The Story of a New Name: My Brilliant Friend Book 2: Youth (Neapolitan Quartet, 2)

`How difficult it was to find one's way, how difficult it was not to violate any of the incredibly detailed male regulations.' The change from child to teenager brings a whole new set of problems for Lenu and Lila, friends who live in the backstreets of a tough neighbourhood in Naples. I first encountered and loved them as children in `My Brilliant Friend' the first book in Elena Ferrante's series set in 1950s and 1960s Italy. Lenu and Lila face a full on struggle, a raw, often literal, fight to find love. Everyone wants this dream relationship, but so often pain and violence intervene. The author, Elena Ferrante has hidden herself, refusing all publicity. `She' could even be a man. She/he may never have lived in Naples. For example, I find it strange that the rituals of the Catholic church are absent from the book. However, this is irrelevant. `Story of a New Name' has universal meaning. Whether in an impoverished area of Naples or in a middle class environment in England the same passions rage, the same battle continues between the boys and the girls. I identified strongly with parts of this story. When I was a teenage girl (also in the 1960s) I learnt how following your heart can lead to poverty and the violence of a teenage boy. Accurately described here, a raw impassioned experience. Also like myself as a teenager, Lenu and Lila have no available wise adults to help and guide them. Lenu, the narrator, comes up with the reason why she and Lila accept the violence. `Of course the explanation was simple: we had seen our fathers beat our mothers from childhood. We had grown up thinking that a stranger must not even touch us, but that our father, our boyfriend, and our husband could hit us when they liked, out of love, to educate us, to re-educate us.' The women are repressed by the men, who are repressed by the social conditions under which they live. Whoever Elena Ferrante is, she/he is an artist of the emotions and this is a wild, passionate book. I loved it.

The book is excellent, gripping, makes you share the characters' times, mentality, limitations, misfortunes, preconceptions, hopeless fatalism, while the plot relentlessly develops. I would give 5 stars to the book and 2 or less to the translation that I find almost offensive. Translating is extremely difficult and probably underpaid, complete familiarity with the Neapolitan dialect (actually a language) is also required in this case; however, there must be some attention and dedication to what the text means, mangled style apart... The structure of Italian painfully emerges throughout, but, worse, many words are always mistranslated, leading to misrepresentation. Examples: "distratto" is not "distracted", "actually" is not "attualmente", and I could go on and on.

I read the first of this trilogy last year and loved it. I wondered if Elena Ferrante could maintain the intensity into the second book. She does, and with such a light touch. The relationships that form the core of the book are subtle and engrossing, revealing so much about the way we relate to others. The only aspect I found off-putting was the continual reference to dialect and Italian language. Is this a consequence of the translation? If read in the original would the relevance be obvious to the reader? This is a small criticism, arising from my lack of understanding. I give 5 star ratings very rarely but this trilogy is up there with the best. I cant wait to read the third book. In fact, I just downloaded it.

This is love. I've never read books so quickly with such intensity. I'm on my 4th book and I'm dreading to reach the last page knowing that it's the last second they'd be part of my life. Story is about the two dazzling girls and how they each shape each others lives and really exquisitely told. I share a close friendship with two girls myself for over two decades and they are each so very magical. Not many people can enter our worlds but these girls in the books and Elena Ferrante really have. Best story telling. I'd say this is the least favourite out the four- but it's still an integral part of the whole story that couldn't be without.

Has its highs and lows but you still want to finish reading it

Being on holiday, I went straight into this from the first book. I was still interested enough to want to do this, but I have to confess my interest waned. The complex and varied cast of characters come and go - the Grocers are in the ascendancy, and then the Café owners. There are a lot of unpleasant people, all fighting with each other. When I lived in Naples an Italian told me that the basic problem with the Italian state was - apart from the fact that it was barely 100 years old (at the time) as a nation state - that Italians did not understand the concept of the state, only that of the family. I think this is reflected in the books, although the endless quarrels, warring factions, jealousy and violence within individual families and within their close acquaintances suggests they are not that good at families either. By now the theme of the possibly unhealthy symbiotic relationship between the two girls is firmly established. There are also a few unsubtle pointers as to which future characters you need to be aware of; I felt the metaphorical big foam football finger of fate hanging over the unlovable Nino's head. The message was, "beware, this bloke is going to feature a lot and he is not good news". Elena (the narrator) is hopelessly infatuated with him and his seeming intellectual brilliance. Not a good sign. Elena's struggles to rise out of the poverty and violence of her upbringing through her intelligence, aided by sympathetic teachers and a huge amount of self discipline and effort, is one of the more fascinating parts of the book, as is Lila's indifference towards her innate brilliance and her toying with dangerous men, and a seeming marriage of convenience with a deeply unlikeable and violent man, who is nevertheless initially besotted with her. As, seemingly, is everyone who comes within her dangerous orbit. No one behaves particularly well; everyone is guilty of some sort of betrayal and the central relationship continues to confuse. Elena is as chronically a bad judge of character as she is a brilliantly conscientious student. Cue the next book.

Amazing

Fantastic writing! This story of an unusual friendship, described very deeply and full of surprising twists and turns, managed to warm my heart to the main characters in the Italian village, even when I couldn't quite understand them, keeping me on my toes regarding the family members and other inhabitants. I became very familiar with all of them, as if I had met them in person. Although the story happened not so long ago, in the 20th century it feels like another day and age, when not all people were able to write, and didn't have the rights we take for granted. It was only when I came to the end of the book, reading more and more slowly as I didn't want it to end, that I discovered there are 3 books that follow this fascinating friendship from early twenties into adulthood.

I enjoyed My Brilliant Friend and all it revealed of Naples in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Best of all I loved the exploration of the friendship and lives of the 2 protagonists. This 2nd book takes these themes to a new level and allows us to see the role of class. Politics and education in its various manifestations and the rewards and costs of education. Opportunity and hard work are counterpointed with fate and choice. Then add the ingredients of family, love and friendship, and now we have the unbeatable combination that drives Ferrante's story telling in the context of the changes and developments in Italy in the 1960s. Hard to put it down! I will look forward to the next 2 volumes with a certain pleasure and great admiration for such a deep rich writer of our times.

Personagens envolventes, muito bem escrito, amei!

De hele serie is adembenemend - als je eenmaal begint, wil je alle boeken achter elkaar lezen wat ik ook gedaan heb dus zorg dat je tijd hebt om dit te doen. Het geeft een bijzondere inkijkje in de samenleving in Napels en hoe een vriendschap een rol kan spelen in je hele leven. Zeer de moeite waard !!

This is the second book of a quadrilogy the author wrote about the friendship of two women that lasted all their lives. In the first book - "My Brilliant Friend" - the author narrates their childhood in the slums of Naples, Italy, soon after the II W.W. In this book she follows them in their adolescence and precocious young years; the story will continue in the last two with their adoolthood and old age. It is the friendship between Lina and the narrator Lenù. For deep psychological reasons, Lenù falls under the spell of her friend Lina, in spite of her unpleasant character. And so it happened to me, and after the first book I had to go on, and I bought the four of them. It's a frienship made of love and hatred, of jealousy and envie. The two girls grow up in a world of misery, filled with anger and frustration; entangled in a net of violence and ingnorance.The only way to escape is through money or education. Some merchants have become rich through the black market of their parents practiced during the war. Now it is their choice to make. So the two teenagers soon learn to desperately grab their moment of happiness, even risking their lives. It's a powerful portrait of the two main characters, through the intelligent self analysis of the narrator, and a deep psychological insight into her friends'demons. Lenù narrates their story following the details of their every day life. These facts seem to be banal, instead they are poignant in building the extraordinary character of Lina, and every event is charged with a powerful tension. The narration flows easily, never boring. The reader is captivated and feels like never putting down the book. While giving us the portrait of Lina, who seems to embody Good and Evil, the narrator paints also her neiborhood and its many characters which form a portrait of human existence itself and an excellent study of the human soul. An amazing story of an amazing frienship, where one, the narrator, tries desperately to be like her savage friend, and feeling inferior, she sacrifices herself and her choices to live her life through Lina. At the same time, Lina realizes that is Lenù who has made the right choice. Two desperate human beings who try to find a balance, try to reach beauty, a moment of happiness and the fullness of life among the frears, the banalities and the entanglements of their existence.

My book arrived sooner than expected and was as described. Very good.