Grace, Grit, and Grime: The Magic of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet

There’s a question I’ve always wondered, yet always lacked a certain something to properly describe. If I were to disappear, what would be left in my place?

“Unlike stories, real life, when it passes, inclines towards obscurity, not clarity.”

(Ferrante 473)

Wonder naturally pops a few hazy things to mind. Big words, like Nothing or Everything. Small things like dust motes and atomic tokes. The nostalgia in me manifests these vague notions in a Wile E. Coyote-hole, smack bang in the middle of all this, cutting across however many dimensions you think constitute this wacky, wacky world. And then I think about me and the physical laws of the universe a little bit more and realise that in actual fact, entropy would likely disperse particles across whatever vacuum it is that I leave. Which then pops another thing to mind – my messy, messy room. Torn undies strewn over the dresser, open books with creases and folds of long-lost inspired moments, and a cup or two of bushels dotted around with impressionistic neglect. Without a doubt, there would be a trace left of me. And even for the freakiest cleaner, their dustless, spotless, fun-less room would still be bleached with their essence, that is, veneers of squeaky-clean reflections. This is not intended to be a tirade on those who differ to me, no, I’d find it weird if I lived in a world of only me’s. What hides behind my veiled disses is nothing more than a bubbling potion of fear, envy, and respect. This is about the unavoidability of presence. I’m here, you’re here, we’re here, so there’s nowhere else to go.

What about all those times you sneeze? Those moments where someone mentions your name, thinks, or judges you? Those moments when friends, family, allies, and enemies alike all think to themselves, “Ahhh poor, [enter name], I hope they’re going alright.” The little categories of condescension and concern bobbing around in people’s noggins would still carry a stained image of us. Sorry schmucks we are. Apologies for implicating you, sometimes I just can’t bear to be alone. Which gets me to the point, or at least a point; no matter how many times you chase road runner off an edge, you might not have nabbed the bugger, but you sure did have a crack. Or, in simpler, and less contrived metaphorical terms, the intent, whether in running, picking apples, or disappearing, will always remain behind the final act. And it actually makes sense, when you think about it, and by it, I mean Magicians.

Yes, Magicians. Magicians (yes, Magicians) make their money out of disappearing this and that, but the gob-smacking awe and wonder doesn’t form complete or ‘actual’ disappearance, rather, from remembering that the rabbit was once on stage. The presumption is, once gone, some thing must still be some where. True disappearance is never remembered. And is certainly a worthy antimony for any armchair boogie, or scratch of the chin. I’ve done both of those things, to only slight avail, and all I’ve got is one answer: the most successful Magician, the true one, will always be broke.

The wackiness of disappearance, the gist of what I’ve been spouting for those who haven’t been paying attention, is one of the central themes of Elena Ferrante’s ‘Neapolitan Quartet’, albeit framed far more eloquently. Ferrante’s engagement is considerably more active than any cushion moulding, finger tapping, thought pontificating, faker like me. Where I only have pretension to fall back on, she utilises everything, from grace, to grit, to grime. 

In My Brilliant Friend, we are introduced to Elena, the narrator, soon after she has discovered the disappearance of her lifelong friend, Lila. What is striking is that this vanishing act comes as no surprise to Elena. Instead, it is viewed almost fatalistically, as though Lila was bound to disappear, wipe away every trace, of her own accord.  No notes, no clothes, no photos, everything – gone. There is no thrilling mystery to be solved, only a fact that needs to be tested. Does Lila live on through Elena? Which raises the further concern, a concern that can be shared by us all, as to whether our relationships with one another are truly co-constitutive, or do we just see ourselves, or what we desire in the Other?

Is it all just an illusion? How many times have we heard that one? The antiquated question plaguing the grey-nomads of history, Philosophers, is once more raised. But not by a dilly-dallying perspective of the pre-ordained primordial privileged few, no, this time thankfully, by a writer who’s willing to say it how it is; to call a table a table, and to call life a smutty admixture of power and force. Elena sits down to write the story of friendship, to see whether Lila can be found in her words.

Lila and Elena first meet when playing with their two dolls nearby the ‘Stradone’, the main street of the neighbourhood. Just after their dolls first encounter, Lila throws Elena’s doll down into the darkness of the basement. And taking up the logic of their world, Elena retributively tosses Lila’s down too. So begins their first adventure together. To venture into the dark, that is not mere dark, but their projection of all the evil of the world, the black bag, the stomach of the monster that is Don Achille. A gangster, a loan-shark, a thug, the source of the muck in the neighbourhood, and so, the singular force of all that is wrong in their world. Only being thrown into the abyss, into the pool of muck, can we see whether the grime is bottomless, or merely a shallow façade pretending to be a mean, mean monster. Here, we get a glimpse at change. By falling into the darkness, we run the gambit of self-destruction, but only through that risk, comes the possibility of revelation. Our understanding of the world, our understanding of ourselves necessarily changes, but what comes of this?

“I must have overdone it, and the relationship between truth and fiction must have gone awry; now every street, every building has become recognisable, and maybe even the people, even the violent acts.”

(Ferrante 283)

Ferrante’s story spreads over the course of a lifetime in Naples, dressed around the bustling and expansive change of the post-WW2 era. But the story is not just of a lifetime. The friendship told and revisited feeds into and is constituted by a complex tapestry, interweaving the coarse inevitability of blood, violence, and corruption with the delicate transience of hope, virtue, and justice. It is no coincidence that the harsh themes are tangible and visceral, dripping with the sweat of an ever-present muck, while redemption conceived vaguely, only recedes momentarily under the light of idealistic promise. Disappearance is not the hope of just a person, but of the collective. While the Stradone of the neighbourhood opens up to Naples and Naples opens up the world, the question is constantly asked – is the gift of modernity actually new, or is it merely the same red they’ve always known, only repackaged in plastic, ready to bleed and stain the world indelibly at first use?

“To be born in that city… is useful for only one thing: to have always known, almost instinctively, what today, with endless finite distinctions, everyone is beginning to claim: that the dream of unlimited progress is in reality a nightmare of savagery and death.”

(Ferrante 337)

So, what are we left with? A question toward the inevitability of the personal and the intersubjective. Is Elena more than just the blood that runs through her? And is the world more than just the spilling of that same blood? The two questions in tandem confront the question of disappearance and illusion in its truest form.  If I can change myself, then I can change the world, and if I can change the world, then I can change myself. The source of freedom is co-constitutive in our relation to whatever it is out there. And so, confronted with the vanishing act of her friend, setting out to write their story, we are presented with a tension, that leaves only one answer – freedom. For if Elena can find Lila in her words, then she is not closed off from reality, and even if she can’t find them, that means Lila has truly disappeared and liberated herself from all that remains.

“Everything moves. A wish, a fantasy travels more swiftly than blood.”

(Ferrante 368)

There is power in this story, that traces the lines of how a person comes to be. From luck, to lust, to irony, we encounter the grace, grit, and grime of all that is. Somewhere in the middle, meaning invariably manifests, in the encounters we have with others. To engage with Ferrante, is to engage with a world, and the magic that stirs the possibility of change.

Ferrante, E. “The Story of the Lost Child.” Neapolitan Series, Europa Editions, 2014, 473.