The Neapolitan Quartet
Sep. 9th, 2017 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI finished Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay and have since been forced by bitter exigencies (well, work) to put off reading the fourth Neapolitan novel - AGONY! Although I decided that this agony would be much better than the agony of being forced to read it in driblets around work, so really I have no one to blame but myself.
The third book ends with Elena in an airplane, leaving her husband to run away with Nino, OH ELENA NO, I foresee that this will end in tragedy. Elena ought to be able to foresee this ending in tragedy! She knows from both Lila and Silvia that Nino has a habit of seducing women, impregnating them, and then ditching them before the baby's even born.
(Admittedly Lila's baby turned out not to be Nino's, but he didn't know that.)
It's all especially worrisome because the next book is called The Story of the Lost Child so - I sort of expect that either Elena will end up divorced and lose her daughters from her marriage (I have no idea how custody law worked in 1960s Italy but I imagine it frowned upon blatantly adulterous women), or she'll get pregnant by Nino and have to give the baby up for adoption so she can move back in with her husband again after Nino ditches her, too.
Seriously, though, Nino is practically "Why leftist men are the worst: a case study." WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM? Does he have a seduce-and-abandon fetish? Is he just in love with the rush of being in love, and as soon as that excitement begins to fade he loses all interest in the relationship?
And, knowing that he is this kind of person - although possibly it's assuming too much to think he possesses that self-knowledge - why on earth did he marry a women with fragile mental health who previously attempted suicide twice? Does he want to drive her over the edge with his inevitable betrayals?
She has not, as of the end of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, attempted suicide again, but there's a whole book left for her to try it.
...Also, clearly Nino despises his father not because his father is a cheating jerk, but because he writes bad poetry. WHY, NINO. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS AND WHY DO WOMEN LIKE YOU?
Actually, I take it back, I 100% get why women like him: he listens to Elena, to Lila, presumably to his other paramours, as if he actually cares about their thoughts and takes them seriously, and he seems to be the only man in 1960s Italy who does so. Of course that's a stunning aphrodisiac. Even Elena's husband, who seemed to have some interest in her this way before the marriage, loses it once they're married.
Other thoughts!
I really want Lila to show up before the end of book four. I want to know how she disappeared! And I want her and Elena to finally have the chance to sit down and really talk about things, as it seems they have not had for thirty years. Or maybe Lila will discover Elena's manuscript and write some sort of response? Or simply write Elena a letter saying "I disappeared successfully! But then I realized I missed you, so I'm writing you a letter even though that undisappears me," or something like that. I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHERE SHE WENT AND HOW.
The third book ends with Elena in an airplane, leaving her husband to run away with Nino, OH ELENA NO, I foresee that this will end in tragedy. Elena ought to be able to foresee this ending in tragedy! She knows from both Lila and Silvia that Nino has a habit of seducing women, impregnating them, and then ditching them before the baby's even born.
(Admittedly Lila's baby turned out not to be Nino's, but he didn't know that.)
It's all especially worrisome because the next book is called The Story of the Lost Child so - I sort of expect that either Elena will end up divorced and lose her daughters from her marriage (I have no idea how custody law worked in 1960s Italy but I imagine it frowned upon blatantly adulterous women), or she'll get pregnant by Nino and have to give the baby up for adoption so she can move back in with her husband again after Nino ditches her, too.
Seriously, though, Nino is practically "Why leftist men are the worst: a case study." WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM? Does he have a seduce-and-abandon fetish? Is he just in love with the rush of being in love, and as soon as that excitement begins to fade he loses all interest in the relationship?
And, knowing that he is this kind of person - although possibly it's assuming too much to think he possesses that self-knowledge - why on earth did he marry a women with fragile mental health who previously attempted suicide twice? Does he want to drive her over the edge with his inevitable betrayals?
She has not, as of the end of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, attempted suicide again, but there's a whole book left for her to try it.
...Also, clearly Nino despises his father not because his father is a cheating jerk, but because he writes bad poetry. WHY, NINO. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS AND WHY DO WOMEN LIKE YOU?
Actually, I take it back, I 100% get why women like him: he listens to Elena, to Lila, presumably to his other paramours, as if he actually cares about their thoughts and takes them seriously, and he seems to be the only man in 1960s Italy who does so. Of course that's a stunning aphrodisiac. Even Elena's husband, who seemed to have some interest in her this way before the marriage, loses it once they're married.
Other thoughts!
I really want Lila to show up before the end of book four. I want to know how she disappeared! And I want her and Elena to finally have the chance to sit down and really talk about things, as it seems they have not had for thirty years. Or maybe Lila will discover Elena's manuscript and write some sort of response? Or simply write Elena a letter saying "I disappeared successfully! But then I realized I missed you, so I'm writing you a letter even though that undisappears me," or something like that. I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHERE SHE WENT AND HOW.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-10 05:37 pm (UTC)Ooooooof. I feel this so hard right now. Part of the frustration with my recent breakup was that I knew the person didn't have a lot of emotional maturity, but they were smart and they listened and they treated me like I was smart and they clearly cared and....augh. (I don't think they have a seduce-and-abandon fetish, just a terror of emotional intimacy past a certain point...maybe that's what's up with Nino?) And this is in 2017. The fact that this is still an unusual ability among men is kind of mind-boggling to me.
ETA: Thinking on it further, I'm actually not sure this is as unusual among men as it simply is among people. Definitely there's still the men-don't-listen-to-women dynamic going on (often to a stunning degree, given how long it's been since we identified this as a problem), but the fact is, the ability to listen and understand someone, to empathize, isn't really something that's taught in our culture. I've noticed more than once when I practice it that people (especially people I don't know well) react strangely - depending on the person and where they're at in life, often they'll start telling you all sorts of confidences, or else they'll notice you're actually listening to what they say, get discomfited, and clam up. Being really heard, having the subtext behind our words listened to and acknowledged, is a strangely intimate thing that we really don't experience all that often.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-12 10:49 pm (UTC)That is from the Orestia by Aeschylus, but when I read it I immediately thought of the Neapolitans.
Nino and Agamemnon would not get along at all, but they are both the worst.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 12:35 am (UTC)If I could see a reasonable way to blame him for the disappearance of Lila's daughter Tina I totally would, but sadly I think that was just malevolent fate.
Honestly, I think Tina's disappearance was the moment when the book broke me: it was just so cruel, after everything else that had happened, I just can't get over it. AND THEN ELENA USED THE INCIDENT TO CREATE A PLOT TO WRITE A BOOK TO REVIVE HER REPUTATION, she goes on and on about Lila's meanness and, you know, she's not wrong, but - it's sure a case of the pot calling the kettle black!
After that, I kind of understood why Lila would disappear without telling even Elena good bye. There's really no one left she has any real connection to and IT'S JUST SO SAD.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 11:51 am (UTC)I think with any number of other authors, my reaction to Tina's disappearance would have been OH COME ON. All this grinding inescapable systemic misery, and then suddenly this? Piling it a little high, aren't we? But Ferrante knows what she's doing. I didn't even think to question it as an authorial choice.
Nino is a Sensitive Man Who Never Stabbed Anyone. :|