The Story of a New Name

The Story of a New Name is the second volume of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels series, which I borrowed from the library (there were many reservations ahead of me, so I had to wait a while). This copy was obviously well read, with a cracked spine and soft pages -- lovely to handle!

At first I had some trouble getting back into the story. Who were all these people again? The cast of the 'neighborhood' had faded from my memory and I found it hard to pick up the threads. It also takes me a while to adjust to Ferrante's style: the long, complex sentences, the detailed dissection of emotion and, in contrast, the almost complete lack of physical description.

But soon I was wrapped up in the story -- the complicated web of interpersonal relationships, love and hate, jealousy and obligation that criss-crosses the neighborhood; and the equally complex inner lives of the two young friends, Elena and Lina/Lila, at the centre of the narrative. When the story opens, Lila is newly married (at sixteen!) but the relationship soon founders. The most compelling section of the novel centres on a summer holiday at the beach on Ischia, where Elena, Lila and another friend meet up with a boy from the neighborhood who Elena has always loved. The painful account of Elena's repressed feelings, her growing conviction that Nino also cares for her, and the inevitable betrayal when Nino and Lila begin a clandestine relationship, is absolutely gripping and agonising. It brought back terrible memories of unrequited love from my own youth. From there I raced to the end of the book, and I've just reserved the next volume!

This is a novel of contrasts. For the first time the story creeps out from the narrow bounds of the neighborhood (apparently based on the Rione Luzzatti district of Naples, which is tiny) to explore other areas of the city and the island of Ischia. Lila, so tempestuous and unpredictable, seems more brilliant and gifted than conscientious Elena, and yet it's Lila who finds herself trapped in her marriage and the business of grocery store and shoe factory, while Elena escapes to study in Pisa, opening the door to a yet wider world.

At the start of the novel, Lila seems to have it all, wealth, love, glamour and power, while Elena is her timid shadow; by the end of the book, the scales have switched and Elena is the successful one, while Lila appears to have lost everything.

Yet again, I've turned to Google Maps and images to give me a visual sense of the setting. Thank God for the internet!