The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
Review of The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
“Two years before leaving home, my father said to my mother that I was very ugly.”
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (2020). Published by Europa Editions.
Being a writer active among women writing circles, the name Elena Ferrante comes up an insane amount. People worship Elena Ferrante and her work, so when I started looking for something to read one lonesome Saturday, I logged into my library’s Libby account and checked out this book, which the audiobook was read by Marisa Tomei. An interesting throwback for me, especially since I had seen her live in the play The Rose Tattoo on Broadway. Seeing her in a Tennessee Williams play was an interesting time, especially, since only weeks later, the world was shut down due to COVID-19.
And it was here I found myself delving deeper into the work of Elena Ferrante for the first time. This was a translation from its original language of Italian, but I didn’t even notice with the audiobook any pacing or discrepancy issues. Actually, this was my first time listening to an audiobook—I usually thought they were too expensive, but once I found out Libby had free ones via my library, I immediately downloaded this one.
Released in 2020 and with me reading in 2021, the press on this book is fresh, full of glowing reviews, clocking in with a 3.67 on Goodreads, this is what I’m thinking of as I write this review. Let’s dig deeper into this, shall we?
Book Blurb
Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father clearly despise? Surely there is a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.
Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape.
Named one of 2016’s most influential people by TIME Magazine and frequently touted as a future Nobel Prize-winner, Elena Ferrante has become one of the world’s most read and beloved writers. With this new novel about the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, Ferrante proves once again that she deserves her many accolades. In The Lying Life of Adults,/i>, readers will discover another gripping, highly addictive, and totally unforgettable Neapolitan story.
Content
The first thing I noticed about this book is that the prose is absolutely electric and lifts off the page in a way that is quite stunning. Although there were many moments in which I stopped caring about the actual story contained within the book, I found myself gripping at the words themselves and the way that Ferrante constructs her details, syntax, dialogue, and sentences in order to figure out why this was so magical to listen to. When I write this, however, it is important to note that I am not actually reading this book. I am listening to the Tomei version of the audiobook (thanks to my library’s free Libby access!). While I think Tomei did an awesome job narrating, she only enhanced a solid foundation and writing style that was already there to begin with.
Our main character in this novel is Giovanna, a young adolescent girl who is living in Naples. The era in which this story takes place is unknown, although it is obviously contemporary. Both of Giovanna’s parents are intellectuals, academics active in the scene of Naples. They bring friends over to discuss Socialism and look down at anyone who speaks in dialect. They want their daughter to be at the top of her class so she can follow in their footsteps. Her parents look down at anyone from the underbelly of Naples, the other side of the city, because they are uneducated, poor, speak in dialect. These people are too crass for their high and mighty lifestyle. But when Giovanna’s father compares her to his sister Vittoria, who he has forcibly removed from his life, it begins this spiral of insecurity in his daughter, one that leads her to go to the quote-on-quote dark side.
I think I’m the wrong audience for this book. It’s a coming-of-age story about a girl from a majorly dysfunctional family, and when she dives deeper into why her family is the way it is, it begins to take a psychological toll on her. She becomes majorly angsty, ridden with the stereotypical teenage emo rage. Except now, it’s Italian. I can see how some might find this story heartwarming or majorly relatable to them, but, eventually, it became too much for me. It just got old after a while. We’re stuck in Giovanna’s head because she is the narrator and so we are limited to only her experiences and thoughts. This is all we get. Her thoughts, perspectives, and rage as she untangles the web of lies. As her father cheats, I wanted to know the thoughts of her mother or more about Vittoria’s story. But we’re limited to Vittoria, the 12-16-year-old girl who doesn’t really seem like she’s that age half of the time. She’s too philosophical.
This book, however, exposes the complexities within the city of Naples and within families themselves. This isn’t just an Italian issue—this is a prevalent social issue that exists all over the world across many different societies. People move up on the social ladder abandon the people they once claimed to love, erase any evidence of their past. Adults do also lie and shatter the lives of their children, even if it was unintentional. Giovanna’s father never called her ugly, but his words of comparing her to Vittoria did so much mental damage to Giovanna’s mind, leading her to twist it into something more grotesque. And that is something I, in my own girlhood, can relate to.
Overall Thoughts
Ferrante is an amazing storyteller, I’ll give her that. This book is just too long, clocking in at a whopping 330 pages, and I can’t handle that. My attention span is built for two hundred pages. That’s my sweet spot. The prose is good and is what kept me going, but without it, I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I did. This book can also be kind of triggering if you have self-esteem or family issues. Ferrante goes into very long rants in Giovannea’s voice where she’s just criticizing her looks and appearance, and I can see how damaging that can be for some people.
