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In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing
Four new and revelatory essays by the author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lost Daughter
In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as “an oracle among authors.” Here, in these four crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers. She writes about her influences, her struggles, and her formation as both a reader and a writer; she describes the perils of “bad language” and suggests ways in which it has long excluded women’s truth; she proposes a choral fusion of feminine talent as she brilliantly discourses on the work of Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Ingeborg Bachmann, and many others.
Here is a subtle yet candid book by “one of the great novelists of our time” about adventures in literature, both in and out of the margins.
In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as “an oracle among authors.” Here, in these four crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers. She writes about her influences, her struggles, and her formation as both a reader and a writer; she describes the perils of “bad language” and suggests ways in which it has long excluded women’s truth; she proposes a choral fusion of feminine talent as she brilliantly discourses on the work of Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Ingeborg Bachmann, and many others.
Here is a subtle yet candid book by “one of the great novelists of our time” about adventures in literature, both in and out of the margins.
160 pages, Paperback
First published November 17, 2021
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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May 19, 2022
In an article written by Jhumpa Lahiri about Calvino (which a coincidentally I read just as I was writing this review) she quotes him as saying that Italian writers "always have a problem with their own language (and they live) in a state of linguistic neurosis". That is certainly true of Ferrante as revealed in this book of four essays. It does make me wonder if it is true of all writers or at least authors who are translated.
Elena Ferrante describes the history and development of her writing and the frustrations and triumphs encountered. There are two necessary types of writing: that which is "in the margins" and that which is outside - the traditional and the unconfined, the rules and reality and the wilder and freer. The latter allowing for contradictions and the unexpected. She believes writing is a balancing act between the two, and "beautiful writing is at its best when it loses harmony".
We are the sum of all we have seen, read, experienced, and it is all swirling around in our heads. Quoting from the work of Svevo, Cavarero, Woolf, Stein, Dante and others, support for the difficulty of pulling these collective voices from our brains to the page is given. "Something asks to become evident by the hand that writes", says Svevo, but according to Ferrante, it often "eludes the grasp and is lost". Woolf calls it "camping out in her own brain".
Ferrante shares her frustration as a teenager, desperate to find her writing voice but having mostly male authors to draw from. If a female writer wants to express what is real and true, she needs to have the collective work of women writers, her own voice, and that of her female characters, "the autobiographical and the biographical superimposed upon one another" as Cavarero says. Ferrante believes Stein successfully does this in her Autobiography of Alice B Toklas". The author and the character learn from each other, much like the characters in The Neapolitan Novels and other E.F. books. We need that voice, both the insignificant and the brilliant. We cannot depend solely on the beauty or truth as described by men.
This was an enlightening read, one that should be reread and reread and only in short doses. There was so much to think about. It will keep me thinking every time I read or pick up a pen.
Elena Ferrante describes the history and development of her writing and the frustrations and triumphs encountered. There are two necessary types of writing: that which is "in the margins" and that which is outside - the traditional and the unconfined, the rules and reality and the wilder and freer. The latter allowing for contradictions and the unexpected. She believes writing is a balancing act between the two, and "beautiful writing is at its best when it loses harmony".
We are the sum of all we have seen, read, experienced, and it is all swirling around in our heads. Quoting from the work of Svevo, Cavarero, Woolf, Stein, Dante and others, support for the difficulty of pulling these collective voices from our brains to the page is given. "Something asks to become evident by the hand that writes", says Svevo, but according to Ferrante, it often "eludes the grasp and is lost". Woolf calls it "camping out in her own brain".
Ferrante shares her frustration as a teenager, desperate to find her writing voice but having mostly male authors to draw from. If a female writer wants to express what is real and true, she needs to have the collective work of women writers, her own voice, and that of her female characters, "the autobiographical and the biographical superimposed upon one another" as Cavarero says. Ferrante believes Stein successfully does this in her Autobiography of Alice B Toklas". The author and the character learn from each other, much like the characters in The Neapolitan Novels and other E.F. books. We need that voice, both the insignificant and the brilliant. We cannot depend solely on the beauty or truth as described by men.
This was an enlightening read, one that should be reread and reread and only in short doses. There was so much to think about. It will keep me thinking every time I read or pick up a pen.
March 24, 2022
“In The Margins”….
…..”On The Pleasures of Reading and Writing”….is only 74 pages long.
The Four essays are:
….Pain and Pen
….Aquamarine
….Histories
….Dante’s Rib
Elena tells us that she was often distracted when she wrote.
“But I was easily distracted when I wrote, and while I almost always respected the margin on the left, I often ended up outside the one on the right, whether to finish the word or because I had reached a point where it was difficult to divide the word into syllables and start a new line without going outside the margin. I was punished so often that the sense of the boundary became part of me, and when I write by hand I feel the threat of the vertical red line even though I haven’t used paper like that for years”.
She has us look at the Italian writer, Italo Svevo, (who had impressed her since she was a young girl), from his book: ‘Zeno’s Conscience’,
[The protagonist is Zeno Cosini], showing us that the Svevo starts the story at the very moment when he is preparing to carry out his task.
She includes an excerpt from the book — and was convinced the protagonist in Svevo’s novel, Zeno Cosini, had problems just like she did only he knew more about them.
(note, I listened to a sample of ‘Zeno’s Conscience’… I liked what I sampled).
Then….
Elena goes on to interpret the writing of the excerpt.
I won’t include it here -
ha…. leaving it for ‘you’. 🙂✍️📕
Elena tells us that things became complicated when she wrote. She read a lot, but what she liked was almost always written by men, not women……
until she hit adolescence.
She goes on to explain her reasons—even confessing imagining becoming a male yet at the same time remaining female.
Elena was worried that she would never be able to write books like those of the great writers.
Ha! I don’t think she needs to worry about this today!
Elena mentions another book, that made a great impression on her:
“Rime” by Gaspara Stampa (considered one of the greatest Italian poets)…
“I couldn’t write like a woman except by violating what I was diligently trying to learn from the male tradition”.
“From then on for decades, I wrote and wrote, locked in that circle. I would start from something that seemed urgent, absolutely mine, and go on for days, weeks, sometimes months”.
“When I finished a story, I was pleased, having the impression that it had come out perfectly; and yet I thought that it wasn’t I who had written it—that is, not the excited I, ready for anything, who was called to write, and who during the entire draft had seemed to be hidden in the words—but another I, who, tightly disciplined, had found convenient pathways solely in order to see: look, see what fine sentences I’ve written, what beautiful images, the story is finished, praise me”.
Praise wasn’t ultimately satisfying—
Elena said she often used passages from Virginia Wolf‘s
“A Writer’s Diary”
I like this passage myself by Virginia Woolf:
“It is a mistake she thinks that literature can be produced from the raw. One must get out of life—yes, that’s why I disliked so much of irruption of Sydney—one must become externalised; very, very concentrated, all at one point, not having to draw upon the scattered parts of one’s character, living in the brain. Sydney comes and I’m Virginia; when I write I am merely a sensibility. Sometimes I like being Virginia, but only when I’m scattered and various and gregarious. Now . . . I’d like to be only sensibility”.
“Woolf’s idea seems clear: writing is camping out in her own brain, without getting lost in the very numerous, varied, inferior, modalities with which every day, as Virginia, she lives a raw life. It seemed to me, when I was young, that she was saying:?oh yes, I like being Virginia, but the ‘I’ who writes seriously is twenty people, a hypersensitive plurality all concentrated in the hand provided with the pen”.
She mentions other authors and books that have influence her:
….The Unnameable, by Samuel Beckett.
….Jacques the Fatalist”, and His Master by Denis Diderot.
…..The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
…..Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
….Homer
….Alighieri Dante
etc..
And a few of her own books:
….The Days of
Abandonment
….The Lost Daughter
….Troubling Love
….My Brilliant Friend and the Neapolitan novels
….The Lying Life of Adults
…..**I enjoyed reading about her two most famous protagonists: Elena and Lila. (the ways they absorbed each other).
“In The Margins” are thoughts, sharing, feelings, — about writing— [two different types of writing: diligent writing, and writing that goes beyond the boundaries], about being a writer — about techniques and pleasures.
She tells us about the topics that are included in her novels: Love, betrayal, dangerous investigations, horrific discoveries, corrupted youth, miserable lives that have a stroke of luck……
“But really I am waiting for my brain to get distracted, to slip up, for other I’s — many — outside the margins to join together, take my hand, begin to pull me with the writing where I’m afraid to go, where it hurts me to go, where, if I go too far, I won’t necessarily know how to get back. It’s the moment when the rules—learned, applied—give way and the hand pulls out of the bran pie not what is useful but, precisely, whatever comes, faster and faster, throwing me off balance”.
“Beautiful writing becomes beautiful when it loses its harmony and has the desperate power of the ugly”.
I don’t have aspirations on becoming a writer, but I enjoy what writers have to say about writing. I also love reading about other books and authors who inspired them …..
Besides….
I like Elena Ferrante.
…..”On The Pleasures of Reading and Writing”….is only 74 pages long.
The Four essays are:
….Pain and Pen
….Aquamarine
….Histories
….Dante’s Rib
Elena tells us that she was often distracted when she wrote.
“But I was easily distracted when I wrote, and while I almost always respected the margin on the left, I often ended up outside the one on the right, whether to finish the word or because I had reached a point where it was difficult to divide the word into syllables and start a new line without going outside the margin. I was punished so often that the sense of the boundary became part of me, and when I write by hand I feel the threat of the vertical red line even though I haven’t used paper like that for years”.
She has us look at the Italian writer, Italo Svevo, (who had impressed her since she was a young girl), from his book: ‘Zeno’s Conscience’,
[The protagonist is Zeno Cosini], showing us that the Svevo starts the story at the very moment when he is preparing to carry out his task.
She includes an excerpt from the book — and was convinced the protagonist in Svevo’s novel, Zeno Cosini, had problems just like she did only he knew more about them.
(note, I listened to a sample of ‘Zeno’s Conscience’… I liked what I sampled).
Then….
Elena goes on to interpret the writing of the excerpt.
I won’t include it here -
ha…. leaving it for ‘you’. 🙂✍️📕
Elena tells us that things became complicated when she wrote. She read a lot, but what she liked was almost always written by men, not women……
until she hit adolescence.
She goes on to explain her reasons—even confessing imagining becoming a male yet at the same time remaining female.
Elena was worried that she would never be able to write books like those of the great writers.
Ha! I don’t think she needs to worry about this today!
Elena mentions another book, that made a great impression on her:
“Rime” by Gaspara Stampa (considered one of the greatest Italian poets)…
“I couldn’t write like a woman except by violating what I was diligently trying to learn from the male tradition”.
“From then on for decades, I wrote and wrote, locked in that circle. I would start from something that seemed urgent, absolutely mine, and go on for days, weeks, sometimes months”.
“When I finished a story, I was pleased, having the impression that it had come out perfectly; and yet I thought that it wasn’t I who had written it—that is, not the excited I, ready for anything, who was called to write, and who during the entire draft had seemed to be hidden in the words—but another I, who, tightly disciplined, had found convenient pathways solely in order to see: look, see what fine sentences I’ve written, what beautiful images, the story is finished, praise me”.
Praise wasn’t ultimately satisfying—
Elena said she often used passages from Virginia Wolf‘s
“A Writer’s Diary”
I like this passage myself by Virginia Woolf:
“It is a mistake she thinks that literature can be produced from the raw. One must get out of life—yes, that’s why I disliked so much of irruption of Sydney—one must become externalised; very, very concentrated, all at one point, not having to draw upon the scattered parts of one’s character, living in the brain. Sydney comes and I’m Virginia; when I write I am merely a sensibility. Sometimes I like being Virginia, but only when I’m scattered and various and gregarious. Now . . . I’d like to be only sensibility”.
“Woolf’s idea seems clear: writing is camping out in her own brain, without getting lost in the very numerous, varied, inferior, modalities with which every day, as Virginia, she lives a raw life. It seemed to me, when I was young, that she was saying:?oh yes, I like being Virginia, but the ‘I’ who writes seriously is twenty people, a hypersensitive plurality all concentrated in the hand provided with the pen”.
She mentions other authors and books that have influence her:
….The Unnameable, by Samuel Beckett.
….Jacques the Fatalist”, and His Master by Denis Diderot.
…..The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
…..Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
….Homer
….Alighieri Dante
etc..
And a few of her own books:
….The Days of
Abandonment
….The Lost Daughter
….Troubling Love
….My Brilliant Friend and the Neapolitan novels
….The Lying Life of Adults
…..**I enjoyed reading about her two most famous protagonists: Elena and Lila. (the ways they absorbed each other).
“In The Margins” are thoughts, sharing, feelings, — about writing— [two different types of writing: diligent writing, and writing that goes beyond the boundaries], about being a writer — about techniques and pleasures.
She tells us about the topics that are included in her novels: Love, betrayal, dangerous investigations, horrific discoveries, corrupted youth, miserable lives that have a stroke of luck……
“But really I am waiting for my brain to get distracted, to slip up, for other I’s — many — outside the margins to join together, take my hand, begin to pull me with the writing where I’m afraid to go, where it hurts me to go, where, if I go too far, I won’t necessarily know how to get back. It’s the moment when the rules—learned, applied—give way and the hand pulls out of the bran pie not what is useful but, precisely, whatever comes, faster and faster, throwing me off balance”.
“Beautiful writing becomes beautiful when it loses its harmony and has the desperate power of the ugly”.
I don’t have aspirations on becoming a writer, but I enjoy what writers have to say about writing. I also love reading about other books and authors who inspired them …..
Besides….
I like Elena Ferrante.
July 27, 2023
These four essays originated as lectures (delivered by proxy). The third, “Histories I” is my favorite. I’ll save it for last.
The first seemed somewhat familiar in subject matter, though not in details, and that’s likely because I’ve read other essays in other formats about Ferrante’s reading/writing origins. Nevertheless, I have now discovered Gaspara Stampa through Ferrante’s description of her own discovery. Stampa was a 16th-century Italian poet and musician. Obviously, very accomplished female writers existed in many places of the remote past: We just don’t learn about them.
Ferrante talks about her own work in interesting ways in the second essay: what she tried to achieve with her first three novels; then, her inspirations and missteps in transitioning from their style to that of the Neapolitan Novels, especially as to the latter’s two characters embodying two different ways of writing.
The last essay was written for a different lecture series than the others. Delivered to a Dantean society, it speaks to Dante's influence upon Ferrante’s whole reading life, especially in his characterization and development of Beatrice.
In “Histories I,” Ferrante uses an Emily Dickinson poem (see below) as a springboard. I found what she had to say about it fascinating and revelatory. She also expounds on Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, especially as an example for her of women writing about women by deforming the form of autobiography. (I didn’t think I’d ever read the Stein, but now I’m interested.) I highlighted so many passages in this essay it might as well have been the whole thing.
*
“Witchcraft was hung, in History”
by Emily Dickinson
1583
Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day—
The first seemed somewhat familiar in subject matter, though not in details, and that’s likely because I’ve read other essays in other formats about Ferrante’s reading/writing origins. Nevertheless, I have now discovered Gaspara Stampa through Ferrante’s description of her own discovery. Stampa was a 16th-century Italian poet and musician. Obviously, very accomplished female writers existed in many places of the remote past: We just don’t learn about them.
Ferrante talks about her own work in interesting ways in the second essay: what she tried to achieve with her first three novels; then, her inspirations and missteps in transitioning from their style to that of the Neapolitan Novels, especially as to the latter’s two characters embodying two different ways of writing.
The last essay was written for a different lecture series than the others. Delivered to a Dantean society, it speaks to Dante's influence upon Ferrante’s whole reading life, especially in his characterization and development of Beatrice.
In “Histories I,” Ferrante uses an Emily Dickinson poem (see below) as a springboard. I found what she had to say about it fascinating and revelatory. She also expounds on Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, especially as an example for her of women writing about women by deforming the form of autobiography. (I didn’t think I’d ever read the Stein, but now I’m interested.) I highlighted so many passages in this essay it might as well have been the whole thing.
*
“Witchcraft was hung, in History”
by Emily Dickinson
1583
Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day—
March 31, 2022
A masterclass in writing from one of the 21st century's most skilled wordsmiths.
Across three lectures and one additional essay, Ferrante contemplates about the writing process, the birth of her writing style and motivation from youth through her early novels and into her later masterpieces, particularly The Neapolitan Novels.
I don't have a proper review of this except to say that if you are a big Ferrante fan this is a great addition to her oeuvre. You get a lot more about her personal views on writing and how she has evolved and grown as a writer herself.
It's definitely dense material. It would reward a re-read, for sure, and I can see myself returning to these lectures & essays in the future.
I wouldn't recommend this unless you've read her fiction because you will get much more out of it, understanding the references to her various novels (particularly her first 3 standalones and the quartet). But if you do pick it up, enjoy getting to go behind the curtain with Ferrante and contemplate what it means to write beyond the margins.
Across three lectures and one additional essay, Ferrante contemplates about the writing process, the birth of her writing style and motivation from youth through her early novels and into her later masterpieces, particularly The Neapolitan Novels.
I don't have a proper review of this except to say that if you are a big Ferrante fan this is a great addition to her oeuvre. You get a lot more about her personal views on writing and how she has evolved and grown as a writer herself.
It's definitely dense material. It would reward a re-read, for sure, and I can see myself returning to these lectures & essays in the future.
I wouldn't recommend this unless you've read her fiction because you will get much more out of it, understanding the references to her various novels (particularly her first 3 standalones and the quartet). But if you do pick it up, enjoy getting to go behind the curtain with Ferrante and contemplate what it means to write beyond the margins.
November 25, 2021
I believe that the sense I have of writing — and all the struggles it involves — has to do with the satisfaction of staying beautifully within the margins and, at the same time, with the impression of loss, of waste, because of that success.
In an opening Editor’s Note, it is explained that Elena Ferrante had been invited to give a series of three lectures on writing, open to the public, at the University of Bologna. Pandemic-related restrictions ultimately prevented her from giving the lectures in person, but an actress delivered them in her stead and those lectures (plus a fourth essay written for a conference on Dante and Other Classics) are compiled here in In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing. I do find it fascinating to learn of writers’ processes — and especially when I’ve read widely and pleasurably of an author — and Ferrante took this assignment seriously; the result is scholarly, thoughtful, and eye-opening. No wonder I find Ferrante’s fiction so engaging: it is a reflection of her lifetime of close reading, deep thinking, and hard won craftsmanship. Probably most suited for fans of her novels, this certainly worked for me. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.) The lectures:
Pain and Pen
A sort of vicious circle established itself clearly in my mind: if I wanted to believe that I was a good writer, I had to write like a man, staying strictly within the male tradition; although a woman, I couldn’t write like a woman except by violating what I was diligently trying to learn from the male tradition.
Ferrante was a literary child — a constant reader and praised writer of small fictions — and she was precocious enough to recognise early in life that there are rules to fiction; structures that both support and limit a writer (like the ruled lines and margins in a school notebook). In this lecture, Ferrante describes the conflict these rules created for her budding voice and she shares some of the writings that encouraged and influenced her: Italo Svevo’s Zeno’s Conscience (“My thinking seems something separate from me”), Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary (“I put in my hand and rummage in the bran pie”), Gaspara Stampa’s poem Rime (from the POV of “a lowly, abject woman”) and Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable (“I’m in words, made of words”).
Aquamarine
I thought: everything that randomly kindles the start of a story is there outside and hits us, we collide, it confuses us, gets confused. Inside — inside us — is only the fragile machinery of our body. What we call “inner life” is a permanent flashing in the brain that wants to take shape as voice, as writing. So I looked around, waiting, for me at the time writing had, essentially, eyes: the trembling of a yellow leaf, the shiny parts of the coffee maker, my mother’s ring with the aquamarine that gave off a sky-blue light, my sisters fighting in the courtyard, the enormous ears of the bald man in the blue smock. I wanted to be a mirror. I assembled fragments according to a before and an after, I set one inside the other, a story came out. It happened naturally, and I did it constantly.
A teacher once quoted from Denis Diderot’s Jacques the Fatalist and His Master as a piece of advice for the young Ferrante: Tell the thing as it is. This was advice that the young writer found paralyzing — understanding that she can only describe things as they are filtered through her own consciousness — and ultimately, Ferrante says of the main characters in her first three novels (Troubling Love, Days of Abandonment, and The Lost Daughter), “I am, I would say, their autobiography as they are mine.” Ferrante then notes some readings that showed her new ways of looking at fiction (Adriana Cavarero’s Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood and Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas) and these were the springboard to a new narrative voice (examining characters through “a necessary other”) that she would go on to use in My Brilliant Friend.
Histories, I
A woman who wants to write has unavoidably to deal not only with the entire literary patrimony she’s been brought up on and in virtue of which she wants to and can express herself but with the fact that that patrimony is essentially male and by its nature doesn’t provide true female sentences.
Quoting from poets Emily Dickinson (“Witchcraft was hung, in History”), María Guerra (“I lost a poem”), and Ingeborg Bachmann (“We have to work hard with the bad language that we have inherited”), Ferrante makes the case that if the words we write are influenced by everything we’ve ever read (those words that set the margins of what is acceptable and possible), then women writers have the disadvantage of having not seen enough of their own language in print. Ferrante struggled with finding her own female voice — went back and forth between writing in dialect and formal Italian for her Neapolitan Novels, looking for that voice — and ultimately found it in the interplay between the characters Lila and Lenù; between what they write about each other, as women.
Dante’s Rib
If I had to name what really struck me as a teen-ager — and not so much as a student but as a fledgling reader and aspiring writer — I would start with the discovery that Dante describes the act of writing obsessively, literally and figuratively, constantly presenting its power and its inadequacy, and the provisional nature.
Although there are a couple of references to modern writers who have critiqued Dante’s Commedia, this lecture is essentially about Ferrante’s love of Dante’s writing, and especially his treatment of Beatrice over the course of the epic. Beatrice goes from a mute paragon of girlish beauty to “a woman who has an understanding of God and speculative language, modeling her — I like to think — in the likeness of such figures as Mechtild of Magdeburg, Hildegarde of Bingen, Juliana of Norwich, Marguerite Porete, and Angela da Foligna, magistra theologorum. He does it naturally by bestowing on a female figure scientific, theological, mystical knowledge that is his, that he gets from his studies, from his rib. But in doing this — in that inleiarsi, so to speak, entering into, becoming her —he ventures to imagine, with his mystic-leaning rationalism, with his visionary realism, what is possible for women.” And so, it would seem, there are feminine role models in the patrimony (even if they were written by men) if one knows where to look for them.
Overall, I think these lectures would have had more impact in person — they read like speeches more than essays — but I was fascinated to learn how deeply Ferrante has struggled to find and shape her voice. I’m definitely pleased to have added this collection to what makes up my own sensibilities.
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November 10, 2022reading ferrante is not enough i need to eat her
December 30, 2021
Sometimes I wonder if working—whether as an academic, or even as a literary critic—on Ferrante might be both a blessing and a curse? On the one hand, what a treasure trove of literary, historical, philosophical, and feminist references we find in her essays. It makes reading her and analyzing her work even more rewarding: there's always another hidden reference to discover, another source you had not considered. In this particular collection, I squealed when she mentioned Cavarero's Tu che mi guardi, tu che mi racconti: Filosofia della narrazione and especially the essay on Amalia and Emilia which several scholars had theorized might have been the original source for Lila and Elena's relationship.
I also found it so riveting that she referenced the relationship between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, it definitely confirmed certain theories in my mind with regards to Ferrante's relationship to writing, but also certain dynamics in the relationship between Lila and Elena.
But at the same time, it can be a bit frustrating to be working on someone who is so much smarter than you; an author who is her own best critic. I think what allows Ferrante this power, the power to be her own best critic, is also the fact that Ferrante is an invention. Not to get too meta here, but I sometimes do wonder (and do get a bit frustrated): how much of this is the author behind Ferrante, how much does this person believe what she is writing, how much of what Ferrante writes here (not just the autobiographical details which I have chosen to completely ignore as "true") but rather the philosophy that she espouses, how much of that is true?
Does the "real" Ferrante really love Stein and Cavarero and Muraro? Or is she merely using them because that's what an author like Ferrante is supposed to read and be inspired by? Isabelle Pinto, in her fantastic work on Ferrante and subjectivity, Elena Ferrante: Poetiche e politiche della soggettività, has said that Ferrante's works are a "fantasy of autofiction". So when we are reading these essays, are we reading an incredibly meta, high-minded work of fiction after all?
Does any of this even matter? I guess in an essay collection that is all about literary truth and inspiration, about the "scribbling vein," about coming to terms with the polyphonic nature of every artistic endeavor, it maybe doesn't. But it's nice to be given the opportunity to ponder these questions.
There is truly no one like Ferrante. Not simply as a fiction writer, but as a once in a generation thinker.
I also found it so riveting that she referenced the relationship between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, it definitely confirmed certain theories in my mind with regards to Ferrante's relationship to writing, but also certain dynamics in the relationship between Lila and Elena.
But at the same time, it can be a bit frustrating to be working on someone who is so much smarter than you; an author who is her own best critic. I think what allows Ferrante this power, the power to be her own best critic, is also the fact that Ferrante is an invention. Not to get too meta here, but I sometimes do wonder (and do get a bit frustrated): how much of this is the author behind Ferrante, how much does this person believe what she is writing, how much of what Ferrante writes here (not just the autobiographical details which I have chosen to completely ignore as "true") but rather the philosophy that she espouses, how much of that is true?
Does the "real" Ferrante really love Stein and Cavarero and Muraro? Or is she merely using them because that's what an author like Ferrante is supposed to read and be inspired by? Isabelle Pinto, in her fantastic work on Ferrante and subjectivity, Elena Ferrante: Poetiche e politiche della soggettività, has said that Ferrante's works are a "fantasy of autofiction". So when we are reading these essays, are we reading an incredibly meta, high-minded work of fiction after all?
Does any of this even matter? I guess in an essay collection that is all about literary truth and inspiration, about the "scribbling vein," about coming to terms with the polyphonic nature of every artistic endeavor, it maybe doesn't. But it's nice to be given the opportunity to ponder these questions.
There is truly no one like Ferrante. Not simply as a fiction writer, but as a once in a generation thinker.
March 6, 2022
Elena Ferrante could write a long-form essay about making toast for breakfast, and I would want to read it. Just a heads up, though: even though the essays in In The Margins were ostensibly written for a generalist audience, Ferrante’s language, expression, and references still feel quite advanced and academic. It isn’t a TED talk. This collection takes concentration, and probably a couple of re-reads.
Read my full review of Keeping Up With The Penguins.
Read my full review of Keeping Up With The Penguins.
November 20, 2021
"Scrivere è entrare ogni volta in uno sterminato cimitero dove ogni tomba attende di essere profanata. Scrivere è accomodarsi in tutto ciò che è stato già scritto e farsi, nei limiti della propria vorticosa, affollata individualità, a propria volta scrittura. Scrivere è impadronirsi di tutto quanto è già stato scritto e imparare pian piano a spendere quella enorme fortuna."
I margini e il dettato è composto da quattro testi inediti, tre lezioni che la Ferrante ha scritto in occasione delle Umberto Eco Lectures e un quarto saggio composto invece per la chiusura del convegno degli italianisti su Dante. I primi tre parlano nel dettaglio di scrittura, di cosa significhi avviare un processo creativo, di cosa si intenda per scrittura e di quanto quello che leggiamo influenzi poi quello che scriviamo.
Leggere questo breve saggio è stato esattamente come fare una passeggiata all'interno della mente di Elena Ferrante. I primi tre testi in particolare parlano di lettura e scrittura, della "vita vera" a cui tutti gli scrittori vogliono attingere quando scrivono, di scrittura maschile e scrittura femminile, di quanto quest'ultima deve ancora lottare per emergere in un mondo i cui connotati restano maschili. Attingendo a esperienze personali e a racconti d'infanzia e adolescenza, la Ferrante ripercorre quello che per lei significa scrivere, il processo creativo che ha portato alla nascita di alcuni tra i romanzi più belli degli ultimi anni. Una delle cose che ho amato di più leggere è stata lo sviluppo dell'idea alla base de l'Amica geniale, l'ispirazione nel creare Lila e Lenù, lo sforzo nel tentare di raccontare un rapporto tra donne con parole che siano di donne. Partendo da una poesia di Emily Dickinson, la Ferrante affronta il discorso della scrittura al femminile, il testo dei tre che più mi ha colpita per la sua onestà.
"La stregoneria fu impiccata, nella Storia,
ma la Storia e io
troviamo tutta la stregoneria che serve
intorno a noi, ogni giorno."
Per anni l'universo letterario è stato scritto, fatto e interpretato da uomini. Oggi le cose sono cambiate, ma la Ferrante riesce a spiegare molto bene quanto il "male gaze", lo sguardo maschile, ancora influenzi la scrittura delle donne e le impedisca di essere vera al 100%. Vi lascio un breve estratto che racchiude parte del suo pensiero:
"Una donna che vuole scrivere deve vedersela inevitabilmente non solo con l'interno patrimonio letterario di cui si è nutrita e in virtù del quale vuole e può esprimersi, ma col fatto che quel patrimonio è essenzialmente maschile e per sua natura non prevede frasi vere femminili. Questo io femminile nutrito di scrittura maschile ha dovuto anche introiettare che le spettava - le era consona - una scrittura di donne fatta per donne, di per sè minore proprio in quanto scarsamente frequentata dai maschi, anzi da loro ritenuta cosa di femmine, cioè inessenziale...La scommessa è imparare a usare con libertà la gabbia dentro cui siamo chiuse."
Non si parla solo di scrittura femminile ovviamente, in queste poche pagine la Ferrante riesce a sviscerare il mondo della lettura e della scrittura mettendo nero su bianco quella che è la sua esperienza personale. Svela i retroscena che si nascondono dietro alcuni dei suoi personaggi più riusciti, semplicemente si racconta, con estrema onestà, permettendoci di dare uno sguardo alla sua mente di scrittrice. Davvero bellissimi.
I margini e il dettato è composto da quattro testi inediti, tre lezioni che la Ferrante ha scritto in occasione delle Umberto Eco Lectures e un quarto saggio composto invece per la chiusura del convegno degli italianisti su Dante. I primi tre parlano nel dettaglio di scrittura, di cosa significhi avviare un processo creativo, di cosa si intenda per scrittura e di quanto quello che leggiamo influenzi poi quello che scriviamo.
Leggere questo breve saggio è stato esattamente come fare una passeggiata all'interno della mente di Elena Ferrante. I primi tre testi in particolare parlano di lettura e scrittura, della "vita vera" a cui tutti gli scrittori vogliono attingere quando scrivono, di scrittura maschile e scrittura femminile, di quanto quest'ultima deve ancora lottare per emergere in un mondo i cui connotati restano maschili. Attingendo a esperienze personali e a racconti d'infanzia e adolescenza, la Ferrante ripercorre quello che per lei significa scrivere, il processo creativo che ha portato alla nascita di alcuni tra i romanzi più belli degli ultimi anni. Una delle cose che ho amato di più leggere è stata lo sviluppo dell'idea alla base de l'Amica geniale, l'ispirazione nel creare Lila e Lenù, lo sforzo nel tentare di raccontare un rapporto tra donne con parole che siano di donne. Partendo da una poesia di Emily Dickinson, la Ferrante affronta il discorso della scrittura al femminile, il testo dei tre che più mi ha colpita per la sua onestà.
"La stregoneria fu impiccata, nella Storia,
ma la Storia e io
troviamo tutta la stregoneria che serve
intorno a noi, ogni giorno."
Per anni l'universo letterario è stato scritto, fatto e interpretato da uomini. Oggi le cose sono cambiate, ma la Ferrante riesce a spiegare molto bene quanto il "male gaze", lo sguardo maschile, ancora influenzi la scrittura delle donne e le impedisca di essere vera al 100%. Vi lascio un breve estratto che racchiude parte del suo pensiero:
"Una donna che vuole scrivere deve vedersela inevitabilmente non solo con l'interno patrimonio letterario di cui si è nutrita e in virtù del quale vuole e può esprimersi, ma col fatto che quel patrimonio è essenzialmente maschile e per sua natura non prevede frasi vere femminili. Questo io femminile nutrito di scrittura maschile ha dovuto anche introiettare che le spettava - le era consona - una scrittura di donne fatta per donne, di per sè minore proprio in quanto scarsamente frequentata dai maschi, anzi da loro ritenuta cosa di femmine, cioè inessenziale...La scommessa è imparare a usare con libertà la gabbia dentro cui siamo chiuse."
Non si parla solo di scrittura femminile ovviamente, in queste poche pagine la Ferrante riesce a sviscerare il mondo della lettura e della scrittura mettendo nero su bianco quella che è la sua esperienza personale. Svela i retroscena che si nascondono dietro alcuni dei suoi personaggi più riusciti, semplicemente si racconta, con estrema onestà, permettendoci di dare uno sguardo alla sua mente di scrittrice. Davvero bellissimi.
February 14, 2022
Tenho um interesse pessoal em livros sobre o processo de escrita. Assim que soube que Ferrante tinha publicado um conjunto de quatro ensaios sobre o tema, a expectativa e ansiedade foram crescendo.
"Histórias, Eu" é, para mim, o mais interessante dos quatro. "A costela de Dante" não apreciei particularmente.
Os restantes "A pena e a pluma" e "Água-marinha" também são bastante bons.
"Histórias, Eu" é, para mim, o mais interessante dos quatro. "A costela de Dante" não apreciei particularmente.
Os restantes "A pena e a pluma" e "Água-marinha" também são bastante bons.
August 2, 2022
Interesting, fascinating and informative.
The language is to die for, I so wish I knew Italian well enough to be able to read Ferrante in the original.
The language is to die for, I so wish I knew Italian well enough to be able to read Ferrante in the original.
January 19, 2024
This collection of lectures and additional essay are an intimate look at Ferrante’s own relationship with writing through the lens of her life, her works, and the authors she loves. There is something so beautiful about this that had me wanting to pick up my next Ferrante immediately.
Pain and Pen
“I believe that the sense I have of writing – and all the struggles it involves – has to do with the satisfaction of staying beautifully within the margins and, at the same time, with the impression of loss, of waste, because of that success.
In Pain and Pen, Ferrante talks a lot about her younger self and how her relationship with writing was very much in the margins and focused on being perfect structurally while being too scared to move outside the margins. For Ferrante, and a lot of people who grew up writing in schools, the margins are a necessity to keep you in check and make you better, but it is also a place with limited growth. Following these rules are important to an extent, but if you don’t take that leap away from the margins, you won’t become great. “Beautiful writing becomes beautiful when it loses its harmony and has the desparate power of the ugly.”
“I was afraid, as I said, that it was precisely my female nature that kept me from bringing the pen as close as possible to the pain I wanted to express. For a woman who has something to say, does it really take a miracle – I said to myself – to dissolve the margins within which nature has enclosed her and show herself in her own words to the world?”
Being a woman in the mid-20th century, Ferrante dealt with a lot of doubts with her writing. There was this deep-rooted belief that she may never be great because of something she was unable to change (her female nature). The turning point for her was her study of the Italian poet, Gaspara Stampa, who “didn’t confine herself to utilizing the great cliché of male poetic culture – the arduous reduction of the immeasurable pain of love to the measure of the pen – but grafted onto it something unexpected: the female body that fearlessly seeks, from the ‘mortal tongue,’ from within her own ‘human flesh,’ a garment of words sewn with a pain of her own and a pen of her own.”
“When I finished a story, I was pleased, having the impression that it had come out perfectly; and yet I felt it wasn’t I who had written it.”
One of the most interesting aspects of this book is how writing is described as an almost out of body experience. As Virginia Woolf said in A Writer’s Diary ) “Sydney comes and I’m Virginia; when I write I’m merely a sensibility. Sometimes I like being Virginia, but only when I’m scattered and various and gregarious. Now… I’d like to be only a sensibility.” It kind of reminds me of when, in All Of Us Strangers, the main character’s dad tells him “I’ve always said that writers know less about the real world than almost anyone else.” There’s this slight disconnect with life that a lot of writers have to have when writing in order to make their stories work. It’s hard to write if you don’t dissociate from real life and turn into a collective of ideas.
In a similar sense, Ferrante brings up Zeno Cosini who, in Zeno’s Conscience states “My thinking seems something separate from me. I can see it. It rises and falls… but that is its only activity. To remind it that it is my thinking and that its duty is to make itself evident, I grasp the pencil.” The disconnect is always interesting to me because, whenever I write I feel both closer to myself than ever and more disconnected from myself than ever.
Aquamarine
“Trying to tell the thing as it is can become paralyzing… I’m in danger of going deaf, mute, and turning nihilistic thanks to the countless failures and the unpredictability of the rare successes; I will therefore try to tell it as I can, and, who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and tell it as it is.”
The constant knowledge that what Ferrante writes will not be exactly how it is is a point of high anxiety for her. Ferrante has this need to describe things exactly how they are yet this knowledge, which she shares with other authors who feel the same, that it is impossible to do so. There will always be bias, her words will always be slightly different on the page than in her head. With her own scribblings she has to say, “I accumulated pages and pages of notes derived from my direct experience. But I collected only frustrations.”
(On Delia, Olga, and Leda) “I am, I would say, their autobiography as they are mine.”
In this lecture specifically, Ferrante takes care to talk about her main characters and her relationship with them and how she used them to shape herself. This section gives some really interesting insight into how she shapes her main characters and why.
Histories, I
“The genuine ‘real life,’ as Dostoyevsky called it, is an obsession, a torment for the writer. With greater or less ability we fabricate fictions not so that the false will seem true but to tell the most unspeakable truth with absolute faithfulness through fiction.”
This section really looks at how writing is a chain connecting the writer to every writer before them. She also goes into a lot more detail on My Brilliant Friend which I found incredibly interesting as it is the only book of hers I’ve read. Full disclosure: I am exhausted right now and can barely see my screen and this is the last part of the review I’m writing so, for now, I am going to leave you with some quotes from this section. I promise I loved it just as much as the rest of the collection though.
“a woman who sits at a table and writes ‘History and I’ as a challenge, almost a confrontation, and with that juxtaposition gives a furious start to a thread of words that from the hostile writing of the witches’ art extracts a story that draws on that art.”
“We’ve become so estranged that at times we feel some kind of revulsion for genuine ‘real life,’ and therefore we can’t bear to be reminded of it. Why, we’ve reached a point where we almost regard ‘real life’ as hard work, as a job, and we’ve all agreed in private that it’s really better in books.” – Notes From Underground
“the yearning to describe the pain of love, the pain of living, the anguish of death; the need to straighten the world that is all crooked; the search for a new morality that will reshape us; the urgency to give voice to the humble, to strip away power and it’s atrocities; the need to prophesy disasters but also to design happy worlds to come from there.”
“Even my uprising, my spilling over the margins, my yearning is part of an eruption that came before me and goes beyond me.”
“Writing is a cage and we enter it right away, with our first line.”
“Any of us can do something good, in writing, when the world gives us a shove, but a true writer is inevitable only when we recognize in the work a unique and unmistakable universe of words, figures, conflicts.”
“I don’t know if they’re successful or not, I don’t know that about any of my books. But I do know that, much more than the first three, they have at their center the acts of telling the story and telling the story of women’s lives.”
Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day –
- Emily Dickinson
Dante’s Rib
“even when Dante emphasized his successes, he couldn’t avoid the idea that encasing human experience in the alphabet is an art susceptible to searing disappointments.”
This last essay is a love letter to Dante and his women in The Divine Comedy and it may be my favorite of the set. There is this mention of Dante’s impossibility to perfectly capture the human experience, which is something that Ferrante has struggled with throughout this collection, that feels almost liberating. When “Dante describes the act of writing obsessively, literally and figuratively, constantly presenting its power and its inadequacy, and the provisional nature of success and failure,” there is this sense of solidarity I sense Ferrante begin to feel, and that I feel too. Like yeah, maybe we’re all out here obsessively trying to make sense of everything and communicate with everyone perfectly, but at least we’re all doing it and kind of failing. There is no way to capture the world perfectly and without bias and, even if it were possible, every reader has different experiences that makes them interpret the book differently. We’re all here just trying our best.
“He does it naturally by bestowing on a female figure scientific, theological, mystical knowledge that is his, that he gets from his studies, from his rib. But in doing this – in that inleiarsi, so to speak, entering into, becoming her – he ventures to imagine, with his mystic-leaning rationalism, with his visionary realism, what is possible for women.”
Ferrante spends a lot of time praising Dante for the way he wrote women. Beatrice is the main focus as he transformed her during The Divine Comedy from a silent character into a woman who is capable of everything a man can do. While she specifically focuses on Beatrice, she also mentions how he gives women who are side characters, like Francesca, significantly more depth than was normal in his time. This made me want to drop everything and read The Divine Comedy as soon as possible, especially with the Francesca call out because… duh.
_________________
Keeping my pre-review because it took me 11 days to write this review. These are the months that winter tries its absolute hardest to kill me so I’m using this as my psa that I am incredibly exhausted 24/7 and promise I will be more active in a couple of months.
chronic fatigue + winter = me having a very hard time forming coherent thoughts on anything, especially books / reviews
Pain and Pen
“I believe that the sense I have of writing – and all the struggles it involves – has to do with the satisfaction of staying beautifully within the margins and, at the same time, with the impression of loss, of waste, because of that success.
In Pain and Pen, Ferrante talks a lot about her younger self and how her relationship with writing was very much in the margins and focused on being perfect structurally while being too scared to move outside the margins. For Ferrante, and a lot of people who grew up writing in schools, the margins are a necessity to keep you in check and make you better, but it is also a place with limited growth. Following these rules are important to an extent, but if you don’t take that leap away from the margins, you won’t become great. “Beautiful writing becomes beautiful when it loses its harmony and has the desparate power of the ugly.”
“I was afraid, as I said, that it was precisely my female nature that kept me from bringing the pen as close as possible to the pain I wanted to express. For a woman who has something to say, does it really take a miracle – I said to myself – to dissolve the margins within which nature has enclosed her and show herself in her own words to the world?”
Being a woman in the mid-20th century, Ferrante dealt with a lot of doubts with her writing. There was this deep-rooted belief that she may never be great because of something she was unable to change (her female nature). The turning point for her was her study of the Italian poet, Gaspara Stampa, who “didn’t confine herself to utilizing the great cliché of male poetic culture – the arduous reduction of the immeasurable pain of love to the measure of the pen – but grafted onto it something unexpected: the female body that fearlessly seeks, from the ‘mortal tongue,’ from within her own ‘human flesh,’ a garment of words sewn with a pain of her own and a pen of her own.”
“When I finished a story, I was pleased, having the impression that it had come out perfectly; and yet I felt it wasn’t I who had written it.”
One of the most interesting aspects of this book is how writing is described as an almost out of body experience. As Virginia Woolf said in A Writer’s Diary ) “Sydney comes and I’m Virginia; when I write I’m merely a sensibility. Sometimes I like being Virginia, but only when I’m scattered and various and gregarious. Now… I’d like to be only a sensibility.” It kind of reminds me of when, in All Of Us Strangers, the main character’s dad tells him “I’ve always said that writers know less about the real world than almost anyone else.” There’s this slight disconnect with life that a lot of writers have to have when writing in order to make their stories work. It’s hard to write if you don’t dissociate from real life and turn into a collective of ideas.
In a similar sense, Ferrante brings up Zeno Cosini who, in Zeno’s Conscience states “My thinking seems something separate from me. I can see it. It rises and falls… but that is its only activity. To remind it that it is my thinking and that its duty is to make itself evident, I grasp the pencil.” The disconnect is always interesting to me because, whenever I write I feel both closer to myself than ever and more disconnected from myself than ever.
Aquamarine
“Trying to tell the thing as it is can become paralyzing… I’m in danger of going deaf, mute, and turning nihilistic thanks to the countless failures and the unpredictability of the rare successes; I will therefore try to tell it as I can, and, who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and tell it as it is.”
The constant knowledge that what Ferrante writes will not be exactly how it is is a point of high anxiety for her. Ferrante has this need to describe things exactly how they are yet this knowledge, which she shares with other authors who feel the same, that it is impossible to do so. There will always be bias, her words will always be slightly different on the page than in her head. With her own scribblings she has to say, “I accumulated pages and pages of notes derived from my direct experience. But I collected only frustrations.”
(On Delia, Olga, and Leda) “I am, I would say, their autobiography as they are mine.”
In this lecture specifically, Ferrante takes care to talk about her main characters and her relationship with them and how she used them to shape herself. This section gives some really interesting insight into how she shapes her main characters and why.
Histories, I
“The genuine ‘real life,’ as Dostoyevsky called it, is an obsession, a torment for the writer. With greater or less ability we fabricate fictions not so that the false will seem true but to tell the most unspeakable truth with absolute faithfulness through fiction.”
This section really looks at how writing is a chain connecting the writer to every writer before them. She also goes into a lot more detail on My Brilliant Friend which I found incredibly interesting as it is the only book of hers I’ve read. Full disclosure: I am exhausted right now and can barely see my screen and this is the last part of the review I’m writing so, for now, I am going to leave you with some quotes from this section. I promise I loved it just as much as the rest of the collection though.
“a woman who sits at a table and writes ‘History and I’ as a challenge, almost a confrontation, and with that juxtaposition gives a furious start to a thread of words that from the hostile writing of the witches’ art extracts a story that draws on that art.”
“We’ve become so estranged that at times we feel some kind of revulsion for genuine ‘real life,’ and therefore we can’t bear to be reminded of it. Why, we’ve reached a point where we almost regard ‘real life’ as hard work, as a job, and we’ve all agreed in private that it’s really better in books.” – Notes From Underground
“the yearning to describe the pain of love, the pain of living, the anguish of death; the need to straighten the world that is all crooked; the search for a new morality that will reshape us; the urgency to give voice to the humble, to strip away power and it’s atrocities; the need to prophesy disasters but also to design happy worlds to come from there.”
“Even my uprising, my spilling over the margins, my yearning is part of an eruption that came before me and goes beyond me.”
“Writing is a cage and we enter it right away, with our first line.”
“Any of us can do something good, in writing, when the world gives us a shove, but a true writer is inevitable only when we recognize in the work a unique and unmistakable universe of words, figures, conflicts.”
“I don’t know if they’re successful or not, I don’t know that about any of my books. But I do know that, much more than the first three, they have at their center the acts of telling the story and telling the story of women’s lives.”
Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day –
- Emily Dickinson
Dante’s Rib
“even when Dante emphasized his successes, he couldn’t avoid the idea that encasing human experience in the alphabet is an art susceptible to searing disappointments.”
This last essay is a love letter to Dante and his women in The Divine Comedy and it may be my favorite of the set. There is this mention of Dante’s impossibility to perfectly capture the human experience, which is something that Ferrante has struggled with throughout this collection, that feels almost liberating. When “Dante describes the act of writing obsessively, literally and figuratively, constantly presenting its power and its inadequacy, and the provisional nature of success and failure,” there is this sense of solidarity I sense Ferrante begin to feel, and that I feel too. Like yeah, maybe we’re all out here obsessively trying to make sense of everything and communicate with everyone perfectly, but at least we’re all doing it and kind of failing. There is no way to capture the world perfectly and without bias and, even if it were possible, every reader has different experiences that makes them interpret the book differently. We’re all here just trying our best.
“He does it naturally by bestowing on a female figure scientific, theological, mystical knowledge that is his, that he gets from his studies, from his rib. But in doing this – in that inleiarsi, so to speak, entering into, becoming her – he ventures to imagine, with his mystic-leaning rationalism, with his visionary realism, what is possible for women.”
Ferrante spends a lot of time praising Dante for the way he wrote women. Beatrice is the main focus as he transformed her during The Divine Comedy from a silent character into a woman who is capable of everything a man can do. While she specifically focuses on Beatrice, she also mentions how he gives women who are side characters, like Francesca, significantly more depth than was normal in his time. This made me want to drop everything and read The Divine Comedy as soon as possible, especially with the Francesca call out because… duh.
_________________
Keeping my pre-review because it took me 11 days to write this review. These are the months that winter tries its absolute hardest to kill me so I’m using this as my psa that I am incredibly exhausted 24/7 and promise I will be more active in a couple of months.
chronic fatigue + winter = me having a very hard time forming coherent thoughts on anything, especially books / reviews
July 26, 2022
Qué delicia leer a Ferrante de una manera tan introspectiva, este libro se convirtió en eso después de unas pláticas que ella iba a dar en la universidad sobre qué y cómo es para ella escribir. Empieza contando cómo de niña, ella amaba la lectura pero su idea de "grandes obras de la literatura" solo era escrita por hombres. Así como ella, muchas de nosotras crecimos igual, sin saber quién era Jane Austen, Ampáro Dávila, Josefina Vincenz, Alejandra Pizarnik, Emily Dickinson. Explica el freno mental y emocional que supone ser mujer pensando que 1)nunca podríamos escribir como los hombres 2) que nuestro propio cerebro se ponía frenos al no ser hombres y no entender desde ahí la lectura. Habla de el proceso cretivo de Virgina Wolf, de Gertrude Stein y de otras de sus escritoras favoritas.
Empieza a descubrir mujeres y se enamora de ellas, y entonces empieza a entender que la escritura femenina tiene que destrozar, deformar y hacer un esfuerzo sobrehumano y sobre todo valiente para eso, para romper los esquemas de lo que hemos aprendido con la literatura escrita por varones.
En otro momento del libro, el más apreciado por mí, es cuando ella empieza a contar cómo le empezó a dar vida a Lenú y Lila explica qué y cómo y quiénes fueron su fuente de inspiración y cómo peleó con las narradoras, cómo ella misma sabía que la Lenú era la más poderosa para contar el relato pero que Lila era la más inteligente y peligrosa. Y de ellas habla largo y tendido y cómo hizo y deshizo su proceso creativo con "La Amiga Necesaria" que después le cambió el nombre a "LA amiga estupenda". También habla de sus tres protagonistas de sus diferentes novelas, Olga, Delia y Leda y cómo llegó a ellas.
Y por último le hace un homenaje a Dante pero sobre todo habla de esa mujer que la enamoró... Beatriz y de cómo Dante le dio un lugar en la historia a una mujer.
Leer este libro fue platicar con una amiga esritora
Empieza a descubrir mujeres y se enamora de ellas, y entonces empieza a entender que la escritura femenina tiene que destrozar, deformar y hacer un esfuerzo sobrehumano y sobre todo valiente para eso, para romper los esquemas de lo que hemos aprendido con la literatura escrita por varones.
En otro momento del libro, el más apreciado por mí, es cuando ella empieza a contar cómo le empezó a dar vida a Lenú y Lila explica qué y cómo y quiénes fueron su fuente de inspiración y cómo peleó con las narradoras, cómo ella misma sabía que la Lenú era la más poderosa para contar el relato pero que Lila era la más inteligente y peligrosa. Y de ellas habla largo y tendido y cómo hizo y deshizo su proceso creativo con "La Amiga Necesaria" que después le cambió el nombre a "LA amiga estupenda". También habla de sus tres protagonistas de sus diferentes novelas, Olga, Delia y Leda y cómo llegó a ellas.
Y por último le hace un homenaje a Dante pero sobre todo habla de esa mujer que la enamoró... Beatriz y de cómo Dante le dio un lugar en la historia a una mujer.
Leer este libro fue platicar con una amiga esritora
April 22, 2023
Um bom livro para quem deseja conhecer os caminhos da escrita de Elena Ferrante, desde seus pontos norteadores até as experiências que aplicou em cada um de seus romances. Tomando esses como parâmetros, a escritora explica como compôs seus textos e suas protagonistas, sendo cada uma delas (Lila, Delia, Giovanna, Olga, Leda e Lenu) partes de Elena e/ou daquilo que ela vivenciou no mundo, já que "tudo o que estimula casualmente o nascimento de uma narrativa está lá fora, esbarra em nós e vice-versa, nos confunde, se confunde."
Por outro lado, quem gosta de Elena somente como romancista e não como palestrante, o livro não deverá agradar tanto, como o meu caso. No mais, Diderot, Dostoiévski, Beckett, Alighieri também aqui estão.
Por outro lado, quem gosta de Elena somente como romancista e não como palestrante, o livro não deverá agradar tanto, como o meu caso. No mais, Diderot, Dostoiévski, Beckett, Alighieri também aqui estão.
November 15, 2021
Che gran regalo che è la possibilità di passeggiare per un po' nella testa di questa autrice immensa 🧡
March 3, 2024
se ci fosse un tempio di ancelle per elena ferrante io sarei sacerdotessa di questo culto
February 7, 2022
At this point, Elena Ferrante could do no wrong. This is a series of speeches delivered on the craft of writing and I especially loved the glimpses into her feminine writing and her female characters.
"I'd like to take a small example that I found in my notes of long ago: the aquamarine on my mother's finger. It was a real, very real, object, and yet there was nothing more variable in my mind. It shifted between dialect and Italian, in space and time, along with her figure, which was sometimes clear, sometimes murky, and always accompanied by my loving or hostile feelings. The aquamarine was changeable, part of a changing reality, a changing me. Even if I could isolate it in a description-- how much I practiced descriptions!-- and gave it a "sky-blue light," in that formulation alone the stone lost its substance. became an emotion of mine, a thought, a feeling of pleasure or distress, and turned opaque, as if it had fallen in water or I myself had breathed on it."
[Arc provided via Netgalley.]
"I'd like to take a small example that I found in my notes of long ago: the aquamarine on my mother's finger. It was a real, very real, object, and yet there was nothing more variable in my mind. It shifted between dialect and Italian, in space and time, along with her figure, which was sometimes clear, sometimes murky, and always accompanied by my loving or hostile feelings. The aquamarine was changeable, part of a changing reality, a changing me. Even if I could isolate it in a description-- how much I practiced descriptions!-- and gave it a "sky-blue light," in that formulation alone the stone lost its substance. became an emotion of mine, a thought, a feeling of pleasure or distress, and turned opaque, as if it had fallen in water or I myself had breathed on it."
[Arc provided via Netgalley.]
December 11, 2021
Enniènte, Elena Ferrante ci concede di entrare per qualche ora dentro la sua testa e il suo genio. Cosa posso volere di più? (Più pagine)
April 27, 2022
Delightful. Elena Ferrante’s thought process, critical examination of her past, education and influences expose the reader to so much Italian history while simultaneously reflecting on life explored, women’s lives and writing explored, and how it is captured and shared through the pen.
I enjoyed this even tho sometimes I felt like it was a bit too put upon and a little high brow for me. I love that I got a few influential Italian novels to add to my read list. I’ve always wanted to read The Divine Comedy one day. 🎭
Insightful moments:
I enjoyed this even tho sometimes I felt like it was a bit too put upon and a little high brow for me. I love that I got a few influential Italian novels to add to my read list. I’ve always wanted to read The Divine Comedy one day. 🎭
Insightful moments:
“At the time I also considered myself a lowly, abject woman. I was afraid, as I said, that it was precisely my female nature that kept me from bringing the pen as close as possible to the pain I wanted to express. For a woman who has something to say, does it really take a miracle—I said to myself—to dissolve the margins within which nature has enclosed her and show herself in her own words to the world?” - 17%
“Anyone who has literary ambitions knows that the motivations, both great and small, that impel the hand to write come from “real life”: the yearning to describe the pain of love, the pain of living, the anguish of death; the need to straighten the world that is all crooked; the search for a new morality that will reshape us; the urgency to give voice to the humble, to strip away power and its atrocities; the need to prophesy disasters but also to design happy worlds to come from there.” - 55%
“Writing is seizing everything that has already been written and gradually learning to spend that enormous fortune. We mustn’t let ourselves be flattered by those who say: here’s someone who has a tonality of her own. Everything, in writing, has a long history behind it. Even my uprising, my spilling over the margins, my yearning is part of an eruption that came before me and goes beyond me. Thus when I talk about my “I” who writes, I should immediately add that I’m talking about my “I” who has read (even when it’s a question of distracted reading, the trickiest kind of reading). And I should emphasize that every book read carries within itself a host of other writings that, consciously or inadvertently, I’ve taken in. ” - 60%
Excerpts From
In the Margins
Elena Ferrante
This material may be protected by copyright.
July 4, 2023
Мистериозната Елена Феранте се превърна в любим автор за мен през последните години. Посането и е остро и различно от всичко друго, което съм чела и ме води в различни преживявания из Италия, в частност Неапол, които за мен са много вълнуващи.
“Между полетата на страниците” е най-новата и книга издадена на български, която веднага си купих и прочетох буквално за няма и 2 часа. В нея Феранте прави своеобразна рефлексия за това какво е писането и четенето. Има много откъси от Вирджиния Улф, което си е страшен кеф, защото съм и на тази вълна. Отделя време и за сбит анализ по отношение на мотивацията и Лила и Лену (главни героини от всеизвестната Неаполитанска тетралогия, която обожавам) да са писателки и как в образите им вплита двата типа писане, за което говори основно в книгата. Има размисли за мъжкото и женското писане, които също са много любопитни.
“По това време в главата ми съвсем ясно се оформи нещо като порочен кръг: ако исках да имам впечатлението, че пиша добре, трябваше да пиша като мъж, придържайки се здраво към мъжката традиция…”
“Една жена, която желае да пише, трябва неминуемо да се съобразява не само с цялото литературно наследство…, но и с факта, че това наследство е главно мъжко и по своята природа не предвижда истинни женски фрази.”
“И започнах да се лутам между два вида писане: едното, което се прояви още в училище и ми беше осигурявало винаги похвалите на преподавателите: “Браво, ще станеш писателка.” и другото, което надзърташе изненадващо и после се скриваше, оставяйки ме недоволна.”
“Този, който пише няма име. Той е чиста чувствителност, която се храни с азбука и произвежда азбука вътре в някакъв неудържим поток.”
“Хубавото писане става хубаво, когато губи хармонията си и съдържа безнадеждната сила на грозното. А героите? Чувствам ги фалшиви, когато са напълно последователни и се привързвам към тях, когато говорят едно, а правят противоположното.”
“Между полетата на страниците” е най-новата и книга издадена на български, която веднага си купих и прочетох буквално за няма и 2 часа. В нея Феранте прави своеобразна рефлексия за това какво е писането и четенето. Има много откъси от Вирджиния Улф, което си е страшен кеф, защото съм и на тази вълна. Отделя време и за сбит анализ по отношение на мотивацията и Лила и Лену (главни героини от всеизвестната Неаполитанска тетралогия, която обожавам) да са писателки и как в образите им вплита двата типа писане, за което говори основно в книгата. Има размисли за мъжкото и женското писане, които също са много любопитни.
“По това време в главата ми съвсем ясно се оформи нещо като порочен кръг: ако исках да имам впечатлението, че пиша добре, трябваше да пиша като мъж, придържайки се здраво към мъжката традиция…”
“Една жена, която желае да пише, трябва неминуемо да се съобразява не само с цялото литературно наследство…, но и с факта, че това наследство е главно мъжко и по своята природа не предвижда истинни женски фрази.”
“И започнах да се лутам между два вида писане: едното, което се прояви още в училище и ми беше осигурявало винаги похвалите на преподавателите: “Браво, ще станеш писателка.” и другото, което надзърташе изненадващо и после се скриваше, оставяйки ме недоволна.”
“Този, който пише няма име. Той е чиста чувствителност, която се храни с азбука и произвежда азбука вътре в някакъв неудържим поток.”
“Хубавото писане става хубаво, когато губи хармонията си и съдържа безнадеждната сила на грозното. А героите? Чувствам ги фалшиви, когато са напълно последователни и се привързвам към тях, когато говорят едно, а правят противоположното.”
July 22, 2022
MOTHER!
April 30, 2022
El libro esta dividido en 4 partes,
1. La pena y la pluma
2. Aguamarina
3. Historias, Yo
4. La costilla de Dante
La primera parte nos cuenta sus inicios en la escritura, nos dice que ‘’Escribía sin parar, aunque me resultará fatigoso y casi siempre decepcionante’’ además del hecho de ser mujer ‘’Jamás podría conseguir escribir como los grandes escritores’’ si quería escribir bien debía hacerlo como un hombre y mantenerse firme.
En la segunda parte del ensayo nos habla de como empezó a crear los personajes, hace referencia a una cita del libro ‘’Jacques el fatalista’’
Tercera parte hace referencia a sus novelas y por ultimo en la cuarta habla de la divina comedia haciendo referencia a Beatriz y a Dante.
Es un libro interesante, pero recomiendo leer este ensayo a la gente que ha leído más de alguna novela de Elena, en mi caso, me falta leer más novelas de ella por lo que no llegué a conectar mucho con el ensayo.
1. La pena y la pluma
2. Aguamarina
3. Historias, Yo
4. La costilla de Dante
La primera parte nos cuenta sus inicios en la escritura, nos dice que ‘’Escribía sin parar, aunque me resultará fatigoso y casi siempre decepcionante’’ además del hecho de ser mujer ‘’Jamás podría conseguir escribir como los grandes escritores’’ si quería escribir bien debía hacerlo como un hombre y mantenerse firme.
En la segunda parte del ensayo nos habla de como empezó a crear los personajes, hace referencia a una cita del libro ‘’Jacques el fatalista’’
Tercera parte hace referencia a sus novelas y por ultimo en la cuarta habla de la divina comedia haciendo referencia a Beatriz y a Dante.
Es un libro interesante, pero recomiendo leer este ensayo a la gente que ha leído más de alguna novela de Elena, en mi caso, me falta leer más novelas de ella por lo que no llegué a conectar mucho con el ensayo.
April 2, 2022
(4.5) Four excellent, candid essays on writing. The first two in particular -- 'Pain and Pen' and 'Aquamarine' -- are essential.
'For me true writing is that: not an elegant, studied gesture but a convulsive act.'
'Characters? I become passionate about them when they say one thing and do the opposite.'
'What we call "inner life" is a permanent flashing in the brain that wants to take shape as voice, as writing.'
'For me true writing is that: not an elegant, studied gesture but a convulsive act.'
'Characters? I become passionate about them when they say one thing and do the opposite.'
'What we call "inner life" is a permanent flashing in the brain that wants to take shape as voice, as writing.'
September 9, 2022
I liked pain and pen the most of her essays. However I really didn’t like the whole Dante’s rib thing; it made my eyes glaze over.
August 3, 2022
There’s nothing that Ferrante cannot write about. That’s just my opinion and anyone can refute that, but I will stick to it. Ferrante writes like a dream. Yes, at times her works do seem laborious to get by, too convoluted even, but the essence of each of her books, the way she makes you connect with the emotions of her characters, and more than anything else the way she writes of course in the larger scheme of things.
In the Margins is a collection of three lectures (and an essay) she gave (through the actress Manuela Mandracchia) in November 2021 at the University of Bologna as a part of “The Eco Lectures” that started in 2000. In these lectures, she takes us through the process of writing, what writing means to her, what reading is all about, and how she fits in to the greater framework as a writer.
So, here’s the thing, the lectures make for great insights into her mind as a writer – how she struggled with it, how she found her voice, and how even today she sometimes struggles with the entire writing process. Ferrante draws on her childhood writings, her process as a writer (briefly giving us glimpses), and in all of that, she speaks of her novels, and the ones that inspired her to write.
Overall, I found the book extremely engaging, though there were times I felt completely disinterested, but carried through with it, because the language and expression of writing never let me go. The translation then as usual of her works by Ann Goldstein is perfect and doesn’t miss a beat. Goldstein not only becomes a vehicle through which we understand Ferrante, but somewhere down the line, I was also somehow trying to make sense of the translator’s thoughts and conflicting emotions while translating a work about writing and reading.
In the Margins will take some time to read though it is only about 112 pages long. It is packed with ideas, emotions, and thoughts on how life and writing intersect, of a writer’s dilemma, of what she perhaps owes to herself before anyone else – as a reader and a writer.
Books and Writers mentioned in "In the Margins":
• Umberto Eco
• Elie Wiesel
• Orhan Pamuk
• Dante
• Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo
• Rime of Gaspara Stampa
• Mallairne
• Virginia Woolf
• A Writer’s Diary
• Samuel Beckett
• The Unnamable
• Macbeth
• Jacques the Fatalist and His Master by Denis Diderot
• Tristram Shandy by Laurence Stern
• Troubling Love
• The Days of Abandonment
• The Lost Daughter
• Relating Narratives by Adriana Cavarero
• Out of Africa by Karen Blixen
• Hannah Arendt
• Sexual Difference by Adriana Cavarero
• Alice B. Toklas
• Gertrude Stein
• The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• My Brilliant Friend
• Emily Dickinson
• Neapolitan Novels
• Dostoyevsky
• Hemingway
• Mark Twain
• Notes from Underground
• Homer
• Ingeborg Bachmann
• Mörike
• Goethe
• Elsa Morante
• Natalia Ginzburg
• Anna Maria Ortese
• Jane Austen
• Brönte Sisters
• María Guerra
• The Lying Life of Adults
In the Margins is a collection of three lectures (and an essay) she gave (through the actress Manuela Mandracchia) in November 2021 at the University of Bologna as a part of “The Eco Lectures” that started in 2000. In these lectures, she takes us through the process of writing, what writing means to her, what reading is all about, and how she fits in to the greater framework as a writer.
So, here’s the thing, the lectures make for great insights into her mind as a writer – how she struggled with it, how she found her voice, and how even today she sometimes struggles with the entire writing process. Ferrante draws on her childhood writings, her process as a writer (briefly giving us glimpses), and in all of that, she speaks of her novels, and the ones that inspired her to write.
Overall, I found the book extremely engaging, though there were times I felt completely disinterested, but carried through with it, because the language and expression of writing never let me go. The translation then as usual of her works by Ann Goldstein is perfect and doesn’t miss a beat. Goldstein not only becomes a vehicle through which we understand Ferrante, but somewhere down the line, I was also somehow trying to make sense of the translator’s thoughts and conflicting emotions while translating a work about writing and reading.
In the Margins will take some time to read though it is only about 112 pages long. It is packed with ideas, emotions, and thoughts on how life and writing intersect, of a writer’s dilemma, of what she perhaps owes to herself before anyone else – as a reader and a writer.
Books and Writers mentioned in "In the Margins":
• Umberto Eco
• Elie Wiesel
• Orhan Pamuk
• Dante
• Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo
• Rime of Gaspara Stampa
• Mallairne
• Virginia Woolf
• A Writer’s Diary
• Samuel Beckett
• The Unnamable
• Macbeth
• Jacques the Fatalist and His Master by Denis Diderot
• Tristram Shandy by Laurence Stern
• Troubling Love
• The Days of Abandonment
• The Lost Daughter
• Relating Narratives by Adriana Cavarero
• Out of Africa by Karen Blixen
• Hannah Arendt
• Sexual Difference by Adriana Cavarero
• Alice B. Toklas
• Gertrude Stein
• The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• My Brilliant Friend
• Emily Dickinson
• Neapolitan Novels
• Dostoyevsky
• Hemingway
• Mark Twain
• Notes from Underground
• Homer
• Ingeborg Bachmann
• Mörike
• Goethe
• Elsa Morante
• Natalia Ginzburg
• Anna Maria Ortese
• Jane Austen
• Brönte Sisters
• María Guerra
• The Lying Life of Adults
November 25, 2021
Pode colocar este livro no mesmo patamar de A Room of One's Own e Écrire. Os meus 3 livros preferidos sobre escrita e ser escritora en tant que femme.
May 16, 2022
I do not confess to be an expert, or a particular fan, of the mysterious Elena Ferrante. I have ventured into one of her four Neapolitan novels. It may have sold over forty million copies, but it is not to everyone’s taste. What does interest me is when writers talk about their inspirations and what they have learnt from other writers. We all have different opinions and reactions to books or works of art and I love to hear what others saw which I may have missed.
This short book is a collection of four essays. Ferrante was due to deliver the Umberto Eco lectures at the University of Bologna on three successive days. They were open to the entire city, but the pandemic prevented them being performed. Instead they have been collected in this book and a fourth essay added. While the subtitle ‘On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing’ suggests a gentle meander through some good books, the reality is rather more intense. This is probably not a book for avid Ferrante fans, but more for those who are interested in writing and literature.
The first essay, Pain and Pen, begins with a fascinating memory of writing paper given to school children. Vertical lines at either side of the page contain the writing and get closer to the edge of the page as the child ages. Ferrante develops her thinking about being a woman writer. Allow me to quote that train of thought:
She talks about Virginia Woolf, who saw writing as camping out in her own brain, without getting lost in the numerous interruptions of everyday life, and Ferrante develops this idea when looking at her own way of working:
In the Second essay, Aquamarine, Ferrante starts with a rule she developed for herself at the age of sixteen or seventeen:
She talks at length about the aquamarine ring her mother wore and how she tried, unsuccessfully, to describe it in her writing, until it evolved into the Neapolitan mother and her dialectal voices that she was constructing in her head.
Ferrante frequently refers to the book The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein and how she failed to understand it on the first reading. How Stein writes her own life story, making it told by another; by Alice, her friend, partner and lover. Both autobiography and biography superimposed on one another. It allowed Stein the ability to call herself a genius, through the mouth of Alice, and set herself alongside the only others she recognised, Picasso and the philosopher Alfred Whitehead.
Ferrante returns to the topic in her next essay, Histories, I, saying:
There is plenty of gold to mine in these thoughts, when set alongside the Neapolitan novels and Ferrante’s own anonymity. She proceeds to give some thought-provoking advice
I enjoyed this little bit of reflection about the dynamic nature of cliché – that thing that all writers are striving to avoid, but not always succeeding:
Ferrante goes on to reflect on the arduous journey of the writer. One of her struggles was with the use of Neapolitan dialect in her novels. She notes that as soon as dialectal vocabulary and syntax are written down they start to sound false. “Once written, besides, Neapolitan seem sterilized. It loses passion, loses effect, loses the sense of danger it often communicated to me. In my childhood and adolescence it was the language of course male vulgarity, the language of men calling to you on the street, or, contrarily the sugary-sweet language with which women were taken in.”
The final short essay is called Dante’s Rib. It may not be to everyone’s taste or interest. Ferrante talks about what she took from reading Dante, and also Dante’s invention of Beatrice, ascribing her knowledge and learning which for many centuries we had failed to see in the female’s role in the Middle Ages. It feels a long way from the forty million sales of My Brilliant Friend but it is a fascinating insight into the author.
This short book is a collection of four essays. Ferrante was due to deliver the Umberto Eco lectures at the University of Bologna on three successive days. They were open to the entire city, but the pandemic prevented them being performed. Instead they have been collected in this book and a fourth essay added. While the subtitle ‘On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing’ suggests a gentle meander through some good books, the reality is rather more intense. This is probably not a book for avid Ferrante fans, but more for those who are interested in writing and literature.
The first essay, Pain and Pen, begins with a fascinating memory of writing paper given to school children. Vertical lines at either side of the page contain the writing and get closer to the edge of the page as the child ages. Ferrante develops her thinking about being a woman writer. Allow me to quote that train of thought:
At this point – I was around twenty, I think – a sort of vicious circle established itself clearly in my mind: if I wanted to believe that I was a good writer, I had to write like a man, staying strictly within the male tradition; although I was a woman, I couldn’t write like a woman except by violating what I was diligently trying to learn from the male tradition.
From then on, for decades, I wrote and wrote, locked in that circle.
She talks about Virginia Woolf, who saw writing as camping out in her own brain, without getting lost in the numerous interruptions of everyday life, and Ferrante develops this idea when looking at her own way of working:
My work, in fact, is founded on patience. I start from writing that is planted firmly in tradition, and wait for something to erupt and throw the papers into disarray, for the lowly, abject woman I am to find a means of having her say. I adopt old techniques with pleasure; I’ve spent my life learning how and when to use them.
In the Second essay, Aquamarine, Ferrante starts with a rule she developed for herself at the age of sixteen or seventeen:
The writer – I wrote in a notebook I still have – has a duty to put into words the shoves he gives and those he receives from others.
She talks at length about the aquamarine ring her mother wore and how she tried, unsuccessfully, to describe it in her writing, until it evolved into the Neapolitan mother and her dialectal voices that she was constructing in her head.
Ferrante frequently refers to the book The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein and how she failed to understand it on the first reading. How Stein writes her own life story, making it told by another; by Alice, her friend, partner and lover. Both autobiography and biography superimposed on one another. It allowed Stein the ability to call herself a genius, through the mouth of Alice, and set herself alongside the only others she recognised, Picasso and the philosopher Alfred Whitehead.
Ferrante returns to the topic in her next essay, Histories, I, saying:
…if Gertrude Stein were continuing to apply the old form, she would have to present as true the invented autobiography of some character of her creation. Instead the form receives a blow that deforms it. Gertrude Stein, a real person, calls herself the author -author- of an autobiography written by Alice Toklas, a person not invented but real, in which the autobiographical “I” talks largely not about herself but about someone else, that is Gertrude Stein, a brilliant real person.
…she treats the “I” that is writing about itself – Alice B. Toklas, the source of the biographical truth – as a fiction, as a woman whose “life and opinions” must be written about in the form of autobiography, as a Huckleberry Finn is written by the pen of Mark Twain. But, having done that, she inserts a dizzying, disruptive element of fiction, which comes from the true Alice. Toklas is the real typist of Stein’s texts, she helps correct the proofs. She is therefore – as she says in the text – the reader who knows Stein’s writing most thoroughly. And, indeed, in the fiction she continuously gives the impression she’s correcting, adding, clarifying, annotating, to the point where the fake autobiography seems like a text that the two women have in fact written, one beside the other, one dictating, the other at the typewriter, pausing, remembering, reflecting.
There is plenty of gold to mine in these thoughts, when set alongside the Neapolitan novels and Ferrante’s own anonymity. She proceeds to give some thought-provoking advice
We have to accept the fact that no word is truly ours. We have to give up the idea that writing miraculously releases a voice of our own, a tonality of our own: in my view that is a lazy way of talking about writing. Writing is, rather, entering an immense cemetery where every tomb is waiting to be profaned. Writing it getting comfortable with everything that has already been written – great literature and commercial literature, if useful, the novel-essay and the screenplay – and in turn becoming, within the limits of one’s own dizzying, crowded individuality, something written. Writing is seizing everything that has already been written and gradually learning to spend that enormous fortune.
I enjoyed this little bit of reflection about the dynamic nature of cliché – that thing that all writers are striving to avoid, but not always succeeding:
True sentences, good or epochal, always seek a path of their own within clichés. And clichés were once true sentences that dug a way out among clichés. In this chain of works great and small, in every link large or small, there is hard work and accidental illuminations, effort and luck.
Ferrante goes on to reflect on the arduous journey of the writer. One of her struggles was with the use of Neapolitan dialect in her novels. She notes that as soon as dialectal vocabulary and syntax are written down they start to sound false. “Once written, besides, Neapolitan seem sterilized. It loses passion, loses effect, loses the sense of danger it often communicated to me. In my childhood and adolescence it was the language of course male vulgarity, the language of men calling to you on the street, or, contrarily the sugary-sweet language with which women were taken in.”
The final short essay is called Dante’s Rib. It may not be to everyone’s taste or interest. Ferrante talks about what she took from reading Dante, and also Dante’s invention of Beatrice, ascribing her knowledge and learning which for many centuries we had failed to see in the female’s role in the Middle Ages. It feels a long way from the forty million sales of My Brilliant Friend but it is a fascinating insight into the author.
June 25, 2022
“La auténtica «vida viva», como la llamaba Dostoievski, es para quien escribe una obsesión, un tormento. Inventamos ficciones con mayor o menor habilidad no para que lo ficticio parezca verdad, sino para llegar a expresar con absoluta fidelidad la verdad más inenarrable a través de las ficciones”.
March 1, 2022
elena ferrante you are so smart and i love that you love women (from a very womanly perspective indeed)
April 25, 2022
Four Ferrante Essays
Review of the Europa Editions hardcover (March 2022) translated by Ann Goldstein from the original Italian language edition I margini e il dettato (The Margins and the Dictation) (November 17, 2021)
Detail from the cover art for "In the Margins".
In the Margins consists of four essays by the reclusive Italian writer who writes under the pen-name Elena Ferrante and whose real identity has been a regular source of speculation for the Italian press. Three of the essays were a commission for the Umberto Eco Lectures at the University of Bologna, where they were finally delivered in late 2021 after the pandemic delay by an actress in the guise of Elena Ferrante. The fourth essay Dante's Rib was prepared for a Dante and Other Classics conference in early 2021 where it was delivered by another Dante scholar.
Ferrante is best known for her quartet of The Neapolitan Novels (2011-2014), also the basis for the adaptation in the currently ongoing Italian language TV-series My Brilliant Friend (2018-2023?).
Ferrante's essays are a wonderfully expressive look at her writing and reading life which takes its title from her tendency to write "beyond the margins" of the right lined note paper which she was provided in grade school. This is rather beautifully pictured in the cover art which shows a writer staring into the darkness beyond the page where a possibly dangerous 2-eyed creature lurks and looks back.
From this simple premise, Ferrante extends her thoughts about writing by contrasting styles of those who work 'within' or 'outside' the margins. There is a terrific section to illustrate the 'outside" which is about Gertrude Stein and her The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), a purported autobiography written by someone else which says more about the writer than about the supposed subject. It is all capped off with the concluding essay and its appreciation of Dante and his inspirational Beatrice (his Dante's Rib):
Review of the Europa Editions hardcover (March 2022) translated by Ann Goldstein from the original Italian language edition I margini e il dettato (The Margins and the Dictation) (November 17, 2021)
Detail from the cover art for "In the Margins".
In the Margins consists of four essays by the reclusive Italian writer who writes under the pen-name Elena Ferrante and whose real identity has been a regular source of speculation for the Italian press. Three of the essays were a commission for the Umberto Eco Lectures at the University of Bologna, where they were finally delivered in late 2021 after the pandemic delay by an actress in the guise of Elena Ferrante. The fourth essay Dante's Rib was prepared for a Dante and Other Classics conference in early 2021 where it was delivered by another Dante scholar.
Ferrante is best known for her quartet of The Neapolitan Novels (2011-2014), also the basis for the adaptation in the currently ongoing Italian language TV-series My Brilliant Friend (2018-2023?).
Ferrante's essays are a wonderfully expressive look at her writing and reading life which takes its title from her tendency to write "beyond the margins" of the right lined note paper which she was provided in grade school. This is rather beautifully pictured in the cover art which shows a writer staring into the darkness beyond the page where a possibly dangerous 2-eyed creature lurks and looks back.
From this simple premise, Ferrante extends her thoughts about writing by contrasting styles of those who work 'within' or 'outside' the margins. There is a terrific section to illustrate the 'outside" which is about Gertrude Stein and her The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), a purported autobiography written by someone else which says more about the writer than about the supposed subject. It is all capped off with the concluding essay and its appreciation of Dante and his inspirational Beatrice (his Dante's Rib):
Gorni has correctly pointed out that Beatrice "is the only woman in all of Western literature to be invested with such an honorable role." But why does Dante alone place his woman so high in the contemporary hierarchy of the female? What strategies does he use to get to the point of plausibly assigning her such an honour?.The translation was by Ferrante's regular English language translator Ann Goldstein and was excellent as always.
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