My Brilliant Friend: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 1)

At the beginning of the book there is a really off-putting cast list of nine families, and of altogether no fewer than forty-seven names. I constantly had to refer to that list, although the book focusses on two of these people: the narrator Elena (also known as Leni) and her friend Rafaelli (also known as Lina or Lila), both born in 1944, through their childhood and adolescence. There are two parts to this volume: “Childhood” and “Adolescence”. The two have been friends since their childhood in a dense working-class neighbourhood of Naples, where most families were poor and envious and resentful of those who were better off in their own small district, let alone of those in the prosperous parts of Naples. Lina is the dominant of the two: a rebel at school and the leader in daredevil exploits. During their childhood Leni, though often fearful, copies her in almost everything. There was much violence in the neighbourhood (in one case murderous), and fierce feuds, both among adults and among the children at school – but never between Leni and Lila: Leni had come to accept that Lina would always be first and she second. Lila also had a cruel streak, but Leni never asserted herself for fear of losing Lila’s friendship. There is much about the relationships between the children at the elementary school and between them and their teachers. Lila was never popular at school – she was too clever, too aggressive, and was skinny and dirty. Leni, on the other hand, was much in demand. She filled out and reached puberty long before Lila did. Both girls were recommended to take the test for going on to middle school. Lila’s parents refused to pay for the extra preparatory lessons and she could not take the test; but Leni did well in it. Lila did not take it well. She quarrelled violently with her family until her father literally threw her out of a window and she broke her arm. The dominance of Lila continues in the second part, “Adolescence”. Of course adolescence is a turbulent and confusing period, with frequent changes of mood and of boyfriends. In this book, I found them quite bewildering, especially as two of Leni’s three boy friends were, I thought, distinguishable only by their names. Leni is still dependent on Lila, though Leni has gone on to high school while Lila worked in her father’s shoe-repair shop with her elder brother Rino, who turned from being a rather gentle person into one who was often physically violent towards her. (The shoes they make play a big part in the story.) When she knew that Leni was studying first Latin, then Greek and then English, Lila taught herself those, too, and was quicker at them than Leni was. Leni did exceptionally well at school by her own efforts - it is never quite clear which of the two of them is the “brilliant friend” - but, whenever Lila was not the ...

I bought this book for my wife a couple of years ago, and picked it up to read on a recent trip to Italy. My initial impressions weren't encouraging: it's a story about two girls growing up in poverty-stricken, violent Naples in the 1950s, and the book opens with a cast of characters which, although essential for navigating the story, look bewildering - for example, the two girls each have two nicknames, and two other characters have been given the same name. But I found I was gripped by the tale as soon as I got past the beginning: their foreign world is delineated so precisely, in a style which appears so effortless, that I found myself thinking like a poor five-year-old Italian girl and the sheer effort required to survive in a tough world of family, school, boys and opportunities which are - to say the least - constrained by gender. One of the things that helps the girls to do this is their friendship, which evolves through several phases, many marked with ambiguity (including the intriguing question of which is the brilliant one). Later on, there are relationships with boys to complicate matters (at one point, I realised I was thoroughly confused as to the identity of the narrator's current boyfriend - which is perhaps the effect that the writer intended). I greatly enjoyed the story, finishing it in a rush, and look forward to the next volume in the series.

My friends RAVED about this series, but I am baffled about why. I hated everything about this book, and I can't imagine voluntarily reading the other three. The plot is virtually nonexistent. The characters are unimaginative and flat. It reads quickly, but in a way that left me feeling wholly unsatisfied. So many words, yet they are strung together in a way that is so unbearably empty and forgettable. It reads poorly as literature yet somehow also manages not to even be enjoyable as guilty pleasure reading.

I really wanted to love this book but it's anti-climactic and lacking a really substantive plot. I read the book in two days and now I'm left wondering what exactly it was about beyond the life of two poor Neapolitan girls. I wanted the end to have something groundbreaking - some deep philosophy or mind blowing conclusion, but I was sadly disappointed. The voice of the author is good, but the story line lacks. Maybe I didn't get it as intended. Either way, it was fairly boring.

I was enthusiastic to read this book, knowing how popular it has become. I was eager to finish it once I started it, mostly to be done with it. It left me feeling drained, like listening to a friend that drones on and on about the minutiae of their life. You want to be interested, but it's just so damn tedious and depressing. I won't be reading the rest of the series.