To say that I was late to the MBF party is a massive understatement. What’s more, teenage Ellen could have really done with these books growing up… All regrets aside, what I say, with complete confidence, is that it is never too late to jump on the MBF bandwagon.

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Anyone with a remote interest in books has probably heard about the My Brilliant Friend series. You often see it in bulk in large chain bookstores. Once you catch sight of that captivating cover – two girls hiding mischievously behind a car – it never quite leaves you. Funnily enough, I decided to buy the book after my stint in Italy. I was looking for something to really sink my teeth into. A story that could not be contained in one book, but four. What I found in these books was not just a story, but a collection of characters, descriptions, and moments that, to this day, I have not stopped thinking about. Once you enter the Naples of Lenù and Lila, you will never want to leave.

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Characters who leave and characters who stay…

It’s no wonder an ‘Index of Characters’ precedes Ferrante’s magnum opus. The Italian surnames, combined with just how many characters there are, can be quite overwhelming at first. What Ferrante does so brilliantly though (pun intended), is give us characters with depth. She doesn’t give us characters that we simply either love or hate. Rather, she gives us characters with whom we can relate, and from whom we can recoil, simultaneously. She gives us characters who are, in short, impossibly real.

For me, it will always be Lenù and Lila who affected me the most. Their friendship, their coming-of-age, their everything. Still, one cannot acknowledge the two without also acknowledging those around them. The men in their lives. Some of whom bring violence and torment; some of whom bring lightness and security. The women in their lives. Some of whom bring jealousy and judgment; some of whom bring understanding and support.

Let’s not forget about the landscapes upon which their story takes place. Naples – its capacity to push people away while also drawing them back. Ischia – where ephemeral fantasies are born and remain. Florence – its promises, attainable yet unrealistic. Technically, landscapes are not ‘characters’, but in Ferrante, they are. Just as people shape other people, landscapes shape the characters in this story. I know, that if not for Ferrante, I would have had no desire to visit Naples. In reading her, one almost (if not completely) forgets that Naples is a pretty dangerous place. In reading Ferrante, one is reminded that in danger, their can also be beauty, possibility, and most importantly, hope.

In Lenú and Lila specifically, what I felt was a constant ebb and flow of empathy and frustration. Empathy for Lenú’s critical self-perception. Frustration at Lila’s capacity to exploit her best friend’s insecurities. Empathy for Lila’s inability to recognise her self-worth. Frustration at Lenú’s continual urge to compare herself to Lila. What Ferrante does seamlessly is capture what it’s like to simply be a female. Whether it be in adolescence or adulthood. She just, gets it.

Allow them, and what you’ll find in Lenú and Lila is what many of us, regardless of gender, experience in our lifetime – a concurrent wish to both stand out from, and fit in with, the crowd. Perhaps that’s why Ferrante chose to compile Lenú and Lila’s story into four books instead of one. Perhaps one book was not enough to capture her version of the ‘human experience’. Whatever her logic, I will be forever grateful to Ferrante for bringing Lenú, Lila, and those from the Rione, to life.

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The Story of Naples…

I didn’t know much, if anything, about Naples until fairly recently. I was aware of the obvious, of course. Its inherent craziness. Its obsession with football. Its subjective beauty. Its connection to the mafia. The stuff we see online or in movies. As for Ferrante’s portrayal – while far removed from my own lived experience (past and present) – her portrayal of Naples felt the most true. ‘True’ in a sense that, without ever having visited the place itself, I began to see myself in those narrow streets, gingerly walking by Bar Solara, eating gelato in Piazza Plebiscito, looking over my shoulder at San Giovanni a Teduccio. I began to see myself in Naples because Ferrante knows it like the back of her hand. What she’s done in MBF is map out a version of Naples that feels both personal and collective. A perfectly-woven spiderweb that is both sturdy and fragile. A masterpiece.

Ferrante’s Naples is far from perfect. It is brutal, unrelenting, and rarely beautiful. And yet, people all over the world continue to pay good money to experience Naples, per her prose. The starkness with which she writes is what draws us in. Her writing is so stark, in fact, that I struggle to classify it as ‘fictional’. I don’t know… maybe someone who grew up in Naples would have a different opinion on the matter. I am almost certain, though, that few could fault Ferrante on her honesty. I will never know Naples like a Neapolitan. I will never know Naples like Ferrante. What I do know, is that MBF is a reflection of the well-known proverb, “write what you know”.

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Brilliant moments…

Frankly, there aren’t enough words in the dictionary to encapsulate just how well Ferrante captures a moment.

The fated matrimony of Lila and Stefano. The mysterious death of Don Achille. The rise and fall of Lenú’s literary career. The New Year’s Eve party turned sudden shoot-out. Lenú and Donato’s encounter on the beach. Lila’s confrontation with Bruno. The earthquake. The disappearance of Tina; the disappearance of Lila. Each and every moment is so carefully crafted. So much so that they are almost impossible to shake. For me, though, it was not the big, dramatic moments that affected me the most. Rather, it was Ferrante’s depiction of the minutes of daily life. The moments that are easy to miss if you’re not completely switched on. Child Lila’s lapse in confidence upon leaving the Rione for the sea. Lenú’s fear of not knowing where the nearest bathroom is upon her journey to Pisa. Lenú’s intimate appraisal of Lila on the day of her wedding. Small but significant moments that had me thinking, ‘how has she done it?’. How has Ferrante managed to capture such a relatable level of consciousness? And it’s not just MBF where she does this, but in her other work, too.

In reading Ferrante, I am reminded that the brilliance of life is not always in the grand or dramatic. It is often found in the details. That which one sees as ‘brilliant’, the other sees nothing at all. And that leads me to the quartet’s ultimate ‘moment’. The one feature that governs across all four novels – Lila’s incapacity to see what everyone else sees. Her brilliance. Out of all the events, all the interactions, this particular aspect is what shook me the most. If only Lila saw what they, we, all see. If only Lila had stayed in school. If only Lila had waited for a man who could truly love her. If only Lila had plucked up the courage to relinquish Naples’s clutch. If only…

What Ferrante does so perfectly is grant us the right, the necessity, even, to imagine different scenarios for her characters. Her Neapolitan Quartet is my Roman Empire. One, because I am absolutely fixated by these characters – their world, their hopes and dreams, their woes. And two, because each book begs the question, ‘if I were in this character’s shoes, what would I do differently?’.