#raffaella cerullo

[gojuo]

GAIA GIRACE and IRENE MAIORINO as Raffaella Cerullo in MY BRILLIANT FRIEND — 4.01 “The Separation”

[deerest-deer]

what if i started crying and never stopped??

[erosdoceamargo]

raffaella cerullo & elena greco | the story of the lost child, by elena ferrante / hbo l'amica geniale / nbc hannibal's script / letters to milena, by kafka / the story of the lost child, by elena ferrante / wuthering heights, by emily bronte / anna akhmatova tr. by judith hemschemeyer, “poem without a hero” / l'amica geniale / twin flame, by weyes blood / my brilliant friend, by elena ferrante

[raffaella-cerullo]

have you seen her???

[epifaniacintilante]

(Elena Ferrante)

[sneakydraws]

In the mood to colour a little sketch from when i was listening to the neapolitan novels… i was tipsily biking home from some party and the scene where lenu comes to see lila at work and give her the blue fairy came on, and i just wanted lila to lean over and kiss her so bad.

[maxdibert]

Lila and Lenú are two sides of the same coin.

I often come across criticisms of one or the other, mostly against Lenú, which is understandable because Lenú is not a likable narrator. Lenú is not a narrator who endears herself to the reader. She tells us her story like a personal diary, laying herself bare to share her desires, ambitions, loves, and achievements, but also her insecurities. And Lenú is terribly insecure. She has always had very low self-esteem, and it is this lack of confidence that often leads her to terrible behaviors or even regrettable decisions. But most of all, her constant insecurity throughout her story (and her life) is focused on constantly comparing herself to Lila, which at various points in the saga makes the reader find her heavy and even exasperating, as she is unable to overcome that childhood rivalry even when both are living in completely different worlds.

On the other hand, Lila can also be disliked at times. Lila is selfish, resentful, and unstoppable when she wants to hurt someone—she knows exactly how to do it. Lila is ambitious but hasn't had opportunities, so when they arise, she steps over everyone to seize them. Lila is not fair and sometimes has a very biased view. Lila is toxic and can be truly damaging. But without Lila, there would be no Lenú. And without Lenú, there would be no Lila, because they are the center of each other's worlds, and their absolutely turbulent, poisonous, and codependent friendship is what not only shapes the Neapolitan Novels but is also the constant driving force in their lives.

Lenú is the narrator without natural talent, but with enormous work discipline. She has envied Lila since childhood and feels terribly inadequate next to her because what Lenú achieved through hard work, Lila possessed with natural brilliance. Lila was the brilliant friend, the one who learned to count and read by herself, and who, despite being forced to leave school, would always have the ability to surpass Lenú if she wanted. This is something that haunts Elena throughout her life: the fear of confronting the reality that if Lila had been able to keep studying like her, she would probably have outshone her as she always did in their neighborhood. The ghost of being the second, always one step behind her genius friend—the one who is thinner, prettier, more extroverted, and more charismatic—marks Lenú’s growth process, and its effects are visible even in adulthood. But it is precisely because of this, the fear of being overshadowed by Lila, that Lenú strives to be the best she can be, to reach the highest possible level. Lila is Lenú’s motivation. Lenú, who over the years tries to shake off the dust and grime of her humble origins, to distance herself from that neighborhood full of poverty and violence, to become a self-made intellectual bourgeois woman who wants nothing to do with those uneducated poor savages she grew up with. And yet, she always ends up back in the neighborhood. She cannot escape her own nature, her origins, her blood. She cannot escape Lila.

Lila is the genius, the one who could have been greater than anyone, the girl who was forced to leave school and got married at just 15, thinking she could escape her home but ended up trapped in an even worse hell. She always wanted to leave, see the world, and she was the one who pushed Lenú from childhood to dream and go beyond. And she is the one who ends up abandoning all her dreams, acquiring a cold, raw, and cynical view of life, politics, and social classes. Lila is terribly envious. She envies Lenú because Lenú has the life she always wanted, without realizing that Lenú envies her for having the energy she always longed for. She envies Lenú because Lenú has been able to leave the neighborhood, because she can study, because she has choices. That’s why, when Lenú messes up, Lila always gets angry with her and reproaches her, because if Lenú messes up, then what does Lila have left? Lila is the neighborhood, the origins, the wild, the dark—she is the reminder that no matter how far Lenú goes or how high she climbs, she will always be from the neighborhood. Because you can take the girl out of the neighborhood, but you can’t take the neighborhood out of the girl. Lila is strong and weak at the same time, she is invincible and terribly vulnerable. And this weakness, this vulnerability, she only shows to Lenú. She only fears in front of Lenú, only cries in front of Lenú, only shows herself lost with Lenú. Because Lila, who is visceral, who is from the earth, from the roots, knows deep down that she and Lenú have a connection that goes beyond years and misfortunes. Because Lenú, though she will never know it, is her brilliant friend.

The magic of their relationship is that they are each the brilliant friend to the other, and that makes them both wary of each other, while simultaneously falling into their toxic dynamics again and again. But at the end of the day, they always have each other, even if in a completely dysfunctional and quite messed-up way. I could spend hours and hours talking about them, but I will just say that their relationship is the most incredible I have ever read about two female protagonists. It’s complex, it’s beautiful, it’s horrible at times, exasperating most of the time. It’s treacherous, it’s doomed, it’s stronger than everything, weaker than most. It is, in the end, just like life itself.

[maryasmorevna]

elena ferrante, i margini e il dettato | emily brontë, wuthering heights | hilma af klint, group IX/SUW, the swan, no. 1 (1915) | charlotte brontë, jane eyre | jane eyre, 2006 miniseries | scarface (1932) | e.e. cummings, i carry your heart with me

lila & lenù, l'amica geniale | my brilliant friend

[unchangingwindoww]

A che sono servite dunque tutte queste pagine. Puntavo ad afferrarla, a riaverla accanto a me, e morirò senza sapere se ci sono riuscita. A volte mi chiedo dove s’è dissolta. In fondo al mare. Dentro un crepaccio o in un cunicolo sotterraneo di cui lei sola conosce l’esistenza. In una vecchia vasca da bagno colma di un acido potente. Dentro un fosso carbonario d’altri tempi, di quelli a cui dedicava tante parole. Nella cripta di una chiesetta abbandonata di montagna. In una delle tante dimensioni che noi non conosciamo ancora ma Lila sì, e ora se ne sta là insieme alla figlia.

(What is the point of all these pages, then? I intended to capture her, to have her beside me again,and I will die without knowing if I succeeded. Sometimes I wonder where she vanished. At the bottom of the sea. Through a fissure or down some subterranean tunnel whose existence she alone knows. In an old bathtub filled with a powerful acid. In an ancient garbage pit, one of those she devoted so many words to. In the crypt of an abandoned church in the mountains. In one of the many dimensions that we don’t know yet but Lila does, and now she’s there with her daughter.)

[tardigrade666]

Lila not wanting to leave anything of herself behind and yet every person she meets leaves changed and impacted

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

I am. Seeing the asexual!Lila vision.

[deerest-deer]

lila + red

[erosdoceamargo]

the creepy gals from napoli

[raffaella-cerullo]

“When I saw him after Lidia’s funeral and told him about Lila he burst out laughing. She must be doing her intelligent and imaginative things somewhere, he muttered. And it moved him to remember the time in the neighborhood library when the teacher assigned prizes to the most diligent readers, and the most diligent was Lila, who took out books illegally with her relatives’ cards. Ah, Lila the shoemaker, Lila who imitated Kennedy’s wife, Lila the artist and designer, Lila the worker, Lila the programmer, Lila always in the same place and always out of place.”

[epifaniacintilante]

I hope at least once in your life you feel what I'm feeling now

[sneakydraws]

My friendship with Lila began the day we decided to go up the dark stairs that led, step after step, flight after flight, to the door of Don Achille’s apartment.