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Dear reader,
This week we found ourselves in 1950s Naples, deep in the dangerous, cutting, treacherous world of… young female friendships, with Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend.
When a novel has been named the number one book of the 21st century by The New York Times, it’s of course a draw. Yet such an accolade also brings challenges – the weight of heavy expectations.
This episode was extremely unusual in that neither of us had read My Brilliant Friend before doing so for the podcast.
We both agreed that it didn’t clinch our personal number one spots – and yet I still very much enjoyed my time in Elena and Lila’s childhood world. This is one of those books where learning about the history of the period and place really enriches it. Dominic described how Naples itself is a city where you can see literal layers of history all around you and the sense of that feeling weighing down on all the characters is so well done.
That NYT praised the book as “encompassing ideas about art and politics, class and gender, philosophy and fate” and I’d agree that it is rich in themes. That’s before you even start the intriguing discussion of who the author really is, and whether that matters at all.
We explore all of this in our Book Club Notes, from Rhiannon, below. You’ll also find polls, book recommendations and letters from you, our very kind, thoughtful and un-Mafioso community.
We know this is a novel that is beloved by many, and a great number of you wrote in asking us to cover it.
With that in mind, we can’t wait to read the critiques from you all. And why not also send in your favourite novel of the 21st century to be included in our Recommended Reads?
And we’re intrigued to know what you think about Dominic’s comments on male authors writing from a female perspective. As usual, email us at: [email protected] or reply to this email.
Until next time,
If you enjoyed… My Brilliant Friend
Some more recommendations for your list
📚 In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing by Elena Ferrante – A series of essays which help to build a picture of our mysterious author.
📚 The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone – This is the author some believe could be Ferrante after analysing their writing side-by-side. Regardless of whether that’s true, the similarities in style may appeal and this novel was long-listed for the Booker Prize in 2024.
📚 Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney – When it comes to the complexity of relationships through a modern lens, few do it better than Rooney, whose debut novel explores the friendship of two young women as they collide with an older couple. (We covered Normal People on the show a few months ago too.)
📚 Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout –Through her publisher, Ferrante released her favourite 40 books by female authors and this featured on the list.
📚 Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano – If Naples was your favourite character in My Brilliant Friend, you may enjoy this incredible piece of investigative journalism about the notorious Camorra crime gang found throughout the Neapolitan coast.
📺 My Brilliant Friend – This HBO adaptation of Ferrante’s novel was critically acclaimed and loved by fans for its faithfulness to the story.
We need your vote
The presenters explored how one of the suspected authors behind Ferrante is a man. “Men are perfectly capable of writing about women's inner lives,” Dominic said. It’s an interesting debate – where do you stand? Where have you seen this done well? And what books have failed to adopt the right tone? Tell us in the comments once you’ve voted.
Click to vote – and if you leave an extra comment, include your name so we can include your thoughts in Reviewers' Corner
Notes on… My Brilliant Friend
If you’re in a book club, the “best book of the 21st century” is surely worth your time. The story would be wonderful to read in a mixed gender group, to delve into how this can impact a person’s perception. It’s worth suggesting that everyone in your group listens to the presenters’ descriptions of the history of Naples. While you don’t have the author’s life to add to the background of the story, you do have the tale of this great Italian city to draw from. As we did within the episode, we’ll be using the names Elena and Lila throughout the prompts to denote the main characters.
“Elena Ferrante is just a pseudonym,” explained Tabby. “She's kept her identity private for 30 years, claiming that this anonymity is a crucial aspect of her process as a writer, that a book should be read and understood without the figure of the author clouding it in a reader's mind.”
Consider the levels of investigation that people have gone to in order to try and establish who the author really is. You can read this deep dive by the journalist Claudio Gatti. This conversation between Ferrante herself and author Elizabeth Strout about authorship is also worth your time. Explore the ethics of unmasking an artist who wishes to remain anonymous.
Dominic added: “If you come to the book knowing nothing of the author, I think you are actually more likely to immerse yourself in the reality of the characters. I think you are more likely to suspend your disbelief.” But as Tabby and Dominic acknowledged, the podcast does often explore the background of an author and uses that biography to place their art in context. Discuss with your group whether it’s important or enlightening to know who has created a story. What are the advantages and disadvantages of analysing an author’s background?
“It is infinitely readable, I think particularly if you're a female reader,” says Tabby. “I think you can enjoy it very, very much as a male reader. There's all sorts to pick apart…[But] as a girl, it's incredibly relatable because it's in many ways a coming of age story. And it brilliantly captures the complexities of female friendships.”
Dominic agreed that this text is promoted by the publishing industry “as a book by a woman, about women, for women”. Yet he said that framing could do the book a disservice because “as a male reader, who might be suspicious of reading it, there is so much to enjoy.” Do you believe some books should just speak to one gender? Discuss whether you’ve ever been put off reading something because it was framed as for a certain audience? Have you ever actively tried to read against that perception? How did it go?
“It digs into all the layers of friendship, of female friendship. It can be rivalry, it can be love, it can be empathy, it can be hate, it can be jealousy. It’s the ability to be friends and enemies all at once,” said Tabby. Was the depiction of friendship relatable and realistic to you?
“It's as though their identities, I think, are not really fixed. And there are different sides to their personality that are kind of brought out by the different names,” said Dominic. The girls’ names change throughout the story – and they are also incredibly close phonetically. Discuss the importance of the girls' names and how you viewed the slippage. What does it tell us about their relationships are both doubles and opposites?
“A key to this book is the idea of imprisonment and escape. So the neighbourhood is both a comfort blanket, but it's also a prison.”
Dominic felt the book is quite bleak in that the choices the girls make as children define them. How are the girls imprisoned in the community? How does the author convey this sense of claustrophobia?
Consider the historical background of Naples and how it was shaped by the unification of Italy, fascist rule and the Second World War. How did this book transform your understanding of 1950s Italy, beyond the romantic idea of Vesper-laden Fellini films?
“At first we see them as the girls would see them, so they at first don't seem that threatening, they just seem like stupid boys who drive up in their fancy car and chat up the girls and they grow more and more frightening as the book progresses,” says Tabby. Discuss the way in which your understanding of the brutality of the neighbourhood changes through the girls’ eyes. Did you feel Ferrante skillfully weaved information about the violent and criminal aspects of the neighbourhood into the narrative?
“All along we have thought that Lila was the brilliant friend, but really the brilliant friend is Elena,” suggests Dominic. “And she has misunderstood her own story. The tragedy of this story is actually not what's happening to her, it's what's happening to Lila.”
The Italian title of the book is “The Brilliant Friend”. While the change in title was approved by the author, discuss whether your prefer the original wording and how you think this tweak affects your perception of the story. Who, come the end of the novel, did you think the titular ‘brilliant friend’ was?
We are guided through the plot only through Elena’s eyes. The presenters discussed how the whole narrative is an illustration of her reclaiming power finally over Lila. At what points did you start to doubt Elena’s recollections and understanding of the world and her friend?
“Halfway through, I thought, ‘I'm enjoying it, but I'm wondering what all the fuss is about.’” said Dominic. “When I got to the end, there were bits of it that stayed with me. And I started to rethink what I'd read, which is always a sign of a good book.” What parts of My Brilliant Friend stayed with you? How did you start to reconsider what you’d read?
The quote that says it all
“We were twelve years old, but we walked along the hot streets of the neighbourhood, amid the dust and flies that the occasional old trucks stirred up as they passed, like two old ladies taking the measure of lives of disappointment, clinging tightly to each other. No one understood us, only we two — I thought — understood one another.”
Capturing the way Elena and Lila are bound together and wrapped up in the community that defines them, this passage also surrounds the central question of how well the girls truly knew each other. What quote stayed with you after you finished the book? Email us and let us know.
Who should you give this to?
Your childhood best friend (as long as they have a thick skin)? Someone due to embark on a tour of Italy, who thinks it’s all gelato and Aperol Spritz? A male partner who just doesn’t understand female friendship? Tell us, who would you share this with?
Recommended Reads
We’re taking recommendations here to share with the Book Notes community. Tell us what book fellow members should pick up next by sending two or three sentences about your novel of choice and we’ll feature as many as we can in future weeks… Email [email protected].
“Truly one of the great, overlooked American novels” says Micah of The Recognitions by William Gaddis. “It is about culture, about art and forgery, about artists and imposters, and the strange way American culture was either born or created as a forgery of European culture.”
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings “still haunts me to this day from when I first read it nearly 60 years ago,” says Amy. “Coming of age. Loss of innocence. Maturity and ensuing sacrifice,” are all themes explored in this 1938 Pulitzer Prize winner.
“I’d like to suggest Sophie’s Choice,” says Kathleen. “William Styron is a beautiful writer, and this book explores the exuberance of post WW2 America thrown up against the horror of the Holocaust. It’s such an original take.”
Reviewers’ Corner
We can’t wait to see your responses to My Brilliant Friend. Write in to [email protected] with ‘review’ in the subject line and tell us…
Your thoughts and theories on the secret identity of Ferrante.
Whether you felt the book is one women can understand – and enjoy – more than men.
Last week the presenters were immersed in the thrilling world of The Thirty-Nine Steps. Naturally, you had thoughts…
Your polls
After Tabby reflected on the “fantastic” brevity of The Thirty-Nine Steps, we asked you whether you prefer a short read or a thick tome.
57% of you said you’d choose something under 200 pages, although many of you agreed that the ideal length was actually a “medium-read” of about 300-400 pages.
“There is a tendency in today’s publishing to go for bloat,” Sarah wrote. “In my mind few are the stories that cannot be told in 375 purposefully written pages.”
Ross said: “Most very long books (unlike War and Peace and The Lord of the Rings) suffer from a lack of decent editing and would be better books for being shorter. Writers like to write but need to be reined in, unless it’s a genuine epic.”
Agnesa took a different view. “I tend to get attached to the characters and I feel sad if a book is too short and I have to say goodbye to them too soon. I remember, when I was a child, I was finishing the last book of the trilogy of The Three Musketeers by Dumas and I was crying aloud because I didn't want to say goodbye to the main characters.”
When it came to scoring for TheThirty-Nine Steps, you were very divided, with responses ranging from 1/10 to 10/10.
A majority however (of 26%) agreed with Dominic and Tabby in rating Buchan’s spy novel 7/10.
“Poor espionage skills”
Roz wrote in to say they were “underwhelmed” by The Thirty-Nine Steps. “I thought his attempts at going incognito were rubbish and consisted of messing around with a flat cap, other people’s coats and divulging his life story to the first random he meets in a pub. Poor espionage skills!!”
Al was similarly unimpressed. “Hannay has a series of generally dull adventures as he bumps into the good, the bad and the nutty,” he says. “On his return to England he somehow tracks down the baddies who are involved in illegal explained shenanigans. They are of course in Kent pretending to be jolly good chaps. Hannay unmasks them à la Scooby Doo villains and suddenly a thin (both in terms of length and depth) little volume mercifully comes to a whimper of an end. Not as exciting as Scooby Doo!”
In defence of Buchan
As a member of the John Buchan Society, Malcolm was “absolutely delighted” to see The Thirty-Nine Steps covered on the podcast. However, he says the book is by no means his favourite. “I think you might have enjoyed more some of the other Richard Hannay novels such as Greenmantle – a chase through Germany and Turkey with more "hero" characters and a more developed female villain in the shape of Hilda von Einem (who one might even characterise as a "sexy witch" linking back to the Circe episode).”
He also suggests The Three Hostages, which has “plenty of cross-dressing, mountain climbing, Irish terrorism and angst post World War One”, or Buchan’s comic novel Huntingtower.
A childhood favourite
Michael recalls being given The Thirty-Nine Steps by his English teacher, aged 14. “Loved it,” he says. “The ending? Not so much. (I don’t know what it is about spy novels, the authors can be brilliant up until the last chapter when it all slumps into 'Oh-Lets-Get-This-Finished'. Le Carré for example.)”
Alison writes: “I have loved The Thirty-Nine Steps since I first read it aged 11 or so. I went on to read pretty much all of Buchan. Of the Hannay novels I think Greenmantle is the best. Mr Standfast has some great WW1 trenches action. The Three Hostages is a compulsive read though the plot is pretty ridiculous.”
To re-read, or not to re-read?
Responding to our question on re-reads from a few weeks ago, Paul says he has been revisiting old favourites after hearing Tabby and Dominic discuss them on the podcast. “The Great Gatsby, Circe and The Secret History were just as good second time round thankfully,” he says.
“1984 seems so all-pervading that it can be hard to actually just read it as a novel and forget everything you think you know, and all the elements which are in such common parlance they have become sundered from the novel itself. The ideas seem more admirable than the book and I felt slightly deflated after re-reading it.”
“I'm caught between wanting to revisit old friends and needing to do something about that pile of unread books on my nightstand,” Marcia wrote in. “I've found that listening to an old favorite is a great way to re-read without expending precious eyeball time. We bring a new perspective to a book each time we read it, and listening adds the interpretation of the reader to that richness of experience. I've lately enjoyed Stephen Fry's retelling of the Greek myths in Mythos, Heroes, Troy and Odyssey.”
Scoreboard
Book | Dominic’s Verdict | Tabby’s Verdict |
|---|---|---|
My Brilliant Friend | 8/10 | 9/10 |
The Thirty-Nine Steps | 7/10 | 7/10 |
Circe | 9/10 | 10/10 |
The Wind in The Willows | 10/10 | 8/10 |
A Game of Thrones | 8/10 | 8/10 |
Next on The Book Club
If you or your book club want to read ahead, here’s what’s coming up in the podcast over the next few weeks…
August 11: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
August 18: For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
August 25: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
September 1: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
September 8: Lord of the Flies by William Golding
September 15: A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
Keeping score
This week, the presenters marked Ferrante’s book out of innovatively comfortable shoes 👞 , with Dominic scoring it 8/10 and Tabby awarding it 9/10.
See you next week for Brave New World.
The Book Club Team
