Mini Book Review: Elena Ferrante/IN THE MARGINS
A book review in 500 words or less
Title: IN THE MARGINS: ON THE PLEASURES OF READING AND WRITING/Author: Elena Ferrante/Copyright: 2022/Publisher: Europa Editions/Medium: Hardcover (111pp)/Genre: essay/Translated from Italian to English by Ann Goldstein
Purchased: Madison Street Books in Chicago, Illinois. They create bespoke book boxes!
Summary: Writing is super hard and mysterious but important.
Short Review: This account of writing rang true to me but also made me feel inadequate.
Are good writers interesting people? I’ve always wondered that more so than wondered whether I can still like the books of those authors who are considered to be bad people.
Elena Ferrante is not Elena Ferrante. Most people know that the author of the Neapolitan Novels has adopted a pseudonym since she became famous in 1991. Margins gives some insight into maybe why. In her four essays, Ferrante discusses a “splintered self” that is writing — none of them really a singular person. “The writer has no name,” she says. She also touches upon the idea of writing within the boundaries of the red lines in a notebook as a metaphor to what is considered good, traditional writing. The kind for which she and many other famous authors are commended. The other kind goes beyond the margins so to speak. It is described in many ways: frenetic, a convulsive act, a hammer, to name a few.
Ferrante’s fiction often tells a familiar story with a unique and serious perspective. What struck me about the Neapolitan Novels was the lack of lightness or humor the whole way through. She keeps you in the underbelly of Naples. Even pockets of hope, including Lena’s escape to a better life, are tarnished by the reality of her station in life, always beckoning, calling her back. It is hardly a wonder that Ferrante’s Lost Daughter was made into a horror/thriller film, which ends with the line, “I’m dead, but I’m fine.”
Exactly.
Margins is equally dense. This book’s 111 pages contain stunning intellect and writing that make the philosophical treatises I’ve read feel underwhelming. I admit this book takes some work to get through. It is not a light or easy read. Other reviewers have called it “subtle” which I take as true but more of a euphemism for challenging and rewarding. I recommend it for those who write or create and those who are interested in big questions of life, ethics, and epistemology.
Overall, Ferrante is incredibly underrated.
For those interested in the background. Elena gave these lectures at the University of Bologna in 2021 vis-a-vis the actress, Manuela Mandracchia.
