My Brilliant friend

Brilliant story l can't wait to read the next book. I did find the American narrator difficult to get used to initially but she grew on me by the end. I wish the chapters corresponded however

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12 people found this helpful

Not the runaway bestseller I thought it would be

Well read, though this is a strange book …. not quite solid enough. It gives a good picture of teenage Neapolitan life - the rivalries, the scheming ……. reminiscent of Malvolio and Romeo. I won't bother to listen to/read the next two books in the trilogy.

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3 people found this helpful

Slow starter but a wonderful coming of age story

This book was a slow burner for me. The beginning was effort to not let my mind wonder but as the characters slowly came to life and a wonderful portrait was painted of the lives of these two young friends, I was finding every opportunity to listen. The story itself is simple and gives an insight into the world of these two girls growing up in a Naples village; the inter and intra family politics as well as delicately crafting a coming of age story.
The narrator fits this story perfectly and did a wonderful job.

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Some of the best character writing I’ve ever read

Some of the best character writing I’ve ever read. Really nuanced and interesting characters. Can’t wait for the next one.

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The plebs were us

"The plebs were that fight for food and wine,the quarrel over how should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those incredible vulgar toasts. The plebs were my mother, who had drunk wine and now was leaning against my father's shoulder, while he, serious, laughed, his mouth gaping, at the sexual allusions."
Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend


I start with that quote to dissipate any ideas that this book is a romance novel or a thriller, it is about people, poor people with a restricted point of view, fighting for scraps among themselves, people for whom the world is their neighborhood, the street they inhabit, is about the love, the hate, the jealousies, the minutia of of life, the binds of society on individuals life, it is about two little girls that reinvent themselves by caring for each other by competing with each other, by regarding each other's brilliance and outshining themselves.
This is not a romanticized view of this lives, this is the nitty gritty of everyday life, were love, money and sex are commodities, chess pieces to win better lives opportunities, This is a place where fourteen year old girls are planning a woman's life, and they are lucky if they do not give birth till they are seventeen.
This is not the Naples of tourists, this where the shadowy camorra has its roots, violence is part of life and is never far, a place where education is an impossible expense. A place where even dreams are as dangerous, as intelligent girls.

“Her quickness of mind was like a hiss, a dart, a lethal bite.”
Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

Beautifully written realism of a period, a place and a culture, a reconstruction of what most would like to ignore, the common lives of the common people, as they are, with small achievements, that hide heroic struggles, especially for women. This is not a book with big gestures, it is insular, a portrait with limited panorama like the view of the children it describes.

“Children don’t know the meaning of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend


“We were twelve years old, but we walked along the hot streets of the neighborhood, amid the dust and flies that the occasional old trucks stirred up as they passed, like two old ladies taking the measure of lives of disappointment, clinging tightly to each other. No one understood us, only we two—I thought—understood one another.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

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28 people found this helpful

Absorbing but a little slow moving

Where does My Brilliant Friend rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This isn't for those looking for a fast-paced story. There isn't a great deal of narrative, as such. Not a great deal happens. It's an absorbing examination of a childhood and adolescent friendship in a tough Naples neighbourhood. The characters are very well drawn, very believable, so you feel sympathetic or annoyed at their behaviour, just as you would with any teenager. I often found myself thinking "Yes, I remember how that felt". At the end of the book, I wanted to carry on knowing them, so I've just bought Book 2.

Have you listened to any of Hillary Huber’s other performances? How does this one compare?

I haven't heard this narrator's performances before. I thought her reading suited the book well - slow, thoughtful, nuanced. Just one quibble: at one point about half way through, she used various pronunciations of Lila's name, which I found a little irritating.

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7 people found this helpful

Wonderful story well narrated.

The novel deserves every bit of praise bestowed on it. A world comes alive, important things are being said with such simplicity and beauty that one encounters only in the Classics. No doubt a classic too. Only flaw for me - not of the novel but the narrator, otherwise excellent, is that she cannot decide on the pronunciation of main character Lila's name and calls her both Leela (the correct Italian one) and Lyla (Americanized version). Thankfully, she finally settles for the former. Apart from that, all good- even the imitation of tough guy speak rings true to the spirit of the narrative.

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1 person found this helpful

Disappointed

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.
Too many names, and because I really didn’t care for any of the characters, found it difficult to remember who was who. I also found repetitive in places.
Although I felt the story was read well, the accent irritated me.
Not for me so I shan’t be continuing with the other three.

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Thoroughly absorbing

This book describes with incredible vibrancy and detail a childhood in Naples. There is nothing sugary or rose tinted about this story. Excellent!

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hooked!

I don't know why I have delayed reading this novel for so long, I am now completely hooked and am going to read everything that Eleanor Ferrante has written, starting with the second in this trilogy .
Beautifully written (and read by Hillary Huber), the stories tell the friendship of two neapolitan girls living close in the same rough and poor neighbourhood. It follows their lives through their meeting at primary school. through to the wedding of one, the early blossoming of the other into a writer. We also follow their families fortunes and that of the boys in the district, the familly squabbles, their pride, their generational fights , the neighbourhood mafioso, all told with the sicilian flavour of life lived with poverty in the fifties . Above all this is the ease and spareness of Ferrante's writing, she paints pictures with words.

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