I am still reading the Neapolitan story

                                                            

For a few weeks now, my reading has been going along one track of the Neapolitan story. It is a bit out of character as I typically read more than one book at a time. This time, I do not meander reading this and that, it is all about Lenu, Lina and Italian politics in the sixties, seventies and moving into eighties. Emotionally it is not an easy read. I read it fast, often at night even if that negatively affects my sleep. The poison of the dark story saturates me slowly, but there is no way I wound not finish the books. In fact, I think I will be going through withdrawal symptoms when I finish. I am reading the last book The Story of the Lost Child. The young women are just over thirty years old, their personal lives are complicated. Since the story continues over many years, there is no concept of “and they lived happily ever after”. There are happy life events and then there are disappointments, betrayals, new loves and new problems and new happy events. Just like life typically is. I find many points that remind my life, trigger off memories I have not thought about for many years.

It is easy for me to associate with parts of the story, especially that Italian and Polish temperaments have common points. Both explosive at times, emotional, exaggerating negatives, warm and friendly when things are going well but ready to fight and quarrel when things are not going according to their wishes. Being a part of a Swedish family I have tempered expression of my emotions and passing of time also had a calming influence on me. Reading the book, though, I find hot-tempered reactions rather natural and that makes me aware that I have traveled a long way since my childhood similarly to Lenu and Lina.

I like the way Ferrante writes about political upheavals in Italy. I was always aware of the country having strong communistic movements, similarly to France. My knowledge was never deep and it was based on what I read in the press of the times. Reading the book I can recall the names and situations that were shaking Italy over the years. Almost all characters in the book have strong political views and many of them are deeply involved. Some are Camorrists, some are fascists and some are communists. The book tells stories of families and those stories are like an undercurrent of the political situations. The reader is left to draw own conclusions of what is actually happening in the country. Some Camorra bosses give “jobs” to friends and their children. These are rather mysterious jobs that take people away from the country and sometimes force them to disappear from the neighbourhood. Reading the books the reader gets to know the characters from their early years as boys and girls perhaps naughty, perhaps unruly but innocent at the start. Some of them grow into violent people, hurting and even killing others but I have difficulties to condemn them the way I would reading of such stories in media. This I consider strength of the book, it tells the story and through the story gives reasons for why things happen that way or another. Significant events emerge from apparently trivial stories in an unobtrusive way. 

Shimbashi

Some time ago, I decided that my way of exercising will be walking. Being brought up in continental Europe, sport was not seen as a thing to get involved in. Maybe watching could be OK, but not making oneself sweaty. My mother even considered that I could catch a cold being too active. I wrote “continental Europe” as Great Britain was always an exception. The positive one, as I see it now. So, I walk quite often. In the era of fitbits and other pedometers it is easy to measure steps and my goal is to walk 10,000 each day.

                                          

 During my walks I often  pass a Japanese restaurant  where from time to time one can see the cook making noodles on the board placed next to the window. He looked interesting, engrossed in his work, never looking up at the passers-by, skillfully using his rollers to flatten the dough. Often I wanted to stop and watch him for a while, but I never dared to out of respect of him being so busy and professional.  I did not want to disturb him.  As it often happens in life, I promised myself to go to this restaurant one day. Some years passed and my intention remained an intention only. I do not seem to have a friend who would be interested in having buckwheat soba noodles, so there was no opportunity. Going out on my own for dinner seemed a bit uncomfortable. Until yesterday.

I was returning from my doctor who gave me the good news. I have been worried for a while that I may be medically in trouble, so after hearing rather positive assessment I felt  relieved but assimilating the good verdict was not automatic. Grateful, but not fully believing my luck I started to walk towards home. The distance between the hospital and my home is considerable and I typically take a bus to get there. Now, I was walking towards home with an intention to take a bus at some stage. I wanted to find a place to have something to eat on the way. Not seeing anything tempting, I kept walking and thinking about starting a new carefree chapter in my life. A New Beginning again! Then, I realized that I have not found a suitable place to have a simple dinner but I am already close to home. The Japanese restaurant came to mind. It was on my way home. Such a great opportunity for a little celebration and realising one of my old plans. It suddenly did not matter that I would go to the restaurant on my own even if this is a rather formal restaurant, not a simple place I was intending to find for my dinner. I walked in and I liked the place, so I decided to stay. 

                                        

 I have some experience in selecting food of various origins, but this time, it was not so easy. Normally, I just glance at the menu and select dishes quickly. Not this time, I actually read the whole long menu and did not know what to chose. The buckwheat soba was definitely something I wanted to have, but even with this knowledge, it was not too easy to select my dish. Eventually, I decided for a mushrooms  and chicken hot soba soup. Since it was a little celebration I wanted to have some wine with it. And again, normally simple thing proved not to be so simple this time. The drink menu had a number of beers, sakes and other Japanese drinks I did not know. A bit confused I asked the waiter which of the drinks would be closest to white wine. She turned the drink menu over and there I saw a very familiar wine list, even Pinot Gris was there and I ordered it. Waiting for my dinner I read Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. Things were looking up. I had a good time and it was rather comfortable to be on my own.

The dish I chose was fantastic!  The mushrooms were the Japanese ones, hardly cooked giving nice, crunchy texture; the whole thing was fragrant and well flavoured. Very enjoyable. From now on, I intend to visit the place regularly and make my selection more bravely. The restaurant is called Shimbashi which suggests geishas’ involvement, but I find the place very suitable for me even if I visit it on my own. It is not often that one’s expectations are exceeded but this was my experience this time.

After this unexpectedly good meal, I was ready to continue to walk home. I managed without getting tired and without taking a bus. And I did my 10,000 steps!

Reflections on the Naples story

                                                

I am now reading the third part of the Naples quartet and the last, the fourth book is already waiting on my table. I am really engrossed in the story, read late into nights and feel a need to write some of my current thoughts. I am running a risk that I will change my views, but after all, this is my blog, not a regular book review channel. This is some sort of disclaimer that makes me feel excused from writing half cooked thoughts.

In my previous post, I was very enthusiastic about the books, but I started to have second thoughts again. I understand that “the neighbourhood”, as Ferrante describes the part of Naples the main action takes place in, is by its definition limited in its population. But even accepting that, I started to find it a bit irritating that the characters reappear unexpectedly and are connected with others who earlier did not belong to the same thread. It seems intellectually incestuous and artificial to me.

I am reading at the moment the part of the book that is concerned with Italian social inequalities and unbelievably hard situation of unqualified workers in the sixties and seventies and the protests against it. There is some feministic slant as well. Women particularly suffer, in addition to the normal problems of the poor and hard working have to put up with being humiliated as convenient sex objects.  The books make many political statements and present various perspectives. The workers perspective and the perspective of their supporters – particularly students and the academics. I have to confess that my main interest is related to the psychology of the story and looking for an answer to my perennial question “how to live, prime minister?”. The part of the book I am reading at the moment is not concerned with such issues and here is my opportunity to learn more about Italy than I already know of it’s Renaissance. Actually, I believe that the whole book will lead me towards understanding Italy a little better. I still have another 600+ pages to read, so things will unfold. Already I am starting to have some understanding of the Years of Lead and appreciation of how subtly and masterfully Ferrante introduced the issues. I see how my understanding grew with the story.  First one gets only small signs of obscure social and political issues. Gossips, observations of a young girl, descriptions of fights in the neighbourhood and their causes.  It all develops to present serious political and social issues.

The language of the book is its strong part. It is written as a story told by the author, the main character Lenu. It starts when she is about 10 years old and in the part, I am reading now she is in her thirties. I was a bit disappointed with the language of the book reading its first part. I did not have any need to look into the dictionary. I thought that the language was on a simple side. And now I see that it had to be when written by the girl not yet sixteen. The second book gave me few opportunities to learn new words and now the style is almost belonging to political activists. Not my particular interest, but appropriate to the action. Generally speaking, my interest in politics is minimal. I still masochistically follow Polish politics and I am well informed, but at the same time, I am aware that there is almost nothing I could do to change things I worry about and I do worry which has the negative impact on my health. I have been sensitive to the moral injustice of many events that take place in the world, but I never got really involved. Maybe I should have been. There were reasons and opportunities to get involved in Polish Solidarity movement and the earlier events leading to Solidarity, but I did not go that way. I may be a fan of Bob Marley but I “gave up the fight”.

Opposite to me Lina, the “wicket” heroine of the story got involved and “stood up for her rights”, but realizing the price of being outspoken and superficiality of support of academics, she decides not to fight, she just wants to live as well as the circumstances allow. Lina is a courageous person, sometimes even reckless in her choices and actions, so maybe I could forgive myself for not being involved in bringing change when it was needed and possible.

Lina is a complex character and that is what makes the book so interesting. However, I find it difficult to go along with the story of a girl who is able to fight stronger than herself, marrying a wealthy shopkeeper, then walking away from financial security for love to be soon left by her lover and land up in inhumane conditions in a mortadella factory in. A bit too far fetched for me. Still, I am reserving the final judgment till later when I progress with the book further.  

The Story of a New Name

                                                                     

                                                                     

The Elena Ferrante quartet is making bigger and bigger impression on me. It is a compulsive reading. I read it at any free moment of my days and at times I even neglect things I should be doing instead of reading. I realized that my feelings about the book are ambivalent when my dentist seeing me appearing in his surgery with the book asked me what I am reading and how I like it.

My dentist is a great dentist and a very nice person. I heard many times that the dentists have the highest suicide rate. I do not know answers to questions: “in relations to whom?” or “what are the reasons for it?” I just assumed that it must be a boring, repetitive job, patients typically are afraid of them and it is difficult to build a rapport with people who can not speak during the visit. My dentist found the way around it. His routine, I have not seen changed for the last fifteen years, is to have a social ten minutes before he starts his professional job. He has wide interests and the good memory. I even look forward to the interaction at the beginning of the visit that is not particularly attractive even if my approach to dentists is perhaps atypically positive. The other day he asked the question which made me aware of my ambivalent feeling towards the book I am reading. My answer was “This is a quartet about life in Naples starting in the fifties and continuing for more than fifty years. Mainly about friendship. It reads very well, but I am not sure if it is a good book or just a trashy one.”

    

Naples is now on my bucket list

                                                                              

I am almost finished with the second book, The Story of a New Name, and I am just starting to think that it is a good book after all. Obviously not all really good books have to be heavy to read. It is a danger however that reading the book fast and with only short breaks I may miss points that are important. It is my job to stop from time to time and reflect a bit before new messages bombard me in following chapters. So, I have stopped reading this morning to reflect a bit on what I have read so far.

For me this is the book about a complicated friendship, needs for inspiration, about Naples and its Camorra, about growing out of one's neighbourhood, about bettering oneself, about the role of women in men’s life  and many other universal life dilemmas.

Since my knowledge about Camorra was almost not existent before I started to read the book, I had to look up the WikipediA and it said:

The Camorra is an Italian Mafia-type crime syndicate, or secret society, which arose in the region of Campania and its capital Naples. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating back to the 16th century. Unlike the pyramidal structure of the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra's organizational structure is more horizontal than vertical. Consequently, individual Camorra clans act independently of each other, and are more prone to feuding among themselves.

I already found all of that confirmed in the book in a literary way. Even if mafia’s life is not the most important fascination for me, I was surprised to realize how natural it is for young men in Naples to get on the payroll of the organization and treat their involvement as a regular job. Sure the job requires sometimes sorting out problems of one’s bosses and do it with force and violence, but it does not have to be in conflict with commendable values that some members of Camorra may have.

Recruting and teaching 

                                        

Related to the role of Camorra of controlling business and money, there is one other aspect that made me think almost with some sort of envy, this is caring for people the organization or their members consider as belonging to their circle. They do not have to formally belong to the organization, but if they are in trouble, and this is almost always noticed, help comes from many sources. This resonates with me strongly as I have recognized some time ago that belonging is an important aspect of our lives. In comorric society one always belongs somewhere, want is or not. Some time ago I would consider that invasive. Private life should be just that – private. But reading the book I almost long for somebody watching over me with an intention to help when needed.  Some stories I am reading about are very appealing to me from this point of view. It seems that primitive societies offer their members more humanity than we receive in our sophisticated, well organized, highly developed ones.

Hmm, something to think about…

I got to my “800 words” (not coincidently, this is the name of a new Australian serial), so I stop here for today. My closing remark: if reading the book brought me to the subject of loneliness in modern societies, it must be a book of value after all.

My Brilliant Friend

                                        

I just finished the first part of Elena Ferrante Neapolitan quartet – My Brilliant Friend. I am dazzled and still a bit confused. This is now the time to sort out my thoughts and reflect on what the book really represents to me.  It moved me. At the same time I am aware of the fact that the books I have read lately moved me more than it was my experience in the past. And I always read. Maybe not that intensively in some years as now, but there was always a book in my briefcase and another one on my night table. There was a long time in my life I did not read novels or very few of them. This has suddenly changed. Maybe it happened under influence of a close friend, the husband of my best girlfriend and a teacher of literature? Whatever the reason, I really enjoy my new reading choices. After Karl Ove Knausgaard, Donna Tartt and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara it is time for Elena Ferrante and her four books about Naples and lives of two friends Elena and Lila. All of the books made a big impression on me and enriched my life considerably. I also found answers to many of existential questions especially reading A Little Life. I intend to re-read the book soon.

I read with equal to the current intensity during my gap year, I spent this time in Warsaw. I just moved there from a small town, the town I never liked or felt at home, to the big smoke where I did not have any friends from the start. While preparing for my entry exams to join the faculty of math I was wondering from time to time if I should not rather study literature, psychology or philosophy. At the end I made a practical choice to study math and even if it was not my calling it allowed me to find good and interesting jobs during my long career and do it with ease.

Looks like now again I am looking for ways to live my life more meaningfully and to reach peaceful contentment.  Hence, books play a special role in my life right now. I am looking for pointers. Ralf Waldo Emerson said that “other men are lenses through which we read our own minds” I would say that some books can play such role as well and I am counting that I will find some answers and ideas by reading.

Ferrante’s story tells us that the environment in which we grow up determines who we later become and how we live our lives. Scary thought, so looking at my own roots, I immediately found arguments that this does not apply to me. But even if I have strong arguments to support my view, there are moments I am not all that certain if I am right. I grew up in a town that I never liked and I had not become close to anyone during my childhood to reminisce with my early years. When I moved to Warsaw I did not turn back to recall the past years. Sometimes I think that my life started in Warsaw. There is at least one friendship from my Warsaw times that formed parts of me and is still important. Somebody said that Ferrante tells us “no self can be left behind” and that we can not escape our past. Hmm… Here I lose my conviction that I was able to fully escape the inheritance of the shabby, industrial, narrow-minded town I grew up in.

                                   

I can not argue with the Ferrante view that women identities are shaped by their men. That  sometimes their selves may be distorted or even destroyed by men they love. It happens that men are also formed by women, but this is not that prevailing and it is rather their mothers that impress their stamps of soul ownership not so much their beloved. Such is our earlier conditioning and traditions.  

I am aware that I have been strongly influenced by important men in my life. I was even formed by them to some extent. I must say that a lot of this influence was a good one, but I may have lost my identity for a number of years.

As I am waiting for the next two Ferrante books to be delivered by Book Depository, I will be thinking more about what My Brilliant Friend told me about myself and life in general. Ralf Waldo Emerson said that “other men are lenses through which we read our own minds” I would say that some books can play such a role as well. This is how I consider the book I have just read.