But she does admit to using tools to hook the reader while at the same time refusing the bounds of genre fiction:
I publish to be read. It’s the only thing that interests me about publication. So I employ all the strategies I know to capture the reader’s attention, stimulate curiosity, make the page as dense as possible and as easy as possible to turn.
But once I have the reader’s attention I feel it is my right to pull it in whichever direction I choose. I don’t think the reader should be indulged as a consumer, because he isn’t one. Literature that indulges the tastes of the reader is a degraded literature. My goal is to disappoint the usual expectations and inspire new ones.
And as a final point that struck me, she both neatly skewers the type of political writing that, e.g. won the 2016 Booker Prize:
"But what of any real political effect? In general it seems to me disappointing: a rhetorically complicit nudge given to a public that is already convinced."
and, through her comments on Silvio Berlusconi in 2002, anticipates the events of 2016:
"The construction of his figure as a democratically elected economic-political-television Duce will remain a perfectible, repeatable model...(He has) practically demonstrated that the interests off an individual can be installed overnight, thanks to a business group (not a political party), on top of the political dissatisfaction of half of Italy, higher classes and lower classes, passed off as a heroic story of national salvation and, above all, without extinguishing democratic assurances."
(Albeit in 2002 she attributes this to people suspending credulity and treating everything they are told as true, whereas to me 2016 is the pay-truth age where no one believes anything and so a lie or an unsubstantiated assertion is as valid as the truth or an expert opinion. )
Overall a wonderful "slightly dense afterword" to Ferrante's impressive novels, but best read if one is already familiar with them to get the most from it.
In my own defence, however, I will say only this: in the games with newspapers one always ends up lying and at the root of the lie is the need to offer oneself to the public in the best form, with thoughts suitable to the role, with the makeup we imagine is suitable."
Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey starts with the much-quoted letter that the author known as Elena Ferrante wrote to her publishers in 1991, at the time her first book was written:
"I won’t participate in discussions and conferences, if I’m invited. I won’t go and accept prizes, if any are awarded to me. I will never promote the book, especially on television, not in Italy or, as the case may be, abroad. I will be interviewed only in writing, but I would prefer to limit even that to the indispensable minimum
I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. If they have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won’t."
And it ends with a, I suspect deliberately provocative, "About the Author" section, which simply lists her published books followed by several blank pages.
However, as the opening quote, from a similar letter but written 10 years late at the time of her 2nd novel, suggests, Ferrante did ultimately soften her stance. Increasingly she answered questions from journalists on her books, and indeed questions on her anonymity, although any requests for biographical detail were curtly dismissed, quoting Italo Calvino's “Ask me what you want to know, but I won’t tell you the truth, of that you can be sure.”
Many of her replies were lengthy expositions on her works, not really tailor-made for newspaper publication, often not even sent to the journalist. In one case she manages to answer five brief, albeit open-ended, questions from a magazine with a 70 page analysis of her first two books.
And it is this piece, printed in this volume, that gives rise both to the title of this book and indeed its very origin as she accepts (or rather doesn't refuse) her publisher's suggestion to publish the piece and similar correspondence as a book, describing it not so much as a stand-alone work but rather an appendix to her novels, "a sort of slightly dense afterword."
The book we have in English is this original book updated for the publication of Ferrante's later novels, right up to her latest, in English and Italian, the Neapolitan Quartet (which incidentally she regards as a single novel).
"Frantumuglia" is a term her mother used to describe "contradictory sensations that were tearing her apart ... a jumble of fragments", much like the condition experienced by Lila in My Beautiful Friend. But Ferrante increasingly used the term in interviews to describe the origin of her own writing, "fragments of memory. ... bits and pieces whose origin is difficult to pinpoint, and which make a noise in your head, sometimes causing discomfort. ... splinters of a possible narrative" from which she pieces together a story.
Ferrante's manifesto of anonymity does raise some rather challenging issues.
Crucially, and as many of her interviewers point out, far from distracting attention from the author's identity, the sense of mystery created has actually served to focus attention on it: rare is the review (including, regrettably, mine) of a Ferrante novel that doesn't at least mention the topic. And that in turn begs the question of whether the whole concept isn't actually designed to drum up publicity.
She responds rather aggressively to journalists raising this, pointing out that they raised the topic not her and claiming her readers (as opposed to journalists) don't care. But one of the longest and certainly the most revealing interview in the book [largely because it is a genuine two-way conversation rather than simply answers with no opportunity for the questioner to follow-up on points raised] is between Ferrante and her Italian publishers (*), and they also spend as much time discussing the issue of her anonymity as they do her works.
Indeed reading between the lines one does rather conclude that the author herself would genuinely prefer if no-one cared or wrote about her identity, whereas her publishers do, understandably, sense and to an extent exploit the commercial potential of the stance.
[* The Paris Review printed a shortened version of the same piece in their wonderful Art of Fiction series https://www.theparisreview.org/interv...]
Ferrante's consistent stance is that the author of a book is not to be confused with the complete individual who wrote the books. There are parts of her in the novel but not all of her:
"I am not a supporter of the idea that the author is inessential. I would like only to decide what part of myself should be made public and what instead should remain private. I think that, in art, the life that counts is the life that remains miraculously alive in the works."
But interestingly she pushes back on the concept that the author itself can be absent from a novel, arguing that, in the Neopolitan books, "Elena" the author is different from "Elena" the narrator. She believes in the importance of "providing the reader with the elements that enable him to distinguish me from the narrating "I" ... The passionate reader deserves to be enabled to also extract the author's physiognomy from every word or grammatical violation or syntactical knot in the text, just has happens for characters, for a landscape, for a feeling, for a slow or agitated act...this seems to me much more than signing copies in a bookstore, defacing them with trite phrases."
Ferrante's anonymity has also led to many questions as to whether "Elena Ferrante" is more than just a pseudonym and actually a false front, that the limited biographical details she has acknowledged are false, that the pseudonym might disguise an already famous author, different people writing each book, or, most perniciously in Ferrante's eyes (and the one detail she insists in contradicting, since this would be a betrayal of her writing) that she may be a man.
As to the accusation that there may even be more than one writer using the pseudonym Ferrante, turns this back to support one of the very points her anonymity makes, that one has to work hard as a reader to detect the author if there is no picture on the cover:
The experts stare at the empty frame where the image of the author is supposed to be and they don’t have the technical tools, or, more simply, the true passion and sensitivity as readers, to fill that space with the works. So they forget that every individual work has its own story. Only the label of the name or a rigorous philological examination allows us to take for granted that the author of Dubliners is the same person who wrote Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The cultural education of any high school student should include the idea that a writer adapts depending on what he or she needs to express.
The other accusation sometimes levelled at Ferrante's novels is that they are little more than up-market chick-lit. This isn't helped by the branding and covers of the English editions:
This Frantamuglia very successfully refutes, mostly not by assertion but instead by the brilliance of Ferrante's writing on her own works, her themes, her influences, even unpublished sections from some of her works that explain her thought processes.
But she does admit to using tools to hook the reader while at the same time refusing the bounds of genre fiction:
I publish to be read. It’s the only thing that interests me about publication. So I employ all the strategies I know to capture the reader’s attention, stimulate curiosity, make the page as dense as possible and as easy as possible to turn.
But once I have the reader’s attention I feel it is my right to pull it in whichever direction I choose. I don’t think the reader should be indulged as a consumer, because he isn’t one. Literature that indulges the tastes of the reader is a degraded literature. My goal is to disappoint the usual expectations and inspire new ones.
And as a final point that struck me, she both neatly skewers the type of political writing that, e.g. won the 2016 Booker Prize:
"But what of any real political effect? In general it seems to me disappointing: a rhetorically complicit nudge given to a public that is already convinced."
and, through her comments on Silvio Berlusconi in 2002, anticipates the events of 2016:
"The construction of his figure as a democratically elected economic-political-television Duce will remain a perfectible, repeatable model...(He has) practically demonstrated that the interests off an individual can be installed overnight, thanks to a business group (not a political party), on top of the political dissatisfaction of half of Italy, higher classes and lower classes, passed off as a heroic story of national salvation and, above all, without extinguishing democratic assurances."
(Albeit in 2002 she attributes this to people suspending credulity and treating everything they are told as true, whereas to me 2016 is the pay-truth age where no one believes anything and so a lie or an unsubstantiated assertion is as valid as the truth or an expert opinion. )
Overall a wonderful "slightly dense afterword" to Ferrante's impressive novels, but best read if one is already familiar with them to get the most from it.
April 10, 2019
Frantumaglia first appeared in 2003 and mainly commented on Ferrante's first works. In this edition of 2016 two big chapters have been added, with comments on the later works, of course mainly the Neapolitan novels. Written questions from readers, reviewers or fellow writers are almost always the guideline for Ferrante's answers.
Right from the start, the questions are about her choice to remain anonymous, and those questions keep returning, sometimes even with a denigratingly accusing undertone. Ferrante always reacts politely to this, although her underlying annoyance to that constant monitoring of her identity is also clear. That is understandable of course, but it does create a lot of repetition in this book, (also about other themes, by the way), and that is annoying to the reader as well.
But on the other hand, Ferrante in Frantumaglia regularly gives an interesting insight into the way she writes her books, and from which background and inspiration. And she also regularly explains certain substantive aspects of her books. In this way, Frantumaglia is an absolute must read, because it rarely happens that an author gives an explanation of his/her own work in a way that goes much deeper than the superficial talks in the media.
Incidentally, throughout the years (the first answers date from 1991, the last from 2015), there’s a striking evolution in the comments of Ferrante: in the beginning she is fairly hesitant and evasive, and condescending about her own talent and fame; but gradually you see her self-confidence grow, and she really starts to explain what her writing is all about. In the end, her firm feminist statements are striking (not surprising, of course, for those who know her work.). Her tone reminded me very much of Marguerite Yourcenar, in the interview book Les Yeux ouverts : Entretiens avec Matthieu Galey, also a writer who constantly revised her texts before publication and who also spoke a lot about the female condition. That is quite a reference, isn’t it?
Right from the start, the questions are about her choice to remain anonymous, and those questions keep returning, sometimes even with a denigratingly accusing undertone. Ferrante always reacts politely to this, although her underlying annoyance to that constant monitoring of her identity is also clear. That is understandable of course, but it does create a lot of repetition in this book, (also about other themes, by the way), and that is annoying to the reader as well.
But on the other hand, Ferrante in Frantumaglia regularly gives an interesting insight into the way she writes her books, and from which background and inspiration. And she also regularly explains certain substantive aspects of her books. In this way, Frantumaglia is an absolute must read, because it rarely happens that an author gives an explanation of his/her own work in a way that goes much deeper than the superficial talks in the media.
Incidentally, throughout the years (the first answers date from 1991, the last from 2015), there’s a striking evolution in the comments of Ferrante: in the beginning she is fairly hesitant and evasive, and condescending about her own talent and fame; but gradually you see her self-confidence grow, and she really starts to explain what her writing is all about. In the end, her firm feminist statements are striking (not surprising, of course, for those who know her work.). Her tone reminded me very much of Marguerite Yourcenar, in the interview book Les Yeux ouverts : Entretiens avec Matthieu Galey, also a writer who constantly revised her texts before publication and who also spoke a lot about the female condition. That is quite a reference, isn’t it?
July 31, 2017
Frantumaglia: fragments, a tangle, the messiness inside our heads that demands expression. Ferrante writes that the "I" can not be "halved" because it is a "crowd".
This is a wonderful book. I think for everyone but especially for anyone interested in the writing process or in reading or in women's writing. Ferrante responds to questions in a variety of interviews as well as in letters her way of writing, her search for what she calls the "authentic" over the merely truthful. She says that when her writing is going well, it often veers towards the edges, over the limits of her comfort zone. If she's not reaching that far down, into the wound as she calls it, than her writing is only technically proficient but not vital.
Certainly, Ferrante's voice in the four books that comprise the Neapolitan Quartet is powerful. Her depiction of the complicated friendship between two women is striking and true in a way not often seen in literature. Ferrante is creating her own path. And although the books are rooted in the culture and community of Naples, they are relevant to people (especially women) everywhere.
Ferrante is famous (infamous?) for her refusal to be a public part of her books (she states she is not "anonymous" but "absent"). She believes that the writer's connection to the public is through the text. The rest is merely consumerism. Certainly in these pages she shares her thoughts on her writing and on the influence of the feminist movement as well as other writers honestly and directly. I felt that this book helped me understand Ferrante the writer better and offered additional insights into her books.
What more do I, as a reader, need?
This is a wonderful book. I think for everyone but especially for anyone interested in the writing process or in reading or in women's writing. Ferrante responds to questions in a variety of interviews as well as in letters her way of writing, her search for what she calls the "authentic" over the merely truthful. She says that when her writing is going well, it often veers towards the edges, over the limits of her comfort zone. If she's not reaching that far down, into the wound as she calls it, than her writing is only technically proficient but not vital.
Certainly, Ferrante's voice in the four books that comprise the Neapolitan Quartet is powerful. Her depiction of the complicated friendship between two women is striking and true in a way not often seen in literature. Ferrante is creating her own path. And although the books are rooted in the culture and community of Naples, they are relevant to people (especially women) everywhere.
Ferrante is famous (infamous?) for her refusal to be a public part of her books (she states she is not "anonymous" but "absent"). She believes that the writer's connection to the public is through the text. The rest is merely consumerism. Certainly in these pages she shares her thoughts on her writing and on the influence of the feminist movement as well as other writers honestly and directly. I felt that this book helped me understand Ferrante the writer better and offered additional insights into her books.
What more do I, as a reader, need?
October 7, 2022
Belísimo para quienes hemos leído la obra de Ferrante desde El amor molesto y la tetralogía Dos amigas para profundizar en ellas.
November 9, 2017
I think our sexuality is all still to be recounted and that, especially in this context, the rich male literary tradition constitutes a huge obstacle [...] We, all of us women, need to build a genealogy of our own, one that will embolden us, define us, allow us to see ourselves outside the tradition through which men have viewed, represented, evaluated, and catalogued us - for millennia. Theirs is a potent tradition, rich with splendid works, but one which has excluded much, too much, of what is ours. To narrate thoroughly, freely - even provocatively - our own "more than this" is important: it contributes to the drawing of a map of what we are or what we want to be.
Already a rabid fan of The Neapolitan Quartet, this book has cemented my adoration of, and intellectual respect for, Ferrante. Consisting of letters, emails, interviews and fragments of writing, it gives us unparalleled access to Ferrante's mind as she opens up about her writing, her thinking, her politics and her literary influences as she discusses her work and her books.
An informed feminist who admits she's been influenced by Irigaray and Butler, as well as by the classical tradition of abandoned (in all sense of that word) women from Ariadne and Medea to Dido who she discusses at length, Ferrante is articulate, passionate and a true writer's writer - she takes her calling seriously ('a book should push the reader to confront himself (sic) and the world',p.323), working to write with authenticity, truth and sincerity, not to push out books to be published at regular intervals. Indeed, those of us who came to her via My Brilliant Friend may well be surprised to find this book covering a period from 1991 through to 2016.
Because so much of this is based on written interviews with various journals and newspapers, there is inevitably an overlap in questions asked, especially about Ferrante's anonymity and refusal to insert herself between her books and her readership ('I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors', p.15) and her very patience is a marked characteristic of her seriousness and intent.
We also, though, gain a fascinating insight into her view of literature in a broad sense, and her insights into her writing of the startling, subtle, complicated relationship between her two great protagonists, Lina and Elena.
One of the things that makes Ferrante outstanding today is the way she has effortlessly bridged the space between 'literary' and 'popular' fiction and readers - her books speak to us on a human (dare I say gendered?) level while also placing themselves into a tradition that is both familiar and yet startlingly unfamiliar given its emphasis on female friendship, a relationship which ultimately supersedes all other bonds in her quartet.
This is a book which is rewarding for fans, but also for anyone working on feminist literature, gender and writing and women's writing.
November 13, 2016
“I’ve always had a tendency to separate everyday life from writing. To tolerate existence, we lie, and we lie above all to ourselves. Sometimes we tell ourselves lovely tales, sometimes petty lies. Falsehoods protect us, mitigate suffering, allow us to avoid the terrifying moment of serious reflection, they dilute the horrors of our time, they even save us from ourselves. Instead, when one writes one must never lie. In literary fiction you have to be sincere to the point where it’s unbearable, where you suffer the emptiness of the pages. It seems likely that making a clear separation between what we are in life and what we are when we write helps keep self-censorship at bay.”
Ferrante on Ferrante for mega-fans! A collection of her letters, emails, and interviews given since the mid-1990s. You feel for her, having to explain over and over and over again, her reason for preserving her anonymity. I enjoyed it, but I don't think it would be terribly interesting reading for anyone who had not read (and deeply loved) her oeuvre.
Ferrante on Ferrante for mega-fans! A collection of her letters, emails, and interviews given since the mid-1990s. You feel for her, having to explain over and over and over again, her reason for preserving her anonymity. I enjoyed it, but I don't think it would be terribly interesting reading for anyone who had not read (and deeply loved) her oeuvre.
August 11, 2020
Μια συνολική ματιά στην εργογραφία της αγαπημένης Elena Ferrante και γιατί να διαβάσετε τα βιβλία της:
https://monpetitcafedehumanite.com/20...
Επίσης: https://monpetitcafedehumanite.com/20...
Γιατί πρέπει να διαβάσουμε σήμερα την Elena Ferrante;
(Δημοσιεύτηκε στο www.amagi.gr στις 24/07/2017)
Υπάρχουν κάποια βιβλία που η ανάγνωσή τους δεν είναι μια επιφανειακή απόλαυση τις ημέρες των διακοπών ή των ωρών που αποφασίζει κάποιος να χαλαρώσει από την καθημερινότητα. Είναι αναγνώσματα-σταθμοί, με βαθύτερα νοήματα και μηνύματα που θα «βγουν» αργότερα στην επιφάνεια.
Μεγαλώνοντας με τις ηρωίδες της Ζωρζ Σαρρή και της Βούλας Μάστορη (άτυπη τετραλογία με ηρωίδα την Άννα) είχα την αίσθηση ότι οι ηρωίδες της Ferrante, Έλενα και Λίλα, αποτελούν μια άτυπη συνέχεια των παραπάνω εφηβικών αναγνωσμάτων. Όμως, ήταν πολλά περισσότερα.
Η Ferrante μας μιλά για τις γυναίκες του ιταλικού Νότου, γεννημένες λίγο μετά το τέλος του Β’ Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου, για μια κοινωνία που συνεχώς αλλάζει, αλλά το πόσο εξελίσσεται είναι ένα άλλο ερώτημα, για τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις, που δεν καθορίζεται η υφή τους από το χρόνο αλλά από την ποιότητα που προσδίδουν οι άνθρωποι σ’ αυτές, και τέλος για μια γυναικεία φιλία που χτίζεται ανάμεσα στο Καλό και το Κακό, και ό,τι αυτά προσδιορίζουν.
Διαβάζοντας τα 3 μέρη από την Τετραλογία της Νάπολης και τον συνολικό τόμο με σκέψεις και συνεντεύξεις της συγγραφέως “Frantumaglia” κατέληξα σε ορισμένα συμπεράσματα που θα ήθελα να μοιραστώ μαζί σας σχετικά με τη μεγάλη σημασία που έχει σήμερα να διαβαστεί το έργο της Ferrante από το ελληνικό κοινό.
Λογοτεχνική μαεστρία: Η Ferrante είναι άριστη γνώστρια των κλασικών και αυτό φαίνεται και στους 3 τόμους της σειράς. Ήρωες και αντι-ήρωες, θύματα της κοινωνικής τους καταγωγής, είτε αυτή είναι «ανώτερη» είτε «κατώτερη», που στο τέλος αναζητούν όλοι μια άτυπη κάθαρση. Τα πρόσωπα είναι τόσο οικεία, που μπορείς να τα δεις ολοκάθαρα μπροστά σου περνώντας από τις γειτονιές των πόλεων της χώρας μας. Η ανθρωπογεωγραφία και η ψυχοσύνθεση που επιχειρεί για κάθε χαρακτήρα είναι μοναδική. Η περιγραφική της δεινότητα είναι γεμάτη ζωντάνια. Γρήγορος λόγος που ρέει και δεν κομπιάζει για να εκφράσει σκέψεις και συναισθήματα των ηρώων. Έχεις την αίσθηση ότι μυρίζεις τη Μεσόγειο, ότι περπατάς στους πολύβουους δρόμους της Νάπολης και ότι μια κάμερα, με κινηματογραφική εστίαση στις ηρωίδες, κινείται γύρω από πρόσωπα και γεγονότα που έκριναν την ιταλική (και όχι μόνο) κοινωνία, πολιτική και ιστορία τις δεκαετίες του ‘50-’80.
Τοπικότητα: Η συγγραφέας χρησιμοποιώντας ως προπύργιο τη Νάπολη χτίζει μια ολόκληρη saga ανθρώπινων χαρακτήρων. Και γιατί το κάνει αυτό; Πολύ απλά θέλει να μας δείξει την ισχυρή διαφορά που υπάρχει στην Ιταλία, ανάμεσα στο Βορρά και το Νότο. Ακόμα και η επιλογή πανεπιστημίων, σε ζήτημα ποιότητας, κρίνεται από την τοποθεσία της πόλης (λ.χ Μιλάνο, Φλωρεντία, Πίζα κτλ.). Το στοιχείο της τοπικότητας και του χτισίματος των χαρακτήρων αλλά και των εναλλαγών τους σε στοιχεία της καθημερινότητας (λ.χ ομιλία και διάλεκτος) αποτελεί ένα εξαιρετικό λογοτεχνικό κατασκεύασμα για το ποιόν των ηρώων της.
Φεμινισμός: Ο 21ος αιώνας και ο ρόλος της Γυναίκας σ’ αυτόν καθορίστηκε, δυστυχώς, από την καταναλωτική κοινωνία και τα πρότυπα που πρόβαλε. Οι γυναίκες θεώρησαν ότι η ζωή τους θα ήταν μια πιστή αντιγραφή του τηλεοπτικού Sex & the City, οι σχέσεις με το άλλο φύλο εκχυδαΐστηκαν και τα προνόμια που υποτίθεται ότι απέκτησαν σε επαγγελματικό αλλά και οικογενειακό επίπεδο δεν οδήγησαν σ’ έναν προβλεπόμενο επανακαθορισμό της φύσης τους. Τα γυναικεία λογοτεχνικά πρότυπα που κυκλοφορούν επιβεβαιώνουν την παραπάνω εικόνα. Η Ferrante έρχεται, λοιπόν, να υπενθυμίσει τι σημαίνει Γυναίκα, ή τουλάχιστον να προβληματιστεί πάνω στη γυναικεία ταυτότητα. Ακόμα και αν αναφέρεται σε γυναίκες που έζησαν στη σιωπή του ανείπωτου μετά τον Β’ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο, σε γυναίκες-πρωταγωνίστριες των φοιτητικών κινημάτων των τελών της δεκαετίας του ’60, σε γυναίκες που έζησαν την ιατρική επανάσταση να ελέγχουν το σώμα τους, όλες αυτές δεν διαφέρουν καθόλου από τη σημερινή Γυναίκα του 21ου αιώνα. Από το ζήτημα της πατριαρχικής οικογένειας, από τις δεισιδαιμονίες, θρησκευτικού περιεχομένου ή μη, από τη μοιρολατρία που καθιστά τη γυναίκα θύμα του ίδιου της του φύλου, αλλά και από τον ρόλο της κοινωνικής καταγωγής ή της πολιτικής θέσης της, αναδεικνύει θέματα σύγχρονα που παρ’ όλες τις αλλαγές που έχουν επέλθει τίποτα δεν έχει αλλάξει. Η Μητέρα και η Κόρη είναι ένα δίπολο που εμφανίζεται ξανά και ξανά. Μεταξύ τους οι γυναικείες μορφές είναι άτυπα συγκοινωνούντα δυναμικά δοχεία. Η συγγραφέας θέλει να επαναπροσδιορίσει ρόλους, θεωρίες και αναγνώσματα που αφορούν τη γυναικεία ταυτότητα. Δεν ξέρω αν θα αποτελέσουν τα έργα της μελέτη πεδίου για τα Gender Studies, ωστόσο κατάφερε, όπως και οι ηρωίδες που υποδύεται η Greta Gerwing, να μας δείξει πώς είναι μια φυσιολογική γυναίκα, με τα καλά & τα κακά της (ό,τι & αν σημαίνει αυτό).
Όλα τα παραπάνω αποτελούν κομβικούς κρίκους σε μια άτυπη λογοτεχνική αλυσίδα των έργων της Ferrante. Ωστόσο , ένα επιπλέον σημαντικό στοιχείο είναι η ίδια η μετάφραση των έργων της στα ελληνικά. Μπορεί να έγινε διάσημη από την αγγλική μετάφραση της Ann Golstein (editor στο περιοδικό “The New Yorker”), στην χώρα μας όμως χρωστάμε πολλά στην μαεστρία και την ποιότητα λόγου της έμπειρης μεταφράστριας Δήμητρας Δότση, που αναδεικνύει με τον καλύτερο τρόπο τα μέσα και τις τεχνικές της συγγραφέως. Η εξαιρετική μετάφραση κατάφερε να κάνει οικεία τα μηνύματα και τις σκέψεις της συγγραφέως και ταυτόχρονα να γνωστοποιήσει τυχόν ομοιότητες εμπειριών και βιωμάτων, της αντίστοιχης χρονικής περιόδου, που έχουν οι δύο λαοί.
Ο «πυρετός της Ferrante» όπως χαρακτηρίζεται το φαινόμενο της λογοτεχνικής αγάπης που δείχνουν οι αναγνώστες της, δεν είναι κάτι το παροδικό. Ακόμα και αν αποκαλύφθηκε το πραγματικό πρόσωπο πίσω από το ψευδώνυμο «Elena Ferrante», η σπουδαιότητα των μηνυμάτων των βιβλίων της είναι αυτά που θα συνεχίζουν να εμπνέουν τους αναγνώστες της να τα διαβάζουν και να τα αγαπούν.
https://monpetitcafedehumanite.com/20...
Επίσης: https://monpetitcafedehumanite.com/20...
Γιατί πρέπει να διαβάσουμε σήμερα την Elena Ferrante;
(Δημοσιεύτηκε στο www.amagi.gr στις 24/07/2017)
Υπάρχουν κάποια βιβλία που η ανάγνωσή τους δεν είναι μια επιφανειακή απόλαυση τις ημέρες των διακοπών ή των ωρών που αποφασίζει κάποιος να χαλαρώσει από την καθημερινότητα. Είναι αναγνώσματα-σταθμοί, με βαθύτερα νοήματα και μηνύματα που θα «βγουν» αργότερα στην επιφάνεια.
Μεγαλώνοντας με τις ηρωίδες της Ζωρζ Σαρρή και της Βούλας Μάστορη (άτυπη τετραλογία με ηρωίδα την Άννα) είχα την αίσθηση ότι οι ηρωίδες της Ferrante, Έλενα και Λίλα, αποτελούν μια άτυπη συνέχεια των παραπάνω εφηβικών αναγνωσμάτων. Όμως, ήταν πολλά περισσότερα.
Η Ferrante μας μιλά για τις γυναίκες του ιταλικού Νότου, γεννημένες λίγο μετά το τέλος του Β’ Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου, για μια κοινωνία που συνεχώς αλλάζει, αλλά το πόσο εξελίσσεται είναι ένα άλλο ερώτημα, για τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις, που δεν καθορίζεται η υφή τους από το χρόνο αλλά από την ποιότητα που προσδίδουν οι άνθρωποι σ’ αυτές, και τέλος για μια γυναικεία φιλία που χτίζεται ανάμεσα στο Καλό και το Κακό, και ό,τι αυτά προσδιορίζουν.
Διαβάζοντας τα 3 μέρη από την Τετραλογία της Νάπολης και τον συνολικό τόμο με σκέψεις και συνεντεύξεις της συγγραφέως “Frantumaglia” κατέληξα σε ορισμένα συμπεράσματα που θα ήθελα να μοιραστώ μαζί σας σχετικά με τη μεγάλη σημασία που έχει σήμερα να διαβαστεί το έργο της Ferrante από το ελληνικό κοινό.
Λογοτεχνική μαεστρία: Η Ferrante είναι άριστη γνώστρια των κλασικών και αυτό φαίνεται και στους 3 τόμους της σειράς. Ήρωες και αντι-ήρωες, θύματα της κοινωνικής τους καταγωγής, είτε αυτή είναι «ανώτερη» είτε «κατώτερη», που στο τέλος αναζητούν όλοι μια άτυπη κάθαρση. Τα πρόσωπα είναι τόσο οικεία, που μπορείς να τα δεις ολοκάθαρα μπροστά σου περνώντας από τις γειτονιές των πόλεων της χώρας μας. Η ανθρωπογεωγραφία και η ψυχοσύνθεση που επιχειρεί για κάθε χαρακτήρα είναι μοναδική. Η περιγραφική της δεινότητα είναι γεμάτη ζωντάνια. Γρήγορος λόγος που ρέει και δεν κομπιάζει για να εκφράσει σκέψεις και συναισθήματα των ηρώων. Έχεις την αίσθηση ότι μυρίζεις τη Μεσόγειο, ότι περπατάς στους πολύβουους δρόμους της Νάπολης και ότι μια κάμερα, με κινηματογραφική εστίαση στις ηρωίδες, κινείται γύρω από πρόσωπα και γεγονότα που έκριναν την ιταλική (και όχι μόνο) κοινωνία, πολιτική και ιστορία τις δεκαετίες του ‘50-’80.
Τοπικότητα: Η συγγραφέας χρησιμοποιώντας ως προπύργιο τη Νάπολη χτίζει μια ολόκληρη saga ανθρώπινων χαρακτήρων. Και γιατί το κάνει αυτό; Πολύ απλά θέλει να μας δείξει την ισχυρή διαφορά που υπάρχει στην Ιταλία, ανάμεσα στο Βορρά και το Νότο. Ακόμα και η επιλογή πανεπιστημίων, σε ζήτημα ποιότητας, κρίνεται από την τοποθεσία της πόλης (λ.χ Μιλάνο, Φλωρεντία, Πίζα κτλ.). Το στοιχείο της τοπικότητας και του χτισίματος των χαρακτήρων αλλά και των εναλλαγών τους σε στοιχεία της καθημερινότητας (λ.χ ομιλία και διάλεκτος) αποτελεί ένα εξαιρετικό λογοτεχνικό κατασκεύασμα για το ποιόν των ηρώων της.
Φεμινισμός: Ο 21ος αιώνας και ο ρόλος της Γυναίκας σ’ αυτόν καθορίστηκε, δυστυχώς, από την καταναλωτική κοινωνία και τα πρότυπα που πρόβαλε. Οι γυναίκες θεώρησαν ότι η ζωή τους θα ήταν μια πιστή αντιγραφή του τηλεοπτικού Sex & the City, οι σχέσεις με το άλλο φύλο εκχυδαΐστηκαν και τα προνόμια που υποτίθεται ότι απέκτησαν σε επαγγελματικό αλλά και οικογενειακό επίπεδο δεν οδήγησαν σ’ έναν προβλεπόμενο επανακαθορισμό της φύσης τους. Τα γυναικεία λογοτεχνικά πρότυπα που κυκλοφορούν επιβεβαιώνουν την παραπάνω εικόνα. Η Ferrante έρχεται, λοιπόν, να υπενθυμίσει τι σημαίνει Γυναίκα, ή τουλάχιστον να προβληματιστεί πάνω στη γυναικεία ταυτότητα. Ακόμα και αν αναφέρεται σε γυναίκες που έζησαν στη σιωπή του ανείπωτου μετά τον Β’ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο, σε γυναίκες-πρωταγωνίστριες των φοιτητικών κινημάτων των τελών της δεκαετίας του ’60, σε γυναίκες που έζησαν την ιατρική επανάσταση να ελέγχουν το σώμα τους, όλες αυτές δεν διαφέρουν καθόλου από τη σημερινή Γυναίκα του 21ου αιώνα. Από το ζήτημα της πατριαρχικής οικογένειας, από τις δεισιδαιμονίες, θρησκευτικού περιεχομένου ή μη, από τη μοιρολατρία που καθιστά τη γυναίκα θύμα του ίδιου της του φύλου, αλλά και από τον ρόλο της κοινωνικής καταγωγής ή της πολιτικής θέσης της, αναδεικνύει θέματα σύγχρονα που παρ’ όλες τις αλλαγές που έχουν επέλθει τίποτα δεν έχει αλλάξει. Η Μητέρα και η Κόρη είναι ένα δίπολο που εμφανίζεται ξανά και ξανά. Μεταξύ τους οι γυναικείες μορφές είναι άτυπα συγκοινωνούντα δυναμικά δοχεία. Η συγγραφέας θέλει να επαναπροσδιορίσει ρόλους, θεωρίες και αναγνώσματα που αφορούν τη γυναικεία ταυτότητα. Δεν ξέρω αν θα αποτελέσουν τα έργα της μελέτη πεδίου για τα Gender Studies, ωστόσο κατάφερε, όπως και οι ηρωίδες που υποδύεται η Greta Gerwing, να μας δείξει πώς είναι μια φυσιολογική γυναίκα, με τα καλά & τα κακά της (ό,τι & αν σημαίνει αυτό).
Όλα τα παραπάνω αποτελούν κομβικούς κρίκους σε μια άτυπη λογοτεχνική αλυσίδα των έργων της Ferrante. Ωστόσο , ένα επιπλέον σημαντικό στοιχείο είναι η ίδια η μετάφραση των έργων της στα ελληνικά. Μπορεί να έγινε διάσημη από την αγγλική μετάφραση της Ann Golstein (editor στο περιοδικό “The New Yorker”), στην χώρα μας όμως χρωστάμε πολλά στην μαεστρία και την ποιότητα λόγου της έμπειρης μεταφράστριας Δήμητρας Δότση, που αναδεικνύει με τον καλύτερο τρόπο τα μέσα και τις τεχνικές της συγγραφέως. Η εξαιρετική μετάφραση κατάφερε να κάνει οικεία τα μηνύματα και τις σκέψεις της συγγραφέως και ταυτόχρονα να γνωστοποιήσει τυχόν ομοιότητες εμπειριών και βιωμάτων, της αντίστοιχης χρονικής περιόδου, που έχουν οι δύο λαοί.
Ο «πυρετός της Ferrante» όπως χαρακτηρίζεται το φαινόμενο της λογοτεχνικής αγάπης που δείχνουν οι αναγνώστες της, δεν είναι κάτι το παροδικό. Ακόμα και αν αποκαλύφθηκε το πραγματικό πρόσωπο πίσω από το ψευδώνυμο «Elena Ferrante», η σπουδαιότητα των μηνυμάτων των βιβλίων της είναι αυτά που θα συνεχίζουν να εμπνέουν τους αναγνώστες της να τα διαβάζουν και να τα αγαπούν.
January 6, 2015
Nel mezzo della lettura de "L' Amica geniale", alla fine del secondo volume cioè, per caso mi sono imbattuto in questo libro che racchiude l'epistolario tra la Scrittrice Ignota e i suoi complici editori. E contiene la frantumaglia, per usare un termine suo, delle pagine non pubblicate dei primi due suoi romanzi.
Per qualità e suggestione mi hanno fatto pensare al film di Tatti Sanguineti montato con le scene scartate da Fellini. Una gran bella lettura, utilissima per capire temi e meccanismi stilistici e creativi della Ferrante.
Non entro nel tema, ma come si sarà capito, al di là del valore che si vuol dare ai suoi romanzi, è un'autrice che mi affasciana molto e non esattamente per le ragioni per le quali se ne parla. Il suo successo internazionale cioè (unico per un autore italiano contemporaneo) e il mistero del "chi è?".
Le ragioni letterarie e non che mi interessano attorno a Elena Ferrante, per chi fosse interessate le ho messe qui.
http://scarabooks.blogspot.it/2015/01...…
Per qualità e suggestione mi hanno fatto pensare al film di Tatti Sanguineti montato con le scene scartate da Fellini. Una gran bella lettura, utilissima per capire temi e meccanismi stilistici e creativi della Ferrante.
Non entro nel tema, ma come si sarà capito, al di là del valore che si vuol dare ai suoi romanzi, è un'autrice che mi affasciana molto e non esattamente per le ragioni per le quali se ne parla. Il suo successo internazionale cioè (unico per un autore italiano contemporaneo) e il mistero del "chi è?".
Le ragioni letterarie e non che mi interessano attorno a Elena Ferrante, per chi fosse interessate le ho messe qui.
http://scarabooks.blogspot.it/2015/01...…
March 1, 2018
«Mi madre me ha dejado un término de su dialecto que usaba para decir cómo se sentía cuando era arrastrada en direcciones opuestas por impresiones contradictorias que la herían. Decía que tenía dentro una frantumaglia». Quien haya leído cualquier libro de Elena Ferrante puede entender perfectamente el alcance de esta definición, pues es un sentimiento que recorre las páginas de la escritora italiana con bastante frecuencia. Frantumaglia es todo cuanto Elena Ferrante representa, el rasgo más característico de su escritura y el que ha hecho que miles de lectores por todo el mundo, entre los que me incluyo, se enamoren sin concesiones de la arrebatadora violencia emocional con la que impregna sus historias.
RESEÑA COMPLETA: http://generacionreader.blogspot.com....
RESEÑA COMPLETA: http://generacionreader.blogspot.com....
July 10, 2022
Frantumaglia is very true to the subtitle given in the Brazilian edition: "the ways of a writer". It is mostly composed of interviews usually sent to Ferrante's editors, from the release of her first novel, L'amore molesto in 1992 till after the publishing of the last book of the Neapolitan tetralogy, Storia della bambina perduta.
As usual in such kind of book, the questions sent to Ferrante do not vary much. I have seen the same in those two books composed of interviews, the first with Elizabeth Bishop; the second with Brazilian author Hilda Hilst. It is as if, and as put by Ferrante herself, what is in store is the media's need for audience and spotlight, regardless of the qualities of books, even creating theses that the author has an obligation to their readers as a public figure, which is constantly contested by her.
Indeed, what should count is the authors' expressions translated into the form of books, and I agree with her that the author is present all the time in the words along the book, in the way it was thought and written, in the story itself. She is a daring person to stand for her word and not play the media's game. I stand by her in her decision to avoid public appearance.
As for the book itself, there are 3 interviews that outstand the most because of her decision on how to answer them. The first is the one that gives the book its title, "La Frantumaglia", in which she ends up writing a long beautiful text in answer to the questions sent by Indice's group of journalists, one that seems more like an article that gives a somehow true face to her interesting female characters, their relations to their mothers and to their Neapolitan past, etc. The second great interview is given to her editors, Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzola, and their daughter, Eva. Interesting questions and profound answers. The last great one was given to Nicola Lagioia, also an author, and probably the best interview of the whole book.
(..) I’m drawn, rather, to images of crisis, to seals that are broken. When shapes lose their contours, we see what most terrifies us, as in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” and Clarice Lispector’s extraordinary “Passion According to G.H.” You don’t go beyond that; you have to take a step back and, to survive, reënter some good fiction. I don’t believe, however, that every fiction we orchestrate is good. I cling to those that are painful, those that arise from a profound crisis of all our illusions. I love unreal things when they show signs of firsthand knowledge of the terror, and hence an awareness that they are unreal, that they will not hold up for long against the collisions. Human beings are extremely violent animals, and the violence they are always ready to use in order to impose their own eternal, salvific life vest, while shattering those of others, is frightening.
The question of true writing is another very interesting topic in the main interviews. True writing means what needs to be written, regardless of the beauty in the writing, the projected images, the perfect phrases, etc. It is indeed, the feeling of a "whirlpool of fragment-words" (frantumaglia), something that destabilizes rather than compose or organize. Besides Ferrante's, I can easily recall such kind of writing in Virginia Woolf, Clarice Lispector, Bessie Head (her exceptional A question of power), Vivian Gornick.
For those who appreciate Ferrante's writing, this is a very interesting book to start with. But for those who want to deepen themselves in issues hardly brought up on a daily basis and get to know a mind of its own, who doesn't look for easy answers or easy paths, as I do so much appreciate, this is a must-read!
As usual in such kind of book, the questions sent to Ferrante do not vary much. I have seen the same in those two books composed of interviews, the first with Elizabeth Bishop; the second with Brazilian author Hilda Hilst. It is as if, and as put by Ferrante herself, what is in store is the media's need for audience and spotlight, regardless of the qualities of books, even creating theses that the author has an obligation to their readers as a public figure, which is constantly contested by her.
Indeed, what should count is the authors' expressions translated into the form of books, and I agree with her that the author is present all the time in the words along the book, in the way it was thought and written, in the story itself. She is a daring person to stand for her word and not play the media's game. I stand by her in her decision to avoid public appearance.
As for the book itself, there are 3 interviews that outstand the most because of her decision on how to answer them. The first is the one that gives the book its title, "La Frantumaglia", in which she ends up writing a long beautiful text in answer to the questions sent by Indice's group of journalists, one that seems more like an article that gives a somehow true face to her interesting female characters, their relations to their mothers and to their Neapolitan past, etc. The second great interview is given to her editors, Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzola, and their daughter, Eva. Interesting questions and profound answers. The last great one was given to Nicola Lagioia, also an author, and probably the best interview of the whole book.
(..) I’m drawn, rather, to images of crisis, to seals that are broken. When shapes lose their contours, we see what most terrifies us, as in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” and Clarice Lispector’s extraordinary “Passion According to G.H.” You don’t go beyond that; you have to take a step back and, to survive, reënter some good fiction. I don’t believe, however, that every fiction we orchestrate is good. I cling to those that are painful, those that arise from a profound crisis of all our illusions. I love unreal things when they show signs of firsthand knowledge of the terror, and hence an awareness that they are unreal, that they will not hold up for long against the collisions. Human beings are extremely violent animals, and the violence they are always ready to use in order to impose their own eternal, salvific life vest, while shattering those of others, is frightening.
The question of true writing is another very interesting topic in the main interviews. True writing means what needs to be written, regardless of the beauty in the writing, the projected images, the perfect phrases, etc. It is indeed, the feeling of a "whirlpool of fragment-words" (frantumaglia), something that destabilizes rather than compose or organize. Besides Ferrante's, I can easily recall such kind of writing in Virginia Woolf, Clarice Lispector, Bessie Head (her exceptional A question of power), Vivian Gornick.
For those who appreciate Ferrante's writing, this is a very interesting book to start with. But for those who want to deepen themselves in issues hardly brought up on a daily basis and get to know a mind of its own, who doesn't look for easy answers or easy paths, as I do so much appreciate, this is a must-read!
May 14, 2017
'Escombros' é uma colecção de correspondências de Elena Ferrante, com os seus editores, com jornalistas e até com leitores. Nelas, a autora escreve sobre as suas obras, motivações, o passado, e o que a levou a não querer ser conhecida publicamente.
Acabei por ler este livro por mera curiosidade, já que queria saber um pouco mais sobre esta autora. E embora Ferrante escreva maravilhosamente bem, quer seja a comunicar com os editores, quer a responder a uma entrevista, acho que não foi a altura certa para o ler. Muito do que aqui está escrito refere-se aos romances escritos e publicados antes da série 'A Amiga Genial'. Que eu não li. Depois, a terceira e última parte refere-se, em grande parte, a todos os livros da tetralogia. Ainda não os li todos. Por isso, acabei por levar com uns quantos spoilers, coisa que não queria que acontecesse. Claro que isso não me retirou a curiosidade e vontade de os ler, mas foi chato.
Além disto, chegou a um ponto em que a informação já se repetia. Quantas não foram às vezes que li a explicação de Elena Ferrante acerca daquilo que ela considera o papel de um escritos em relação aos seus livros? Ou como e quando ela se começou a dedicar à escrita? Foram tantas as pessoas, especialmente em entrevistas, que lhe perguntaram as mesmas coisas, que deu para fartar. Foi interessante da primeira vez; à terceira e quarta e quinta, passou a ser enjoativo.
Seja como for, recomendo. Ficamos com a visão de Elena Ferrante sobre diversos temas e só isso já é recomendável.
Acabei por ler este livro por mera curiosidade, já que queria saber um pouco mais sobre esta autora. E embora Ferrante escreva maravilhosamente bem, quer seja a comunicar com os editores, quer a responder a uma entrevista, acho que não foi a altura certa para o ler. Muito do que aqui está escrito refere-se aos romances escritos e publicados antes da série 'A Amiga Genial'. Que eu não li. Depois, a terceira e última parte refere-se, em grande parte, a todos os livros da tetralogia. Ainda não os li todos. Por isso, acabei por levar com uns quantos spoilers, coisa que não queria que acontecesse. Claro que isso não me retirou a curiosidade e vontade de os ler, mas foi chato.
Além disto, chegou a um ponto em que a informação já se repetia. Quantas não foram às vezes que li a explicação de Elena Ferrante acerca daquilo que ela considera o papel de um escritos em relação aos seus livros? Ou como e quando ela se começou a dedicar à escrita? Foram tantas as pessoas, especialmente em entrevistas, que lhe perguntaram as mesmas coisas, que deu para fartar. Foi interessante da primeira vez; à terceira e quarta e quinta, passou a ser enjoativo.
Seja como for, recomendo. Ficamos com a visão de Elena Ferrante sobre diversos temas e só isso já é recomendável.
April 24, 2017
‘Readers hungry for every Ferrante sentence they can get will find many here in which she lowers her knife through the bread of life with the same startling force as she does in her novels.’
LA Times
‘In her own exceedingly quotable words, drawing on myth, theory, philosophy, and, of course, literature, the author reveals herself in her multitudes: she is kind and good-humored, self-deprecating and apologetic, flinty and unwavering…While this collection will be most enticing to those already reading Ferrante, it’s also a feast for writers, lovers of literature, and creators of all kinds.’
Booklist
‘The collection promises insightful observations from Ferrante on subjects such as feminism and politics, her literary aspirations, her decision to be published anonymously, and the role of the writer and publisher in today’s world.’
Books+Publishing
‘The material collected here further reveals Ferrante as a remarkable writer and deeply original thinker across a range of subjects but particularly on writing, the importance of fiction, feminism and motherhood. One hopes that the recent ‘unmasking’ of her identity will not eclipse the importance of this book; certainly, true fans will not be disappointed. She addresses her reasons for privacy within these pages intelligently and convincingly and cautions ‘I remain Ferrante or I no longer publish’. This extraordinary collection of frantumaglia gives us far greater insight into her novels than any speculation about her ‘real’ identity.’
Readings
‘This is a fascinating volume, as ever beautifully translated by Ann Goldstein. At times, it is as absorbing as Ferrante’s extraordinary fictions and touches on troubling unconscious matter with the same visceral intensity. For those who can’t wait for the next Ferrante fiction to sink into, it provides a stopgap.’
Guardian
‘The book exquisitely translated by Ann Goldstein of the New Yorker opens a window on to the life of one of the most mysterious writers at work in Italy today.’
Evening Standard
‘In Frantumaglia Ferrante asserts the most fundamental and important truth of who she is: that she is someone who will do only as she will and nothing else. That is what is at stake for all women. And the stakes as Ferrante knows have never been higher.’
New Republic
‘Over the decades of interviews in Frantumaglia a portrait emerges if not of the artist herself then of Elena Ferrante’s writing process and aim: to give order to the frantumaglia however provisional and arrive at a literary truth through story.’
Hazlitt
‘For admirers of Ferrante’s work who are not particularly interested in a biographical reading of her fiction, Frantumaglia offers something else: a chance to consider her strange, spectral presence in the world of letters.’
New York Times
‘What gives these novels their prominent place on the literary map at this moment is the intensity of Elena Ferrante’s writing: in and of itself a force of nature. With or without permission, the writing sucks the reader into its orbit, and there one remains to the end. It’s a remarkable performance, one that speaks directly to a moment in Western culture avid for naked, memoirish storytelling, and it has made her world-famous…Whoever she is, when she sits down to write she wholly inhabits the narrating persona she has chosen for the tale that she has come to tell.’
Vivian Gornick, The Nation
‘Frantumaglia is never less than compelling and we read with a similar desire to recognise a pattern…The letters are presented without introduction, and as we read we’re curious to know how they fit into the larger picture.’
Australian
‘Ferociously meticulous, exacting, and direct…It is precisely [Ferrante’s] capacity for cruelty, for helping us locate the violence inert in everyday life (particularly within the bourgeois social strata) that qualifies Ferrante for her readers’ devotion. Through her violence we, her readers, become vital and vigilant creatures.’
Lifted Brow
‘That this is a must have for fans of Ferrante goes without saying, but it will also be of interest to those with a curiosity about the art and act of writing. The collection reveals Ferrante’s thoughts on a multitude of topics from feminism, the importance of fiction, and motherhood. Allowing a glimpse into the mind of one of Italy’s most acclaimed writers in the process.’
AU Review
‘Rendering real women, with their fraught relationships and anger, joy, anxieties, disappointment and sadness, has always been where Ferrante is at her most authentic; where she is her most truthful. But in Frantumaglia, her first work of non-fiction, the reader finds one of Ferrante’s most convincing works of fiction: Elena Ferrante.’
The Muse
‘Cumulatively these fragments offer fascinating insights into Ferrante’s working methods and artistic purpose.’
Times Literary Supplement
‘We guarantee all the cool girls will be clutching Frantumaglia.’
Marie Claire
‘An absorbing explanation of why this writer insists on anonymity, and also reveals a lot about the inspiration for and thinking behind her remarkable novels.’
Australian
‘A fascinating companion piece, both to the remarkable novels Ferrante has written and to the ongoing discussion about the author’s real identity…Her fans should be grateful for this highly readable, insightful resource.’
Herald Sun
‘Ferrante writes well about writing, publishing and literature, and I recommend Frantumaglia to writers and those interested in her books…It was an unexpectedly helpful companion through the grief and fear of one hell of a month. Thank you, Elena, whoever you are.’
Zew Zealand Listener
‘An excellent accompaniment to the novels of Elena Ferrante and insight into this writer’s journey and process, in particular the inspiration behind her characters, settings and recurring themes.’
Word by Word
LA Times
‘In her own exceedingly quotable words, drawing on myth, theory, philosophy, and, of course, literature, the author reveals herself in her multitudes: she is kind and good-humored, self-deprecating and apologetic, flinty and unwavering…While this collection will be most enticing to those already reading Ferrante, it’s also a feast for writers, lovers of literature, and creators of all kinds.’
Booklist
‘The collection promises insightful observations from Ferrante on subjects such as feminism and politics, her literary aspirations, her decision to be published anonymously, and the role of the writer and publisher in today’s world.’
Books+Publishing
‘The material collected here further reveals Ferrante as a remarkable writer and deeply original thinker across a range of subjects but particularly on writing, the importance of fiction, feminism and motherhood. One hopes that the recent ‘unmasking’ of her identity will not eclipse the importance of this book; certainly, true fans will not be disappointed. She addresses her reasons for privacy within these pages intelligently and convincingly and cautions ‘I remain Ferrante or I no longer publish’. This extraordinary collection of frantumaglia gives us far greater insight into her novels than any speculation about her ‘real’ identity.’
Readings
‘This is a fascinating volume, as ever beautifully translated by Ann Goldstein. At times, it is as absorbing as Ferrante’s extraordinary fictions and touches on troubling unconscious matter with the same visceral intensity. For those who can’t wait for the next Ferrante fiction to sink into, it provides a stopgap.’
Guardian
‘The book exquisitely translated by Ann Goldstein of the New Yorker opens a window on to the life of one of the most mysterious writers at work in Italy today.’
Evening Standard
‘In Frantumaglia Ferrante asserts the most fundamental and important truth of who she is: that she is someone who will do only as she will and nothing else. That is what is at stake for all women. And the stakes as Ferrante knows have never been higher.’
New Republic
‘Over the decades of interviews in Frantumaglia a portrait emerges if not of the artist herself then of Elena Ferrante’s writing process and aim: to give order to the frantumaglia however provisional and arrive at a literary truth through story.’
Hazlitt
‘For admirers of Ferrante’s work who are not particularly interested in a biographical reading of her fiction, Frantumaglia offers something else: a chance to consider her strange, spectral presence in the world of letters.’
New York Times
‘What gives these novels their prominent place on the literary map at this moment is the intensity of Elena Ferrante’s writing: in and of itself a force of nature. With or without permission, the writing sucks the reader into its orbit, and there one remains to the end. It’s a remarkable performance, one that speaks directly to a moment in Western culture avid for naked, memoirish storytelling, and it has made her world-famous…Whoever she is, when she sits down to write she wholly inhabits the narrating persona she has chosen for the tale that she has come to tell.’
Vivian Gornick, The Nation
‘Frantumaglia is never less than compelling and we read with a similar desire to recognise a pattern…The letters are presented without introduction, and as we read we’re curious to know how they fit into the larger picture.’
Australian
‘Ferociously meticulous, exacting, and direct…It is precisely [Ferrante’s] capacity for cruelty, for helping us locate the violence inert in everyday life (particularly within the bourgeois social strata) that qualifies Ferrante for her readers’ devotion. Through her violence we, her readers, become vital and vigilant creatures.’
Lifted Brow
‘That this is a must have for fans of Ferrante goes without saying, but it will also be of interest to those with a curiosity about the art and act of writing. The collection reveals Ferrante’s thoughts on a multitude of topics from feminism, the importance of fiction, and motherhood. Allowing a glimpse into the mind of one of Italy’s most acclaimed writers in the process.’
AU Review
‘Rendering real women, with their fraught relationships and anger, joy, anxieties, disappointment and sadness, has always been where Ferrante is at her most authentic; where she is her most truthful. But in Frantumaglia, her first work of non-fiction, the reader finds one of Ferrante’s most convincing works of fiction: Elena Ferrante.’
The Muse
‘Cumulatively these fragments offer fascinating insights into Ferrante’s working methods and artistic purpose.’
Times Literary Supplement
‘We guarantee all the cool girls will be clutching Frantumaglia.’
Marie Claire
‘An absorbing explanation of why this writer insists on anonymity, and also reveals a lot about the inspiration for and thinking behind her remarkable novels.’
Australian
‘A fascinating companion piece, both to the remarkable novels Ferrante has written and to the ongoing discussion about the author’s real identity…Her fans should be grateful for this highly readable, insightful resource.’
Herald Sun
‘Ferrante writes well about writing, publishing and literature, and I recommend Frantumaglia to writers and those interested in her books…It was an unexpectedly helpful companion through the grief and fear of one hell of a month. Thank you, Elena, whoever you are.’
Zew Zealand Listener
‘An excellent accompaniment to the novels of Elena Ferrante and insight into this writer’s journey and process, in particular the inspiration behind her characters, settings and recurring themes.’
Word by Word
November 6, 2016
Pithy articulations of an author's need for anonymity. Fragments is, literally, fragments from published interviews and responses to readers. With that said, I find Elana's writing stylistically elegant, captivating, moving, smoldering with passion and poignant observations that compels me to wanting more:
"I have a degree in classical literature. But degrees say little or nothing about what we've truly learned--out of necessity, out of passion. So it happens that what has really formed us cannot, paradoxically, be catalogued."
"It's not I who keep my activity hidden, it's my activity that hides me. I read, reflect, take notes, ponder the writing of others, produce my own, and all this for a period that's always longer than my day. Reading and writing are closed-room activities, which literally take you away from the gaze of others. The greater risk is that they also remove others from your gaze."
"A teacher who doesn't love reading communicates this deficiency even if he presents himself to his students as a passionate reader."
"The body is all we have and it shouldn't be underestimated. The films you've seen are, precisely, literally, a 'giving body' to what is in the writing of the books. I'm convinced, however, that potentially a page has more body than a film. We have to activate all our physical resources as writers and readers to make it function. Writing and reading are great investments of physicality. In writing and reading, in composing signs and deciphering them, there is an involvement of the body that compares only with writing, performing, and listening to music."
"I believe that, for those who love to write, time spent writing is never wasted. And then isn't it from book to book that one approaches the book we truly wish to write?"
"I have a degree in classical literature. But degrees say little or nothing about what we've truly learned--out of necessity, out of passion. So it happens that what has really formed us cannot, paradoxically, be catalogued."
"It's not I who keep my activity hidden, it's my activity that hides me. I read, reflect, take notes, ponder the writing of others, produce my own, and all this for a period that's always longer than my day. Reading and writing are closed-room activities, which literally take you away from the gaze of others. The greater risk is that they also remove others from your gaze."
"A teacher who doesn't love reading communicates this deficiency even if he presents himself to his students as a passionate reader."
"The body is all we have and it shouldn't be underestimated. The films you've seen are, precisely, literally, a 'giving body' to what is in the writing of the books. I'm convinced, however, that potentially a page has more body than a film. We have to activate all our physical resources as writers and readers to make it function. Writing and reading are great investments of physicality. In writing and reading, in composing signs and deciphering them, there is an involvement of the body that compares only with writing, performing, and listening to music."
"I believe that, for those who love to write, time spent writing is never wasted. And then isn't it from book to book that one approaches the book we truly wish to write?"
August 28, 2021
Oceniti jednu zbirku pisama, eseja i intervjua je izazovan posao. Međutim, već na polovini sam shvatila da ću joj dati odličnu ocenu.
U Frantumalji dobijamo uvid u Elenin odnos prema sopstvenom pisanju i, kako ona kaže, biranju odsustva a ne anonimnosti kada se radi o njenoj ličnosti kao autorke. Ovu knjigu je fantastično čitati na kraju, kada ste pročitali sve njene romane, i želite da naučite nešto o njenom pisanju, tehnici, obrazovanju, inspiraciji, istorijskim uzorima, književnim uzorima, omiljenim fiktivnim likovima koje učitava u svoje itd.
Nećete se pokajati ako pročitate ovo delo koje smatram začetkom mog interesovanja za knjige u kojima pisci govore o pisanju. 💗
U Frantumalji dobijamo uvid u Elenin odnos prema sopstvenom pisanju i, kako ona kaže, biranju odsustva a ne anonimnosti kada se radi o njenoj ličnosti kao autorke. Ovu knjigu je fantastično čitati na kraju, kada ste pročitali sve njene romane, i želite da naučite nešto o njenom pisanju, tehnici, obrazovanju, inspiraciji, istorijskim uzorima, književnim uzorima, omiljenim fiktivnim likovima koje učitava u svoje itd.
Nećete se pokajati ako pročitate ovo delo koje smatram začetkom mog interesovanja za knjige u kojima pisci govore o pisanju. 💗
June 3, 2023
Knjiga Elena Ferante – Frantumalja
Moram priznati da je „Frantumalja“, knjiga eseja, intervjua i pisama, prva knjiga Elene Ferante koju sam pročitao. Jesam gledao tri do sada objavljene sezone TV serije „Moja genijalna prijateljica“ i bio oduševljen njome, ali ni retka iz njenih knjiga nisam pročitao. Ne hvalim se time, naravno, ali je pitanje da li ću posle čitanja „Frantumalje“ u kojoj ona sama detaljno analizira svoje do sada izdate knjige uopšte imati potrebe za tim. Možda, ako se u narednim knjigama udalji od dosadašnjih tematskih preferencija. Ne bih ovim da odvraćam druge od čitanja njenih knjiga Mučna ljubav (L’amore molesto, 1992), Dani napuštenosti (I giorni dell’abbandono, 2002), Mračna kći (La figlia oscura, 2006) i Napuljska tetralogija koju čine knjige Moja genijalna prijateljica (L’amica geniale, 2011), Priča o novom prezimenu (Storia del nuovo cognome, 2012), Priča o onima koji odlaze i onima koji ostaju (Storia di chi fugge e di chi resta, 2013) i Priča o izgubljenoj devojčici (Storia della bambina perduta, 2014). Savet je upravo suprotan – obavezno prvo pročitajte sve navedene knjige pa onda „Frantumalju“ da ne biste prošli kao ja – kada bih posle „Frantumalje“ uzeo da čitam gore navedene knjige koje su u njoj analizirane osećao bih se kao čovek koji je uzeo da čita kriminalni roman a neko mu je pre toga otkrio ne samo ko je ubica, nego i ko su osumnjičeni i koji su glavni tragovi koji do ubice vode. Dakle, obratite pažnju na redosled čitanja koji bi trebalo da poštuje redosled objavljivanja. Nije nužno, jer romani nisu povezani među sobom (tetralogija se tretira kao jedan roman) ali ako hoćete da uđete u svet Elene Ferante poštujte redosled kojim je ona odlučila da ga otkrije. „Frantumalja“ treba da dođe na kraju, kao šlag na tortu.
„Elena Ferante“ je, kao što možda znate, izmišljeno ime pod kojim svoja dela objavljuje najverovatnije autorka, mada nije potpuno isključeno ni da je u pitanju autor, koja/koji ne želi da otkrije svoj pravi identitet. Govoriću ubuduće u ženskom rodu jer je to najverovatniji rod autorke, što se može zaključiti po temama koje ju preokupiraju, ali i po intervjuima koje daje a u kojima ne protivreči nikome ko joj se obrati u ženskom rodu. Ono što mogu reći posle čitanja „Frantumalje“ je da autorku, mada ne otkriva svoj pravi identitet, poznajem bolje nego mnoge autore čiji mi je identitet poznat. Kroz intervjue i još više kroz korespondenciju sa režiserima filmova rađenih po njenim romanima saznao sam da potiče iz disfunkcionalne porodice, da joj je majka bila krojačica, da je u centru njene psihologije odnos sa majkom koji je pun protivrečnosti, da je rođena u Napulju (što je bitno za njeno delo) ali da već duže vremena živi negde drugde (što je za njeno delo potpuno nebitno). Saznajemo da je Napulj ostao centar njenog sveta i izvor njene kreativnosti, da joj je feminizam blizak, ali da ipak prema njemu ima određenu distancu (biće o tome govora kasnije), da je pozicionirana na levoj strani političkog spektra (Berluskoni joj naročito ide na živce!), da je ateistkinja, da ima tri sestre i dve kćeri, verovatno već odrasle, da duže vreme živi sama (moja pretpostavka!) i da piše, piše i piše. Takođe i čita, od detinjstva. Da voli knjige Elze Morante i antičke mitove, da voli filmove, pa i one snimljene po njenim romanima, da voli Karavađove slike. Da voli Betovenovu „Krojcerovu sonatu“ i muziku Arnolda Šenberga. Muškarci u njenom životu su ili neprimetni ili neprijatni – često nosioci nasilja, baš kao što je i njen grad Napulj koga istovremeno i voli i mrzi. Ako toliko znamo o njoj (o mnogim piscima čije knjige volimo znamo mnogo manje) pitate se zašto je uopšte rešila da ostane anonimna. Njen odgovor se svodi na želju da izbegne promovisanje autora što po ustaljenim običajima rade izdavači i da pospeši samopromovisanje dela kao takvog. Ako delu da bi se čitalo treba šarmantni, komunikativni autor koji će ga predstavljati, onda to nije delo koje zavređuje pažnju – tako kaže Ferante.
Taj razlog jeste od nje često navođen i sasvim je dobar, ali je mnogo suštinskiji drugi razlog, koga takođe navodi, a to je uspostavljanje izvornog jedinstva autora i dela, ili drugim rečima – istinito pisanje. Reći ćete da ima istinitog pisanja i kod ljudi koji se potpisuju svojim pravim imenom, ali se po mom mišljenju u tom slučaju radi ili o bezazlenim istinama koje nikoga ne mogu da povrede ili pak o bezobzirnim ljudima koji ne mare za svoje bližnje. Jer, poznato je da istina može da povredi i može i te kako da bude bolna. Nije problem ako njeno iznošenje nanosi bol samoj autorki, a ona ipak smogne snage da je saopšti, veći je problem ako iznošenje istine povređuje nekoga sebi bliskog. Radi se dakle o njenim bližnjima koje Ferante štiti svojom anonimnošću, a ne sebe. Dakle, pošto je Elena Ferante rešila da se potpuno otvori i da progovori o odnosima u porodici i sa bližnjima o kojima se retko ili nikako govori, bol koji tim otvaranjem nanosi sebi, što se ono kaže, ulazi u cenu. Ali bol koji nanosi svojoj majci, ocu, deci, prijateljima, zahvaljujući njenoj anonimnosti ostaje u krugu porodice. Anonimnošću autorke se, što je ne manje važno, izbegava stid koji bi članovi porodice mogli da osećaju kada bi njihovi najintimniji međusobni odnosi bili izloženi javnosti. Za razliku od nje, Karl Ove Knausgård je odabrao da svoju šestotomnu knjigu „Moja borba“ objavi pod punim imenom i prezimenom i platio je punu cenu za to prekinutim odnosima sa svojim bližnjima koje pominje u knjizi (sam je to nazvao „ugovor sa đavolom“ – trampio je porodične odnose za istinitost, uspeh i popularnost). Sudeći po knjizi „Frantumalja“, porodica (bar na početku njene spisateljske karijere) i nije znala da se ona bavi pisanjem, te da objavljuje knjige. Čini se da su kasnije saznali (možda tako što su se prepoznali u knjigama – ovo je moja spekulacija) i da su se pomirili s tim. Meni ovo izgleda kao dovoljan razlog za anonimnost – kod većine ljudi autocenzura proradi čim se pomisli „šta će na ovo što sam napisala/o reći moja mama ili moje dete“. Ferante je tu misao otklonila i omogućila sebi da ide duboko u suštinu odnosa majke i kćeri, na primer. Istinitost pisanja koju potencira Ferante manifestuje se sirovošću ispisanog teksta – ona ne voli doterivanje i ulepšavanje iliti „glancanje“ teksta jer smatra da se time gubi istinitost. Tu se slažemo, slični su moji kriterijumi kada vrednujem neku muziku – ako studijski rad ubije spontanost, sa njom se ubija i istinitost.
Još jedan aspekt njenog promišljanja književnosti je na mene ostavio utisak. Promišljanje o muškocentričnosti književnosti. Milenijumska dominacija muških pisaca, po E.Ferante a u mom slobodnom tumačenju, ima za posledicu to što žensko čitateljstvo u svojim formativinim godinama, čitajući klasična dela svetske književnosti koja su skoro isključivo pisali muškarci, formira svoj svetonazor po muškim „šablonima“, u koje se čitateljke uklapaju i na koje čitateljke pristaju, svesno ili nesvesno. Tako se formiraju temelji, duboko ukopani u ženinu podsvest, koji služe da se lakše podigne kuća patrijarhata, ali i da se oteža njeno rušenje kada emancipovana žena pokuša da se oslobodi suptilno nametnutih stega. Ženama iz najsiromašnijih slojeva kojima je nedostupna književnost i umetnost uopšte, patrijarhalni diskurs se pak nameće golom silom, bila ona fizička ili psihološka. Moram dodati da, na žalost, patrijarhat sredstva prinude koristi i prema ženama koje čitaju. Ova razmišljanja su suština feminizma Elene Ferante, koji nije onaj površinski – agitatorski (ali ipak opravdani) vapaj za ravnopravnošću, već suštinski – on ne traži od muškog sveta jednaki deo kolača, on traži u najmanju ruku da se kolač zajednički pravi, ako ne i da svako pravi svoj kolač. Nije srećom E.Ferante jedina koja radi na tome da ženskocentrična književnost koja ženu stavlja u centar sopstvenog sveta uđe makar i na mala vrata u klasike svetske književnosti. U tom slučaju bi adolescentkinje imale kome da se „obrate“ u rečenim formativnim godinama. Zato su muški likovi u njenim knjigama kao što rekoh ili neprimetni ili neprijatni (sličan tretman muškarci imaju u delu srpske književnice Milene Marković „Deca“). I kod muških pisaca muškarci mogu biti neprijatni- nasilni, ali neprimetni nikako ne mogu biti. Zato mislim da bi parola koju bi E.Ferante nosila na nekom skupu za rodnu ravnopravnost bila „ŽENSKOCENTRIČNOST ŽENAMA!“.
Jezik. Vrlo bitan za Elenu Ferante. Napuljski dijalekat igra bitnu ulogu u karakterizaciji njenih likova jer temperament jezika odražava temperament likova (ili je obrnuto!). Po Eleni, istinitost na kojoj insistira se gubi kada se neke stvari kažu na italijanskom. Kaže da nema i ne može da ima kontrolu nad prevodima, pa se nada da prevodi mogu tačno da prenesu ono što je htela da kaže. No, to nije samo njen problem. Uvek je bolje čitati dela na originalnom jeziku, ali to vrlo često nije moguće, pa se prevodi prosto ne mogu izbeći. Nadovezujem se na priču o jeziku sa nekoliko rečenica o naslovu knjige. On je u srpskom prevodu Jelene Brborić, kojim sam vrlo zadovoljan, ostao onakav kakav je u originalu (ako izuzmemo fonetsku transkripciju). „Frantumalja“ znači „skup fragmenata“ (izvor: dizionario.it) a Elena je uzela iz vokabulara njene majke koja je govorila napolitanskim dijalektom i koristila je u značenju „fragmenti sećanja“. Mene pak „Frantumaglia“ asocira na primordijalni bujon ili supu u kojoj plivaju čestice koje će slučajnim spajanjem dati život. Tako književnica iz obilja isečaka prošlosti udahnjuje život priči – neke isečke uzima u obzir, neke preskače, neki ostaju da lebde negde između da bi svoje mesto našli u nekoj narednoj priči. Jasno je da taj naslov objašnjava kreativni proces Elene Ferante, dakle, nije nasumično izabran. Taj proces je sličan onome koji sam opisao u recenziji Dilanovog albuma Rough and Rowdy Ways na stereoart.me, gde sam govorio o privatnim i javnim mrežama svakog čoveka to jest o uticajima kojima je čovek izložen od ljudi sa kojima se tokom života susreće (privatna mreža) i kulturnih uticaja kojima je izložen (javna mreža) iz kojih ako je umetnik, metodom proizvoljnog izbora kreira svoja umetnička dela. I to je neka vrsta frantumalje.
Zašto ovoj knjizi dajem najvišu ocenu? Ima više razloga ali onaj jedan koji ih sve objedinjuje je taj što čitaoca tera na razmišljanje. Da li je primarni zadatak književnosti da ispriča zanimljivu i/ili počnu priču ili da kaže neizrecivo? Slažem se sa Ferante da je ovo drugo. Nemam ništa protiv pričanja priča, ali te priče moraju da imaju višeslojnost, ne onu pretencioznu – projektovanu, već onu koja proizlazi iz načina pripovedanja. Način na koji Elena Ferante odgovara na često banalna pitanja iz intervjua dovoljno govori o kompleksnosti njenih uvida, i bez čitanja njenih knjiga (posle čitanja ove, ipak mi se otvorio apetit da je još bolje upoznam). Tema koja ju preokupira je, krajnje svedeno rečeno, odnos između dve žene (majka i kćerka, dve prijateljice). Tema je preokupira do te mere da višeslojnost postiže skoro instinktivnim pisanjem. Malo objašnjenje – po mom mišljenju postoje dve ekstremne tehnike pisanja – projektovano pisanje čiji je najekstremniji predstavnik Markiz De Sad i instinktivno pisanje čiji je predstavnik Džek Keruak. De Sad pre početka pisanja napravi detaljni projekat onog što će napisati, Keruak samo sedne i piše štagod mu padne napamet. Ferante je bliža ovom drugom načinu, ili bar, po sopstvenom priznanju, teži tom načinu. Kako kaže na jednom mestu, nekada u jednom dahu napiše stotinak stranica. Ona se, naravno, vraća impulsivno napisanom tekstu (za razliku od Keruaka), izbacuje nepotrebne delove, doteruje ga (ali ne mnogo), i nastavlja ali sa promišljanjem sa težnjom da ne skrene s puta istinitosti priče. Jer princip istinitosti je njen vrhunski princip (ne treba ga mešati sa verodostojnosti).
Dakle, o autorki koja krije svoj identitet posle čitanja knjige „Frantamalja“ znaćete više nego što ste ikada znali o svom omiljenom piscu koji piše pod svojim imenom. Jedino što o njoj ne znate su podaci iz lične karte, ali koga je briga za to. Ne znate KO JE Elena Ferante, ali znate KAKVA je. To je mnogo važnije!
Moram priznati da je „Frantumalja“, knjiga eseja, intervjua i pisama, prva knjiga Elene Ferante koju sam pročitao. Jesam gledao tri do sada objavljene sezone TV serije „Moja genijalna prijateljica“ i bio oduševljen njome, ali ni retka iz njenih knjiga nisam pročitao. Ne hvalim se time, naravno, ali je pitanje da li ću posle čitanja „Frantumalje“ u kojoj ona sama detaljno analizira svoje do sada izdate knjige uopšte imati potrebe za tim. Možda, ako se u narednim knjigama udalji od dosadašnjih tematskih preferencija. Ne bih ovim da odvraćam druge od čitanja njenih knjiga Mučna ljubav (L’amore molesto, 1992), Dani napuštenosti (I giorni dell’abbandono, 2002), Mračna kći (La figlia oscura, 2006) i Napuljska tetralogija koju čine knjige Moja genijalna prijateljica (L’amica geniale, 2011), Priča o novom prezimenu (Storia del nuovo cognome, 2012), Priča o onima koji odlaze i onima koji ostaju (Storia di chi fugge e di chi resta, 2013) i Priča o izgubljenoj devojčici (Storia della bambina perduta, 2014). Savet je upravo suprotan – obavezno prvo pročitajte sve navedene knjige pa onda „Frantumalju“ da ne biste prošli kao ja – kada bih posle „Frantumalje“ uzeo da čitam gore navedene knjige koje su u njoj analizirane osećao bih se kao čovek koji je uzeo da čita kriminalni roman a neko mu je pre toga otkrio ne samo ko je ubica, nego i ko su osumnjičeni i koji su glavni tragovi koji do ubice vode. Dakle, obratite pažnju na redosled čitanja koji bi trebalo da poštuje redosled objavljivanja. Nije nužno, jer romani nisu povezani među sobom (tetralogija se tretira kao jedan roman) ali ako hoćete da uđete u svet Elene Ferante poštujte redosled kojim je ona odlučila da ga otkrije. „Frantumalja“ treba da dođe na kraju, kao šlag na tortu.
„Elena Ferante“ je, kao što možda znate, izmišljeno ime pod kojim svoja dela objavljuje najverovatnije autorka, mada nije potpuno isključeno ni da je u pitanju autor, koja/koji ne želi da otkrije svoj pravi identitet. Govoriću ubuduće u ženskom rodu jer je to najverovatniji rod autorke, što se može zaključiti po temama koje ju preokupiraju, ali i po intervjuima koje daje a u kojima ne protivreči nikome ko joj se obrati u ženskom rodu. Ono što mogu reći posle čitanja „Frantumalje“ je da autorku, mada ne otkriva svoj pravi identitet, poznajem bolje nego mnoge autore čiji mi je identitet poznat. Kroz intervjue i još više kroz korespondenciju sa režiserima filmova rađenih po njenim romanima saznao sam da potiče iz disfunkcionalne porodice, da joj je majka bila krojačica, da je u centru njene psihologije odnos sa majkom koji je pun protivrečnosti, da je rođena u Napulju (što je bitno za njeno delo) ali da već duže vremena živi negde drugde (što je za njeno delo potpuno nebitno). Saznajemo da je Napulj ostao centar njenog sveta i izvor njene kreativnosti, da joj je feminizam blizak, ali da ipak prema njemu ima određenu distancu (biće o tome govora kasnije), da je pozicionirana na levoj strani političkog spektra (Berluskoni joj naročito ide na živce!), da je ateistkinja, da ima tri sestre i dve kćeri, verovatno već odrasle, da duže vreme živi sama (moja pretpostavka!) i da piše, piše i piše. Takođe i čita, od detinjstva. Da voli knjige Elze Morante i antičke mitove, da voli filmove, pa i one snimljene po njenim romanima, da voli Karavađove slike. Da voli Betovenovu „Krojcerovu sonatu“ i muziku Arnolda Šenberga. Muškarci u njenom životu su ili neprimetni ili neprijatni – često nosioci nasilja, baš kao što je i njen grad Napulj koga istovremeno i voli i mrzi. Ako toliko znamo o njoj (o mnogim piscima čije knjige volimo znamo mnogo manje) pitate se zašto je uopšte rešila da ostane anonimna. Njen odgovor se svodi na želju da izbegne promovisanje autora što po ustaljenim običajima rade izdavači i da pospeši samopromovisanje dela kao takvog. Ako delu da bi se čitalo treba šarmantni, komunikativni autor koji će ga predstavljati, onda to nije delo koje zavređuje pažnju – tako kaže Ferante.
Taj razlog jeste od nje često navođen i sasvim je dobar, ali je mnogo suštinskiji drugi razlog, koga takođe navodi, a to je uspostavljanje izvornog jedinstva autora i dela, ili drugim rečima – istinito pisanje. Reći ćete da ima istinitog pisanja i kod ljudi koji se potpisuju svojim pravim imenom, ali se po mom mišljenju u tom slučaju radi ili o bezazlenim istinama koje nikoga ne mogu da povrede ili pak o bezobzirnim ljudima koji ne mare za svoje bližnje. Jer, poznato je da istina može da povredi i može i te kako da bude bolna. Nije problem ako njeno iznošenje nanosi bol samoj autorki, a ona ipak smogne snage da je saopšti, veći je problem ako iznošenje istine povređuje nekoga sebi bliskog. Radi se dakle o njenim bližnjima koje Ferante štiti svojom anonimnošću, a ne sebe. Dakle, pošto je Elena Ferante rešila da se potpuno otvori i da progovori o odnosima u porodici i sa bližnjima o kojima se retko ili nikako govori, bol koji tim otvaranjem nanosi sebi, što se ono kaže, ulazi u cenu. Ali bol koji nanosi svojoj majci, ocu, deci, prijateljima, zahvaljujući njenoj anonimnosti ostaje u krugu porodice. Anonimnošću autorke se, što je ne manje važno, izbegava stid koji bi članovi porodice mogli da osećaju kada bi njihovi najintimniji međusobni odnosi bili izloženi javnosti. Za razliku od nje, Karl Ove Knausgård je odabrao da svoju šestotomnu knjigu „Moja borba“ objavi pod punim imenom i prezimenom i platio je punu cenu za to prekinutim odnosima sa svojim bližnjima koje pominje u knjizi (sam je to nazvao „ugovor sa đavolom“ – trampio je porodične odnose za istinitost, uspeh i popularnost). Sudeći po knjizi „Frantumalja“, porodica (bar na početku njene spisateljske karijere) i nije znala da se ona bavi pisanjem, te da objavljuje knjige. Čini se da su kasnije saznali (možda tako što su se prepoznali u knjigama – ovo je moja spekulacija) i da su se pomirili s tim. Meni ovo izgleda kao dovoljan razlog za anonimnost – kod većine ljudi autocenzura proradi čim se pomisli „šta će na ovo što sam napisala/o reći moja mama ili moje dete“. Ferante je tu misao otklonila i omogućila sebi da ide duboko u suštinu odnosa majke i kćeri, na primer. Istinitost pisanja koju potencira Ferante manifestuje se sirovošću ispisanog teksta – ona ne voli doterivanje i ulepšavanje iliti „glancanje“ teksta jer smatra da se time gubi istinitost. Tu se slažemo, slični su moji kriterijumi kada vrednujem neku muziku – ako studijski rad ubije spontanost, sa njom se ubija i istinitost.
Još jedan aspekt njenog promišljanja književnosti je na mene ostavio utisak. Promišljanje o muškocentričnosti književnosti. Milenijumska dominacija muških pisaca, po E.Ferante a u mom slobodnom tumačenju, ima za posledicu to što žensko čitateljstvo u svojim formativinim godinama, čitajući klasična dela svetske književnosti koja su skoro isključivo pisali muškarci, formira svoj svetonazor po muškim „šablonima“, u koje se čitateljke uklapaju i na koje čitateljke pristaju, svesno ili nesvesno. Tako se formiraju temelji, duboko ukopani u ženinu podsvest, koji služe da se lakše podigne kuća patrijarhata, ali i da se oteža njeno rušenje kada emancipovana žena pokuša da se oslobodi suptilno nametnutih stega. Ženama iz najsiromašnijih slojeva kojima je nedostupna književnost i umetnost uopšte, patrijarhalni diskurs se pak nameće golom silom, bila ona fizička ili psihološka. Moram dodati da, na žalost, patrijarhat sredstva prinude koristi i prema ženama koje čitaju. Ova razmišljanja su suština feminizma Elene Ferante, koji nije onaj površinski – agitatorski (ali ipak opravdani) vapaj za ravnopravnošću, već suštinski – on ne traži od muškog sveta jednaki deo kolača, on traži u najmanju ruku da se kolač zajednički pravi, ako ne i da svako pravi svoj kolač. Nije srećom E.Ferante jedina koja radi na tome da ženskocentrična književnost koja ženu stavlja u centar sopstvenog sveta uđe makar i na mala vrata u klasike svetske književnosti. U tom slučaju bi adolescentkinje imale kome da se „obrate“ u rečenim formativnim godinama. Zato su muški likovi u njenim knjigama kao što rekoh ili neprimetni ili neprijatni (sličan tretman muškarci imaju u delu srpske književnice Milene Marković „Deca“). I kod muških pisaca muškarci mogu biti neprijatni- nasilni, ali neprimetni nikako ne mogu biti. Zato mislim da bi parola koju bi E.Ferante nosila na nekom skupu za rodnu ravnopravnost bila „ŽENSKOCENTRIČNOST ŽENAMA!“.
Jezik. Vrlo bitan za Elenu Ferante. Napuljski dijalekat igra bitnu ulogu u karakterizaciji njenih likova jer temperament jezika odražava temperament likova (ili je obrnuto!). Po Eleni, istinitost na kojoj insistira se gubi kada se neke stvari kažu na italijanskom. Kaže da nema i ne može da ima kontrolu nad prevodima, pa se nada da prevodi mogu tačno da prenesu ono što je htela da kaže. No, to nije samo njen problem. Uvek je bolje čitati dela na originalnom jeziku, ali to vrlo često nije moguće, pa se prevodi prosto ne mogu izbeći. Nadovezujem se na priču o jeziku sa nekoliko rečenica o naslovu knjige. On je u srpskom prevodu Jelene Brborić, kojim sam vrlo zadovoljan, ostao onakav kakav je u originalu (ako izuzmemo fonetsku transkripciju). „Frantumalja“ znači „skup fragmenata“ (izvor: dizionario.it) a Elena je uzela iz vokabulara njene majke koja je govorila napolitanskim dijalektom i koristila je u značenju „fragmenti sećanja“. Mene pak „Frantumaglia“ asocira na primordijalni bujon ili supu u kojoj plivaju čestice koje će slučajnim spajanjem dati život. Tako književnica iz obilja isečaka prošlosti udahnjuje život priči – neke isečke uzima u obzir, neke preskače, neki ostaju da lebde negde između da bi svoje mesto našli u nekoj narednoj priči. Jasno je da taj naslov objašnjava kreativni proces Elene Ferante, dakle, nije nasumično izabran. Taj proces je sličan onome koji sam opisao u recenziji Dilanovog albuma Rough and Rowdy Ways na stereoart.me, gde sam govorio o privatnim i javnim mrežama svakog čoveka to jest o uticajima kojima je čovek izložen od ljudi sa kojima se tokom života susreće (privatna mreža) i kulturnih uticaja kojima je izložen (javna mreža) iz kojih ako je umetnik, metodom proizvoljnog izbora kreira svoja umetnička dela. I to je neka vrsta frantumalje.
Zašto ovoj knjizi dajem najvišu ocenu? Ima više razloga ali onaj jedan koji ih sve objedinjuje je taj što čitaoca tera na razmišljanje. Da li je primarni zadatak književnosti da ispriča zanimljivu i/ili počnu priču ili da kaže neizrecivo? Slažem se sa Ferante da je ovo drugo. Nemam ništa protiv pričanja priča, ali te priče moraju da imaju višeslojnost, ne onu pretencioznu – projektovanu, već onu koja proizlazi iz načina pripovedanja. Način na koji Elena Ferante odgovara na često banalna pitanja iz intervjua dovoljno govori o kompleksnosti njenih uvida, i bez čitanja njenih knjiga (posle čitanja ove, ipak mi se otvorio apetit da je još bolje upoznam). Tema koja ju preokupira je, krajnje svedeno rečeno, odnos između dve žene (majka i kćerka, dve prijateljice). Tema je preokupira do te mere da višeslojnost postiže skoro instinktivnim pisanjem. Malo objašnjenje – po mom mišljenju postoje dve ekstremne tehnike pisanja – projektovano pisanje čiji je najekstremniji predstavnik Markiz De Sad i instinktivno pisanje čiji je predstavnik Džek Keruak. De Sad pre početka pisanja napravi detaljni projekat onog što će napisati, Keruak samo sedne i piše štagod mu padne napamet. Ferante je bliža ovom drugom načinu, ili bar, po sopstvenom priznanju, teži tom načinu. Kako kaže na jednom mestu, nekada u jednom dahu napiše stotinak stranica. Ona se, naravno, vraća impulsivno napisanom tekstu (za razliku od Keruaka), izbacuje nepotrebne delove, doteruje ga (ali ne mnogo), i nastavlja ali sa promišljanjem sa težnjom da ne skrene s puta istinitosti priče. Jer princip istinitosti je njen vrhunski princip (ne treba ga mešati sa verodostojnosti).
Dakle, o autorki koja krije svoj identitet posle čitanja knjige „Frantamalja“ znaćete više nego što ste ikada znali o svom omiljenom piscu koji piše pod svojim imenom. Jedino što o njoj ne znate su podaci iz lične karte, ali koga je briga za to. Ne znate KO JE Elena Ferante, ali znate KAKVA je. To je mnogo važnije!
November 27, 2016
The author of the Neapolitan Quartet shares her letters, interviews, drafts, papers, memories, and thoughts from a quarter century of writing.
Book Review: Frantumaglia takes the reader inside a writer's mind like nothing I've ever seen before. Elena Ferrante thinks so deeply, cares so passionately, works so diligently at her craft that the reader can only sit open-mouthed. This book is like a PhD course in writing. There is so much here, almost too much. She shares everything that goes into her writing, and I couldn't help but be impressed at how profound is her dedication. She writes and remembers deeply the city of Naples (and Italy itself), which is so important to and is so strongly felt in her books. Her commitment to truth in writing is inspiring for any would be author: "when one writes one must never lie. In literary fiction you have to be sincere to the point where it's unbearable, where you suffer the emptiness of the pages." For Ferrante there is a great divide between verisimilitude and authenticity in literature. She also provides draft pages cut from the final versions of her books, and lengthy explanations of why the pages were deleted. Multilayered interpretations of her plots and characters are given.
She discusses in depth her themes of the mother-daughter relationship, friendships between women, and feminism (especially her interest in difference feminism). She writes of her own parents, her mother, and her own friendships, and the dangers of friendships. She candidly admits that initially she was more attracted to female characters written by men, than such written by women, and it took her time to "to learn to love women writers." She also notes how problematic it is that some women prefer "the worst male characters" in her books. Ferrante sees numerous difficulties for women in our not yet adequately redefined modern age, and that despite the advances of feminism, women cannot "lower our guard." Addressing women in writing, she states, "Every woman novelist ... should aim at being not only the best women novelist but the best of the most skilled practitioners of literature, whether male or female. To do so we have to avoid every ideological conformity, every false show of thought, every adherence to a party line or canon." She writes of the deep significance that feminism and post-feminism have had on her writing, though not overtly included in her work, and the fragility of the gains that have been won.
Ferrante is known for writing under a pseudonym and keeping her private life to herself, in her belief "that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors." Her thoughts and writing on this issue are some of the most profound of Frantumaglia (and there's a whole section on that word), taking a razor to the concept of fandom and author as celebrity. She thinks that "for real readers, who wrote it isn't important," and that even Tolstoy "is an insignificant shadow if he takes a stroll with Anna Karenina." "I believe that the true reader shouldn't be confused with the fan." She regrets that in many cases the name of the writer is "better known than his works." Ferrante notes that we know little about Shakespeare and other great writers, that knowledge of the writer is unnecessary for understanding an author's books. "A story is truly alive not because the author is photogenic."
For anyone who has read Ferrante's books and wants to know more about the stories behind the stories, this is a perfect book. For potential writers who wish to see the process of an expert, this is a great opportunity. Apparently this book was published in part to satisfy the interest in information about Ferrante, and to placate and accommodate her very patient publishers desire for more publicity for her books. Frantumaglia was first published in Italian, and came out greatly expanded in English and updated to this year (2016). Goodreads lists it at 224 pages, but my edition had 384 pages of text. [4★]
Book Review: Frantumaglia takes the reader inside a writer's mind like nothing I've ever seen before. Elena Ferrante thinks so deeply, cares so passionately, works so diligently at her craft that the reader can only sit open-mouthed. This book is like a PhD course in writing. There is so much here, almost too much. She shares everything that goes into her writing, and I couldn't help but be impressed at how profound is her dedication. She writes and remembers deeply the city of Naples (and Italy itself), which is so important to and is so strongly felt in her books. Her commitment to truth in writing is inspiring for any would be author: "when one writes one must never lie. In literary fiction you have to be sincere to the point where it's unbearable, where you suffer the emptiness of the pages." For Ferrante there is a great divide between verisimilitude and authenticity in literature. She also provides draft pages cut from the final versions of her books, and lengthy explanations of why the pages were deleted. Multilayered interpretations of her plots and characters are given.
She discusses in depth her themes of the mother-daughter relationship, friendships between women, and feminism (especially her interest in difference feminism). She writes of her own parents, her mother, and her own friendships, and the dangers of friendships. She candidly admits that initially she was more attracted to female characters written by men, than such written by women, and it took her time to "to learn to love women writers." She also notes how problematic it is that some women prefer "the worst male characters" in her books. Ferrante sees numerous difficulties for women in our not yet adequately redefined modern age, and that despite the advances of feminism, women cannot "lower our guard." Addressing women in writing, she states, "Every woman novelist ... should aim at being not only the best women novelist but the best of the most skilled practitioners of literature, whether male or female. To do so we have to avoid every ideological conformity, every false show of thought, every adherence to a party line or canon." She writes of the deep significance that feminism and post-feminism have had on her writing, though not overtly included in her work, and the fragility of the gains that have been won.
Ferrante is known for writing under a pseudonym and keeping her private life to herself, in her belief "that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors." Her thoughts and writing on this issue are some of the most profound of Frantumaglia (and there's a whole section on that word), taking a razor to the concept of fandom and author as celebrity. She thinks that "for real readers, who wrote it isn't important," and that even Tolstoy "is an insignificant shadow if he takes a stroll with Anna Karenina." "I believe that the true reader shouldn't be confused with the fan." She regrets that in many cases the name of the writer is "better known than his works." Ferrante notes that we know little about Shakespeare and other great writers, that knowledge of the writer is unnecessary for understanding an author's books. "A story is truly alive not because the author is photogenic."
For anyone who has read Ferrante's books and wants to know more about the stories behind the stories, this is a perfect book. For potential writers who wish to see the process of an expert, this is a great opportunity. Apparently this book was published in part to satisfy the interest in information about Ferrante, and to placate and accommodate her very patient publishers desire for more publicity for her books. Frantumaglia was first published in Italian, and came out greatly expanded in English and updated to this year (2016). Goodreads lists it at 224 pages, but my edition had 384 pages of text. [4★]
October 22, 2020
This non fictional work of Ferrante carries her correspondences with her publishers, interviews and responses to her readers and even contemporaries. These writings dating from the time of her first literary publication (1991) to 2016 shows her continuing growth as a writer and her clear stance on the punctilious use of language and her anonymity. Inspite of having only read her Neapolitan Quartet, I went for this because I was curious to get behind her writing. On second thoughts, I should have been more patient and waited till I've read other works as well. Being a writer who keeps her private life away from a public gaze, in this book she allows her readers to have a glance at her writing process, her formative years of becoming a writer and even provides a description of her working space. She discusses in detail the recurring motifs and themes in her works like abandonment, loss, borders, complexities in a mother- daughter relationship and even her difficult relationship with Naples. She says she keeps away from politics but interested in economic and social contexts of her country . Yet she does not deny the ideological underpinnings in her novels. Though I might disagree with her perspective on 'politics' as a wholesome category as reflected in her critique of Naples, Berlusconi and media manipulation, her discussions surrounding feminism, women writing and location of women writers within a male literary tradition clearly marks her ideological standing. Throughout her correspondences, she maintains an interesting obsession with 'literary truth'. Something which in her opinion, shouldn't be confused with realism or verisimilitude. Her honesty as a writer can be observed from the care with which she attends to the words she had written as it gets translated from one medium to another, like adaptations.
Though some parts may seem repetitive, it can be owed mostly to the repetitiveness of the queries posed to her about her anonymity and the hype and constructed mystery surrounding it. If I had read Neapolitan Quartet with an insatiable greed, I read this one like a meditation. Taking notes, marking words and looking between and beneath words.
Though some parts may seem repetitive, it can be owed mostly to the repetitiveness of the queries posed to her about her anonymity and the hype and constructed mystery surrounding it. If I had read Neapolitan Quartet with an insatiable greed, I read this one like a meditation. Taking notes, marking words and looking between and beneath words.
August 13, 2016
I thought I'd read this brief collection of interviews as an introduction to Ferrante. .. I still no nothing about her - but neither do most Italians. She's an enigmatic misanthropic recluse, I take it?
The interview questions were awkward. To wit,
The interview questions were awkward. To wit,
What does Elena Ferrante think about social questions like euthanasia? ... And, more generally, doesn't she think that for an intellectual (hence also for writer) it's important (if not in fact a duty) to participate in the public debate on the great subjects of civic life?Her answer to this and other questions is hostile-inscrutable: Life is pure suffering. Don't ask me to resort to pat phrases. I will not tell you a second time. Leave me alone. Being an author is hell. [paraphrasi!]
November 3, 2023
Biser italijanske (a i svetske) književnosti, ova zbirka eseja-misli-mejlova, nazovite kakogod hocete i zelite, mi je rasplamsala vatru u grudima i pobudila zelju za citanjem njena 3 preostala romana. Mnostvo feministickih, filozofskih i drustvenih Eleninih stavova naterace vas da se iznova i iznova zapitate o nekim aktuelnim temama, od zivotnog znacaja, koje nas trenutno potresaju sa svih strana. Ne mogu dovoljno da docaram koliko je ovo jedan zreo manifest, otelotvoren u vidu jednog intervjua ili mejla.
Uzivala sam u svakoj reci, i ako smem da se usudim, rekla bih da je ovo cak i bolje od njenih romana.
Spoj modernog i literarnog rezultuje savrsenstvom. 🌷
5 ⭐️
Uzivala sam u svakoj reci, i ako smem da se usudim, rekla bih da je ovo cak i bolje od njenih romana.
Spoj modernog i literarnog rezultuje savrsenstvom. 🌷
5 ⭐️
February 18, 2019
Magi! Sista delen bäst.
April 12, 2024
Ferrante merőben új szerzői attitűdje, műveinek fejtegetése, intelligens világnézete, gondolatébresztő társadalmi, pszichológiai témái vonulnak fel ebben az interjúkötetben. Félelmetes ez a nő - ez a kötet pedig izgalmasabb, mint a Nápolyi regények :)
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