My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Being at least marginally aware of books, I'd heard of this series long before I got anywhere near reading it. I knew that the identity of the author was unknown. (It's since been revealed, but I find it hard to care one way or the other.)  I'd heard that her writing about girls and women was powerful and realistic. I knew that the list of holds at the library was truly daunting. It was fully years before that hold list subsided to the level that I could finally get this book out without being worried that it would almost immediately be recalled from me.

I settled in, to see if this book lived up the hype and the mystery. And truly, I was not disappointed. This was nothing like what I was expecting, but it felt like it captured something of a particular time and place (hopefully well, I have no lived experience of post-war Italy to compare it to), of relationships between girls growing up, about ambition and restraint, about the ways in which the body becomes the public face of a person, and how girls are affected in different ways by early sexualization of their time on the streets.

We follow two girls, Lila and Lena (Lila's name is actually shortened to Lina, except to the  narrator, Lena, who calls her Lila, if you follow me.)  They are girls in a working-class neighborhood of Naples, and the boundaries of the neighborhood are the boundaries of their world. They are friends from an early age, although Lila is prickly and challenging - just the kind of challenging Lena needs to actually try some things by thinking of what her friend would do.  Their neighborhood is bossed around by a man many hate and fear, a man who turns up dead early in the book, and although someone is arrested for the crime, Lila is unconvinced.

But this is not a mystery novel. That question exists in the background, as does whether or not a woman who lives upstairs from the girls' families had an affair with a prominent local, or is making it up. That one gets more resolved, but it's not about true or false. It's about the neighborhood, the way in which people know each other's lives and do not, about the stories that assume the weight of truth.

Much of the book is about expectations for women in the particular time and place in which the girls grow up. The boys might want them as girlfriends without knowing what that means, but young men approaching an age of independence have their eyes on them as well - Lila responds with a knife, which Lena respects without knowing why.

And where the title comes in - Lila is brilliant, soaking up information in school. Sparked by competition with her friend, Lena works harder to accomplish what comes to Lila as easily as breathing - but when their teacher goes to each family trying to get them to send the girls for further schooling, Lena's parents reluctantly agree, while Lila's do not.

At first, Lila keeps up through the library, but eventually her attention flags. Lena, with the minimal encouragement from her family and trying to stay ahead of her friend in early days, begins to excel more and more, eventually going to what seems to be the equivalent of high school as well. She is set apart from most of the girls in the neighborhood, whereas Lila has to deal with a couple of older suitors, at least one of them who continues to pursue her despite being threatened by the knife, with her parents browbeating her to accept his suit. We can see that potential trainwreck heading towards marriage. It is diverted onto slightly better tracks, but still ones that see Lila heading for wifedom and motherhood, while Lena struggles to juggle what she knows and what she's learning.

None of this unfolds at a breakneck pace. This isn't a plot heavy book - it's a book that is about the life of these girls in this neighborhood, as the world starts to become a larger place for both of them, although still bounded by the expectations of those around them. I really enjoyed this, and was glad it finally came in at the library!