Michael @ Knowledge Lost
Written on Oct 29, 2015
I was enjoying being in the world of Lila and Elena that I picked up The Story of a New Name as soon as I had finished My Brilliant Friend. A novel that I found far more enjoyable than the first one. The two woman are now adults, thinking about their lives and planning for a future. I found that their world had opened up a lot more, with more details about Naples and the political tensions of Italy. I like how Elena Ferrante wrote these books with the world expanding to the reader in the same way it would to the characters.
It is difficult to talk about the plot within The Story of a New Name as it would spoil My Brilliant Friend. However I have been enjoying the character development found in this series. Both Elena and Lila (and all other characters) often make unexpected decisions or stupid mistakes but this just makes the novels feel more genuine. It is hard to predict how a character will act because they are constantly growing and changing and when you think you have worked them out, they do something different. This has kept me hooked and makes me want to move onto book three Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, though I have decided to hold off.
The only problem I found with The Story of a New Name involved a sex scene at the start of the novel. I am not sure if this was the work of Elena Ferrante or the translator Ann Goldstein but when referring to both male and female genitals drastically changed. The terms “his sex” and “her sex” just irritates me and I have no idea why these terms were used in book two and not in the first one. I have heard that Elena Ferrante wrote this series without many re-writes so it is possible this was just a consistency issue but it still annoyed me.
I am loving this series, and like I said with My Brilliant Friend, it is not for the faint of heart. You get to experience all the highs and lows of the two women’s lives and there are some pretty devastating lows. Although they have hard lives, both Lila and Elena are strong, independent and brilliant women and I really enjoy that about these characters. I plan to read book three and four next year just to give myself a little break but I really want to return to this world. Only problem with that is I will finish the Neapolitan series far too quickly.
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/book-reviews/genre/historical-fiction/the-story-of-a-new-name-by-elena-ferrante/