This is a quick-paced, brutally frank, and sometimes hilarious look at a woman scorned. The first line of the book jumps right into the action — “One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.” On the surface, this is a story that’s been told a million times. Husband has an affair, leaves wife. Wife feels desperate, sad, angry. Wife starts to feel better and then finds love again. But Ferrante is a brilliant writer who can purposely pick […]
Lives up to the hype and then some: Neapolitan Novels
I’m afraid I may never be able enjoy another book. These Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante are pure perfection and set way too high a bar for anything I may read from now on. I’m reviewing them as a set because I gobbled up all four in under three weeks and they are so cohesive. Although the books were released one by one, each September since 2012, it’s easy to imagine Elena Ferrante (a pseudonym) sitting down and writing all 2,000 or so pages in […]
Fact or Fiction?
I do like that my MFA forces me to read books I wouldn’t normally pick up. While it’s not always a sure-fire way to a favorite read, “My Brilliant Friend” makes my top 10 for ‘required reading.’ A note of caution, this is a long book and is followed up by four subsequent sequels that will totally suck you in, so unless you’re willing to devote a copious slot of time to this story, beware! I was only mildly enjoying the read and thought […]
The film was better (at least in my memory)
Sometime in the first decade of the 20th Century, young Miss Lucy Honeychurch is in Florence with her older, constantly worrying cousin Charlotte Bartlett as companion and chaperone. When they discover that the rooms they’ve been assigned have no nice view, Lucy is disappointed. An older gentleman, Mr. Emerson, offers to trade them, as the rooms he and his son were given have lovely views. “Ladies care about that sort of thing, men do not”. Miss Bartlett is worried about the impropriety of the trade, […]