Genre Fiction
![Elena Ferrante - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B00JEUV7C2.jpg)
The Story of a New Name: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 2)
A novel in the bestselling quartet about two very different women and their complex friendship: "Everyone should read anything with Ferrante's name on it" (The Boston Globe).
The follow-up to My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name continues the epic New York Times–bestselling literary quartet that has inspired an HBO series, and returns us to the world of Lila and Elena, who grew up together in post-WWII Naples, Italy.
In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and a source of strength in the face of life's challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, "one of the great novelists of our time" (The New York Times), gives us a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging, a meditation on love and jealousy, freedom and commitment―at once a masterfully plotted page-turner and an intense, generous-hearted family saga.
"Imagine if Jane Austen got angry and you'll have some idea of how explosive these works are." ―The Australian
"Brilliant . . . captivating and insightful . . . the richness of her storytelling is likely to please fans of Sara Gruen and Silvia Avallone." ―Booklist (starred review)
The follow-up to My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name continues the epic New York Times–bestselling literary quartet that has inspired an HBO series, and returns us to the world of Lila and Elena, who grew up together in post-WWII Naples, Italy.
In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and a source of strength in the face of life's challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, "one of the great novelists of our time" (The New York Times), gives us a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging, a meditation on love and jealousy, freedom and commitment―at once a masterfully plotted page-turner and an intense, generous-hearted family saga.
"Imagine if Jane Austen got angry and you'll have some idea of how explosive these works are." ―The Australian
"Brilliant . . . captivating and insightful . . . the richness of her storytelling is likely to please fans of Sara Gruen and Silvia Avallone." ―Booklist (starred review)
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Elena Ferrante and The Neapolitan Novels
The United States
"Ferrante's novels are intensely, violently personal, and because of this they seem to dangle bristling key chains of confession before the unsuspecting reader."
-James Wood, The New Yorker
"One of the more nuanced portraits of feminine friendship in recent memory."
-Megan O'Grady, Vogue
"Amazing! My Brilliant Friend took my breath away. If I were president of the world I would make everyone read this book. It is so honest and right and opens up heart to so much. Reading Ferrante reminded me of that child-like excitement when you can't look up from the page, when your eyes seem to be popping from your head, when you think: I didn't know books could do this!"
-Elizabeth Strout, author of Olive Kitteridge
"I like the Italian writer, Elena Ferrante, a lot. I've been reading all her work and all about her." - John Waters, actor and director
"Elena Ferrante may be the best contemporary novelist you've never heard of."
-The Economist
"Ferrante's freshness has nothing to do with fashion…it is imbued with the most haunting music of all, the echoes of literary history."
-The New York Times Book Review
"I am such a fan of Ferrante's work, and have been for quite a while."
-Jennifer Gilmore, author of The Mothers
"The women's fraught relationship and shifting fortunes are the life forces of the poignant book" - Publisher's Weekly
"When I read [the Neapolitan novels] I find that I never want to stop. I feel vexed by the obstacles-my job, or acquaintances on the subway-that threaten to keep me apart from the books. I mourn separations (a year until the next one-how?). I am propelled by a ravenous will to keep going."
-Molly Fischer, The New Yorker
"[Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels] don't merely offer a teeming vision of working-class Naples, with its cobblers and professors, communists and mobbed-up businessmen, womanizing poets and downtrodden wives; they present one of modern fiction's richest portraits of a friendship."
-John Powers, Fresh Air, NPR
"Elena Ferrante is one of the great novelists of our time. Her voice is passionate, her view sweeping and her gaze basilisk . . . In these bold, gorgeous, relentless novels, Ferrante traces the deep connections between the political and the domestic. This is a new version of the way we live no...
The United States
"Ferrante's novels are intensely, violently personal, and because of this they seem to dangle bristling key chains of confession before the unsuspecting reader."
-James Wood, The New Yorker
"One of the more nuanced portraits of feminine friendship in recent memory."
-Megan O'Grady, Vogue
"Amazing! My Brilliant Friend took my breath away. If I were president of the world I would make everyone read this book. It is so honest and right and opens up heart to so much. Reading Ferrante reminded me of that child-like excitement when you can't look up from the page, when your eyes seem to be popping from your head, when you think: I didn't know books could do this!"
-Elizabeth Strout, author of Olive Kitteridge
"I like the Italian writer, Elena Ferrante, a lot. I've been reading all her work and all about her." - John Waters, actor and director
"Elena Ferrante may be the best contemporary novelist you've never heard of."
-The Economist
"Ferrante's freshness has nothing to do with fashion…it is imbued with the most haunting music of all, the echoes of literary history."
-The New York Times Book Review
"I am such a fan of Ferrante's work, and have been for quite a while."
-Jennifer Gilmore, author of The Mothers
"The women's fraught relationship and shifting fortunes are the life forces of the poignant book" - Publisher's Weekly
"When I read [the Neapolitan novels] I find that I never want to stop. I feel vexed by the obstacles-my job, or acquaintances on the subway-that threaten to keep me apart from the books. I mourn separations (a year until the next one-how?). I am propelled by a ravenous will to keep going."
-Molly Fischer, The New Yorker
"[Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels] don't merely offer a teeming vision of working-class Naples, with its cobblers and professors, communists and mobbed-up businessmen, womanizing poets and downtrodden wives; they present one of modern fiction's richest portraits of a friendship."
-John Powers, Fresh Air, NPR
"Elena Ferrante is one of the great novelists of our time. Her voice is passionate, her view sweeping and her gaze basilisk . . . In these bold, gorgeous, relentless novels, Ferrante traces the deep connections between the political and the domestic. This is a new version of the way we live no...
Readers Top Reviews
ClaraSheilaMissBDomD
Having finished the second book in the Neapolitan series, I can now reveal the background of Elena Ferrante. Whoever is behind the name, is a scriptwriter for EastEnders. It’s pretty obvious, a bunch of crooks, hard men, put-upon women, misogynists, no-hopers, etc, etc, transported from Albert Square to ‘the neighbourhood’ in Naples. The similarities are obvious even down to the strange dialect people speak. For Dirty Den, read old man Solara, for Dot Cotton, read Melina, for Sharon read any one of the other girls. To put us off the scent, Ferrante throws in two central characters, Lila headstrong, wilful and bright but hasn’t heard that if your head hurts, stop butting the wall. Linu, is also bright and has to work hard to compare herself to her more intelligent friend, something she does continuously throughout, ad nauseam. It’s tedious and all that introspection, well it’s boring. The giveaway came on the last line of page 471, the blatant, pathetic hook to get the reader to buy and trudge through book three and perhaps number four. The pattern is set through the book, just smaller, less obvious changes of directions to fight off the growing urge to shred the book. Rather like the twists at the end of each episode of that TV programme which incidentally I haven’t watched since Angie left the cast. So there you are, buy it if you must but I’m out.
CBxCornwallgurl
This book picks up where the last left off, drawing you right back into the conflicts with which the first ended. As the book goes, on, more conflicts come piling on, and we see that for Lila and Lenu their time as young adults is fraught with difficulties.Their friendship, as before, continues tumultuous. I think I am now done with the series. The betrayal, jealousy, romance here, all take on the quality of a soap opera as the events come thick and fast and everyone becomes more entangled. The unevenness of the friendship, and the divergence of their lives began to feel predictable to me, and the increasingly self-referential nature of the narrative felt worn. Mostly though, what I primarily took away from this book and the last was a feeling of unpleasantness, not alleviated by any especially eloquent phrases or gripping passages.
Sonpoppie
Masterful handling of point of view, Ferrante uses Lina's journals to allow Elena to give both her p.o.v. and Lina's. I love the entangled relationship of these two friends - the co-dependent, twisted, competitive side note of it. It reminds of the kind of relationship of sisters or childhood friends. Elena never quite trusts her own achievements, doubts her brilliance, believes Lina is the genesis of all her thoughts. Lina is so self destructive that the reader thinks she is mentally unstable. The place where this all plays out - Naples - could be any hood where people are poor and resources are limited, where there is a society of rich and poor, class and underclass. Lina could have been anything she wanted but she chooses money to boost her sense of self rather than persue her art, creativity, her intellect. It's a tragedy really. The text is feminist, social and political without preaching. Issues of then - the 60s, 70s, abuse of women, social and economic disadvantages, political thought - are still issues to be challenged today.
suzannemariposa
The deep down ugly destructiveness of patriarchy, that wrecker of lives and dreams. The awful invidiousness of comparing oneself to others. The selfish greed that keeps the majority in poverty and the minority in lavish wealth. The raw exposure of these social ills are for what I praise the author. Not the melodramatic teenage love triangle and the steamy sexual scenes. Those I found overwrought. Yet the social issues and class struggles are serious and ongoing in every culture and the author brings them to light in the Italian culture of the last century making the novel a worthy read, although, for me, not as captivating as the first book in this series, My Brilliant Friend.
S. Soloff
Although I have taken many writing classes over the last few years -- both as an undergrad and on-line with published writers -- I cannot fully express with words the appreciation and awe I have, not only for "The Story of a New Name" but for all four of the Neapolitan novels. The only other contemporary book I have ever read that even approaches Ferrante's epic novels is "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth. The stories are at once of a people, a place, and a time, yet they reveal the complexities of the characters as they change through the trajectory of their lives in Naples -- which is in the midst of a cultural change itself. This, is of course, how our lives will appear if, say, in advanced age we sit down with pen and paper or computer, to tell our grandchildren just how we were in our lifetime. I have lived through the 40's, 50's, 60's and am still moving on. Imagine how surprised my grandchildren (or their children) will be when they who have only known me as kind, loving "Nana" read my journals! Wish I could be there and wish I could write as well as Ms Ferrante.
