"Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay" by Elena Ferrante

I hadn't realized that I read My Brilliant Friend, the first in the Neapolitan quartet, over two years ago. I recently recommended Lying Life of Adults to a friend, and when she liked it, she started the quartet--which of course got me going on the series again. So now I've finished the third book, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, which follows Elena and Lila as they navigate adulthood as wives and mothers while also pursuing careers.

In rereading my initial review, I'm struck by how closely Ferrante has maintained her central themes without producing books that feel repetitive and reductive. Across all three books, the central characteristics are the same: Lila is brilliant; Elena, despite more outward success than Lila, feels forever in Lila's shadow. Both women are still tied to the claustrophobic neighborhood of their childhood--Lila literally, and Elena by her inability to escape the town's ongoing drama and tension, even when she moves away.

What dominates this novel more than the earlier ones is the political tension broiling over class conflict and even a burgeoning feminist movement. Those tensions have always existed, but now that Elena and Lila are older, they find themselves more directly involved: Lila by working at an abusive factory and Elena by reporting on the abuse. These tensions are especially ambiguous for Elena, whose education, success as an author, and marriage into a well-off family seem to rise her above her station. Yet she feels continuously reminded of the poverty of her childhood, and no amount of success allows her to shake the imposter syndrome she's internalized. She never feels confident unless praised by those she assumes are superior, and even then, she views any "brilliance" she reveals as more that of a trained parrot--repeating the "right" phrases through careful study--than any intelligence of her own.

Yet Elena is smarter than she gives herself credit for, especially as she considers her relationship with her husband, Pietro. He appears a "modern" man--one who refuses to get married in a church and praises Elena's education--yet he quickly shows himself as small-minded as any chauvinist of his day. After all, you don't have to hit women to insist they take on a inferior role.

But I think what makes these novels work is that, among all the political considerations, Elena (and Lila too) are also consumed by the pettiest of jealousies and slights. They're brilliant and they're also incredibly human: selfish, judgmental, stubborn. These traits are especially evident in Elena's feelings for Nino, whom she's been infatuated with since childhood. Nino's torrid affair with Lila consumed most of book two, but in book three it's Elena who ends up with her childhood crush. There ought to be some celebration when Elena and Nino get together, but it's clear he's a complete cad--even Elena knows it but can't help herself. We know Elena is ruining her life when she runs away from her husband and children (echoes of one of Ferrante's other books, The Lost Daughter), but it's clear her life before wasn't good either. And perhaps can never be. Ferrante's created a character who can never be satisfied--partially because of her own personality and partially because she's been set up, since birth, to feel that way.

Book one begins with Lila's disappearance, at the age of sixty. I'm eager to get to that moment in book four--to see where Elena ends up after she and Nino (inevitably) dissolve; to see if Elena and Lila can have the real conversation Elena wants; and to see if Elena can shake off the drowning whirlpool of Naples once and for all.

P.S. Get this series a better cover!