Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend: Book One: The Neapolitan Novels: Childhood, Adolescence, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (New York: Europa Editions, 2012) ("How was it possible that a boy of eighteen could speak not generically, in sorrowful accents, about poverty, the way Pasquale did, but concretely, impersonally, citing precise facts. 'Where did you learn those things?' 'You just have to read.' 'What?' 'Newspapers, journals, the books that deal with these problems.'" Id. at 323-324. "I struggled to find questions, I listened closely to his endless answers. I quickly grasped, however, that a single fixed idea constituted the thread of his conversation and animated every sentence: the rejection of vague words, the necessity of distinguishing problems clearly, hypothesizing practical solutions, intervention." Id. at 324.).
Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name: Book Two: The Neapolitan Novels, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (New York: Europa Editions, 2012, 2013) ("'Will you give me one of your books?' she asked. I looked at her in bewilderment. She wanted to read? How long since she had opened a book, three, four years? And why now had she decided to start again? I took the volume of Beckett, the one I used to kill the mosquitoes, and gave it to her. It seemed the most accessible text I had." Id. at 204-205. Also see Joseph Luzzi, "It Started in Naples," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 9/29/2013.).
Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: Book Three: The Neapolitan Novels: Middle Time, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (New York: Europa Editions, 2014) ("'Each of us narrates our life as it suits us.'" Id. at 237. See Roxana Robinson, "Between Women," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 9/7/2014. "There are many ways to examine crime. The Camorra and the Mafia have long held a sinister and glamorous fascination. The Sopranos, with their vulgar, expensive suburban house and mostly ordinary family life, present a skewed version of the American dream, suggesting that the Mafia is simply an alternative form of authority. Ferrante reminds us that crime corrodes, that violence and dishonesty have a deep and permanent impact on society. She knows how they destroy the family, that most essential soctal unit; how the Camorra undermines the father's authority, the mother's love, the children's futures.").
Elena Ferrante, Troubling Love, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (New York: Europa Editions, 1999, 2006).
