#Lenù Greco

[ffantasmi]

LILA AND LENÙ My Brilliant Friend, chapter 27 "Compromises"

[floweringgodhead]

It’s how Lenù can’t differentiate between the things she does for herself and the things she does for others, it’s in the ways she tries so hard to speak about/have the opinions she thinks people want her to, it’s about how she constantly strives to be better or smarter but doesn’t feel that she’s there even when people are praising her or she’s getting degrees/awards, it’s that moment where Nino who she always thought was above her reveals that he threw out the article she wrote as a child because it was better than anything he could write, it’s how she gets scared when she thinks Lila is writing a book because she assumes it’ll be better than all those thousands of pages she put out into the world and that moment she let others make her believe her first novel was bad (the novel where she included the story of her assault/rape by an older man) — it’s her self doubt, insecurity, dilettantism, dependence, pain, depression, soaring ego and then crushing self-loathing

love her sm

[theancientmar1ner]

Lenù just makes my chest hurt. I can’t explain it properly but sometimes when she’s narrating her inner thoughts it makes me cry a little even if it’s nothing too sad. just the sense of confusion, and being unable to put together all the pieces of your life and make sense of them, unable to plan ahead. it feels so murky and it’s so painfully relatable. I think part of growing up is the element of control - over pretty much everything. what you eat, what you wear, what you say, how you look, how you present yourself - and when you’re young, it’s sort of a massive destabilising part of your life yknow, it’s a real source of insecurity, feelings of inadequacy and real profound sadness, aimlessness - because no matter what you do you’re not really in control, so how can you know that you’re really yourself, that you know who you are at all?

I also think (and really hope) that as you get older, that feeling will fade. Slowly, sure, but what better time to learn who you are than when you are finally a person in your own right? Finally in control?

I hope to see her learn what SHE cares about, what she likes and what she wants from the world - not what Lila wants, or what she thinks is the right thing to go along with. I can understand her, i’m not saying at all it’s wrong or silly of her - It seems to me that wanting to feel caught up with the people you love, in the same place and on the same path is the safest and most natural thing for a teenager to want. I hope that as time goes on she will realise what she wants from life is hers to define, and hers to take.

I haven’t got so far in the book or in my own life to say this for sure - but i’m excited to see Lenù grow into herself, truly. It gives me hope.

[blommis-writes]

I am very sorry international oomfs but it's chill' omm' 'e merd e' Nino Sarratore Monday

[bookwatching]

📺 L'Amica Geniale S01E02

📖 Piccole donne, Louisa May Alcott

🔃 La serie è una trasposizione dell'omonima serie di romanzi di Elena Ferrante

[bealestreetnevershutsup]

yes lenù is an unreliable narrator with a super skewed perspective but you guys give her too little credit for her truthfulness about her more immoral qualities. she admitted she had to suppress the desire for lila to miscarry her baby that’s raw honesty.

[doyoungdelrey]

I STAND BY THIS FIVE YEARS LATER!!!

My Brilliant Friend: What I Learned

fuckboy (n.): nino sarratore (and his father).

it’s ironic how nino distanced himself from his father and claimed to lenù (and the rest of his family) that he did not want to be like his father, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it nino? (also, he really pisses me off in the later books, especially the second one. silly bitch)

yah, he’s an attractive, curly haired, bespectacled italian 50′s hipster dreamboat (and is also most likely timothée chalamet and dan humphrey’s love child. have y’all seen his cheekbones?!?!?!) with an interest in socialism and big words, but i want to throw my book in a fire everytime I read about him (or throw my laptop out the window when francesco serpico (who i’m praying is both single and not like nino in any way) appears on the screen). 

[houseoforange]

I’ve been waiting for two episodes this season: the earthquake in Naples, and then obviously the story of the lost child. This episode delivered so hard.

I’m so happy Elena Ferrante wrote this scene nearly verbatim to the book (remember?). This scene was HAUNTING. The switch in color palette and the hair style -- and Lila looks so gorgeous even when she’s understandably manic. I completely did not realize in the books that Lila was braiding her hair to resemble Nunziatina. Ferrante is a GENIUS. A real mistress of her craft!

And next week is the finale? There was so much more after this scene, if I recall...? How are they going to wrap up this story? These books annihilated me, y'all.

[mybrilliantfriend]

It was an old fear, a fear that has never left me: the fear that, in losing pieces of her life, mine lost intensity and importance.

Rhaenyra Targaryen & Alicent Hightower + My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

[lilacerull0]

hahahahahahaha that doesn't sound familiar at all

[ffantasmi]

But at the end, I'm lucky we were together

MY BRILLIANT FRIEND STORY OF THE LOST CHILD dir. Laura Bispuri

[tardisslayer]

Just found out after 5 years that you americans who watched My Brilliant Friend on HBO got a whole ass different scene when Lenù was washing Lila before her wedding, full titties full pussy, while RAI, the literal creator network of the show, censured everything

Italian television never stops surprising me

[eleyras]

Anyway, Will's struggles with identity, responsibility, acceptance of himself and yearn for love are resonating with me in the same deep, gut-wrenching way Elena Ferrante's female characters do, hope this help you to understand how much this book is consuming me.

[sob-dylan]

it was very smart of me to finish my book at home instead of work so i had the freedom to scream and punch things.

[maxdibert]

Sometimes a family is you, your childhood friend with whom you maintain a toxic, sapphic-tinged codependency, her partner who used to throw rocks at you as kids but turned out to be the only decent man you’ve known in your lives, the good-for-nothing son from your friend’s first marriage, your daughters from your first marriage to the man you cheated on with the father of your third daughter, and the youngest daughter of your friend and her life companion. Welcome to The End of the Nuclear Family with Lenù Greco and Lila Cerullo by Elena Ferrante.

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Let's recap the last few chapters of My Brilliant Friend, shall we?

Elena "Lenù" Greco, our narrator, in succession:

Tiptoes up to articulating that she's sexually attracted to her best friend Raffaella "Lila" Cerullo, then does a classic Sorawo Othersidepicnic Pivot away from it ante litteram and refocuses away from her own feelings in favor being mad about Stefano, Lila's (as far as she knows) wonderful groom-to-be, getting to come inside her (Lila).

Helps Lila dress for her wedding.

Goes to the wedding.

Makes an active choice to ignore a real class conflict happening in real time IN THE SAME ROOM AS HER in favor of listening to some guy bloviate about his trick of writing magazine articles about class conflict by regurgitating other articles and ISTAT papers.

(There's apparently serious controversy among meridionalists about whether Ferrante is sufficiently critical of her namesake protagonist's attitude on this. I'm keeping an open mind; I think how angry I am at Lenù right now is intentional on Ferrante's part, but we'll see how things evolve from here.)

Lenù's family:

Yells at her for having a boyfriend who's a mechanic (Lenù's family is of the exact same social status as her boyfriend's), reinforcing her relationship with her new best friend Internalized Classism and her other new best friend Cultural Cringe.

Stefano Carracci, Lila's bridegroom:

Buys a pair of shoes that she's spent the better part of two hundred pages making as proof of concept for expanding her family's shoe repair business into a designer shoe factory, then doesn't wear them.

Abruptly switches out the proposed wedding MC, a well-liked out-of-town relative, for the local neofascist crime lord, because he wants his money for the shoe factory.

Promises Lila that he will not invite the neofascist crime lord's son Marcello, a self-pitying date rapist who stalked Lila for months and is Lila's least favorite person on the planet, to the wedding.

Organizes the wedding reception in such a way that his (richer) side of the guest list gets served in noticeably prompter and more respectful ways than hers, instigating the argument that Lenù then chooses to ignore.

Invites Marcello to the wedding after giving him the shoes.

Fuck all of these people. Solo Lila Cerullo sempre nel mio cuore. Great book and I'll definitely be continuing the series.