L'amica geniale (Italian Edition)

I watched the HBO version to get the gist of the story, and, as usual, the book version goes much more in depth with the characters, their motivations, and their development.I purchased the Italian version AND the English version, since this is my most advanced book in Italian so far. I read one chapter of English and then read the same chapter in Italian, and am almost halfway through the book. The story is great, but for me, even better is the exposure I am getting to the language, and feel like I am getting more fluent with each chapter.If you are past "The Little Prince" and don't want to read "Harry Potter" - I would highly recommend this book for some advanced Italian literature for the Italian learner

The first volume in a set of four about the life-long friendship between two working-class girls in Naples. Elena is the narrator, and her early life, beginning when they are 8 or 10 years old, has as its center of gravity her intensely close but problematic relationship with her friend Lila. Lila is indeed brilliant both intellectually and socially. In the social arena she shows great charisma and ferocious courage. I think she is one of the greatest heroines in contemporary fiction, or in fiction full stop. This book explores the violence and exploitation to which girls and women are subjected, especially in a working-class neighborhood where everyone is struggling to survive or to get ahead, or escape. In the background, but often coming to the fore, are the political conflicts stirring in the wake of WWII during the 50s-60s. The politics are dealt with both at an intellectual level, in discussions people have, and is embodied concretely in the lives they lead and the positions they find themselves in. Some of this may be confusing to readers who are not familiar with Italian politics, or European politics more generally. We also learn that the language and culture in Naples is quite different from other areas; the difference is greater between what people in the US or UK call dialects. Here the background is that the various regions and city-states of medieval and then early modern Italy never have formed a very cohesive union or integration. It may be surprising to some readers that the girls in Naples have to struggle to learn to speak "Italian" in school. Once they do, they have a chance to move up in society, but they also risk becoming alienated from their other childhood friends and their own family members, most of whom never have that opportunity.

I read l'Amica Geniale in the original italian, so i cannot spek of the English translation.I found it to be definitely engrossing. I could not wait to get back to reading it, and as soon as I finished it i bought the following book.It's very well written, in a deceptively plain style, and the psychological traits of the two girls' personalities are very subtly and convincingly outlined. They are surrounded by a host of neighborhood personalities, mostly well outlined, amusing and unique.I cannot see, having grown up in Italy, how an American would understand the Neapolitan culture, which is very unique, and is viewed in Italy similarly to the way Cajun culture is considered in the US, having its own specific customs, quirks and characters.But the succes of Elena Ferrante's books in the US shows that enough of the original comes through, in the English translation.

There is nothing in the book that I don’t like!!! I am in the third book and I cannot stop reading!!! It is fascinating the way the characters are describing their lives and all the details about their life!It is wonderful to have them discussing their path through sexuality and the tabu that it was (is) to talk about it in the female world!!! I have never read anything like this before! I am becoming a truly fan of the author!!! Thank you for writing these books! (Ps: I am reading in Italian, which I noticed had improved my Italian as well - I am a Portuguese speaker).

I read it in Italian, a difficult language for me, but this time I had no major difficulties, thanks to the interest of the story, the direct way in which it is written, and the great simple prose of the author.I ended it with some mixed feelings: in a way I felt like I've just read one of the greatest novels of my life. In another way I felt something is missing in order to make it a great, great novel.Definitely, it deserves to be read. I understand perfectly the great interest in Elena Ferrante's novels all around the word. I'm now starting the second book of this series.

When you start reading you will be transported in the world the author describes- you will walk the dusty unpaved streets, you will climb the heavy stairs of the buildings, you will feel the cold air coming from the dark basement and you will truly understand what it meant to be plebes.

My Italian is not altogether fluent, so I stop to look up a couple words per page, but I can say that, although I am not finished, this is a terrific book, quite raw and tough in that Neapolitan way, with very nuanced characters who come across well as unique individuals in an unusual relationship. I am happy to have discovered this author.Tthe level of Italian language is moderately difficult. I was afraid there would be a lot of Neapolitan dialect, colorful no doubt, but hard to find in a dictionary. This has not proven to be a problem so far.

Dopo tutto questo battage pubblicitario e mistero sull'autrice del libro, mi sono decisa a leggere questo fantomatico "caso editoriale" da cui trarranno anche la serie TV.Bellino, ma molto edulcorato... parlano di un rione malfamato di Napoli quasi come fosse il presepe vivente, anche gli ammazzamenti sono ricoperti da una patina zuccherosa..Per chi ama il genere "Miserabili" consiglio qualcosa di più viscerale: la Avallone (Acciaio e Da dove la vita è perfetta), la Mazzantini (Non ti muovere e Venuto al mondo) e le altissime vette di Elsa Morante (La Storia).L'Amica geniale sta ai romanzi di cui sopra come le Sfumature di grigio a Histoire d'O, per intenderci.

Pensateci due volte prima di cominciare: queto racconto affascinante e coinvolgente, una volta iniziato sarete obbligati a leggere anche i volumi seguenti (sto leggendo il terzo volume) e i personaggi vi sembreranno tanto reali da sentire i bisogno di tenervi aggiornati sulle loro vicende sino alla fine e temo già la loro assenza una volta completata la lettura.

Una storia che non mi ha preso.l antipatia delle due protagoniste,il loro rapporto quasi vittima-carnefice mi ha lasciato perplessa.Fatico un po' a comprendere questo successo editoriale così importante.Non leggero' gli altri tre volumi.

On the surface L'Amica Geniale is the captivating story of two girls growing up in a poor quarter of Naples in the 1940s and 50s. At the same time you can see it as a metaphor for the fight for political control of post war Italy. One of the girls, Lila, clever and beautiful is held back by the expectations of her community and leaves school at the end of the elementary level. She invests her dream in a pair of shoes that she has designed and with her brother attempts to create and market them at the family shoe repair shop. They are her route out of poverty. Her beauty attracts the attention of Pasquale a young communist and she shares his values and political ideas but rejects him. She also rejects the advances of the Michele from a family who own the local pasticceria and opts to marry Stefano from a family with Camorra connections because he buys her dream in the form of the shoes she has designed. When she marries him, Michele attends the wedding in her shoes and she recognises her mistake and that the two families, commercialists and camorra are working together to become richer exploiting her shoe design. The other girl, Lenu, meanwhile works her way through school and enters a world of intellectuals and their ideas. In a heavily symbolic episode she challenges her teacher of religion (the church?) and is thrown out of the class. She is helped back in by another teacher who is a communist and who emphasises the need for compromise. She writes about the episode in her student newspaper but it is rejected for lack of space. The struggle between commercial, camorra, communist and religious interests in post war Italy are played out in the lives of these two girls. We see the role of intellectuals and the media. And I can't wait for the next book.

Appena terminata la lettura di qst stupenda quadrilogia:amica geniale, storia del nuovo cognome, chi va e chi resta, la bambina perduta. Ho letto le 1500 e oltre pagine in un mese e mezzo. AppassionAnte, brutalmente sincero nel descrivere tutte le sfumature emozionali di un'amicizia ... Non solo l'amore, il bene, la stima ma anche l'invidia, la paura, la superbia, sentimenti che difficilmente riusciamo a confessare a noi stessi, consapevoli che non sono "giusti", ma che comunque proviamo. Lina e Lenu le due "protagoniste" di questa storia, due personaggi veri e non sai mai da che parte stare, chi vorresti essere, chi preferire perché come noi hanno pregi e anche difetti che vengono messi a nudo pagina dopo pagina ... E così ti trovi totalmente immersa nella loro vita, nelle loro storie e quando arrivi alla fine ti dispiacerà perché sai già che ti mancheranno! Consigliatissimo!!!