In a world where everyone is fiercely manufacturing opinions, coming across a book that lets you build your opinions is refreshing indeed. This absence of explicitly stated opinions comes from the deftly tempered storytelling by Miss Ferrante - adding poignancy and nuance without the need for resorting to extreme representations of misery, life or the human condition. And this temperance is what makes both Elena and Lila so relate-able, even though they are cohabitants of a different culture, of a different country, of a different century.It's easy to draw a men versus women boundary when a text just wants to focus on the 'female experience' but Miss Ferrante doesn't seem to like the easy stuff. While the insecurities, the and the class struggles that both girls experience are universal, humanitarian themes, their rendition of it in words is uniquely feminine. Their friendship and their viciousness is a complete plot unto itself that weaves together other tropes and characters while it drunkenly makes its way to the end.I say drunkenly because there is no structured-writing tenet that Miss Ferrante wants to respect. Different aspects of the plot unfold as and when she remembers them. Characters are introduced and removed for no seeming rhyme or reason. She just lets the momentum build using the urgency of the story she wants to convey. And that is the fundamental beauty of My Brilliant Friend. There is no write-100-words-then-refine-them-to-ten strategy going on here. It's just simple writing - with no fanfare, stripped to its bones.
This review would not be complete without touching on the climax or rather, lack of it. The book doesn't end with a deliberate action - a propensity that is quintessentially Lila - but ends with just a simple observation. It's empty, it's abrupt and it's not connected to the crucial bit of information that the book starts with. But all of it just somehow comes together, courtesy of the unique storytelling.
My Brilliant Friend is not just a book on the female experience, but on human experience - experiences that are not manufactured in a writers' workshop but crafted by the book's characters.
