Book Review: Frantumaglia takes the reader inside a writer's mind like nothing I've ever seen before. Elena Ferrante thinks so deeply, cares so passionately, works so diligently at her craft that the reader can only sit open-mouthed. This book is like a PhD course in writing. There is so much here, almost too much. She shares everything that goes into her writing, and I couldn't help but be impressed at how profound is her dedication. She writes and remembers deeply the city of Naples (and Italy itself), which is so important to and is so strongly felt in her books. Her commitment to truth in writing is inspiring for any would be author: "when one writes one must never lie. In literary fiction you have to be sincere to the point where it's unbearable, where you suffer the emptiness of the pages." For Ferrante there is a great divide between verisimilitude and authenticity in literature. She also provides draft pages cut from the final versions of her books, and lengthy explanations of why the pages were deleted. Multilayered interpretations of her plots and characters are given.
She discusses in depth her themes of the mother-daughter relationship, friendships between women, and feminism (especially her interest in difference feminism). She writes of her own parents, her mother, and her own friendships, and the dangers of friendships. She candidly admits that initially she was more attracted to female characters written by men, than such written by women, and it took her time to "to learn to love women writers." She also notes how problematic it is that some women prefer "the worst male characters" in her books. Ferrante sees numerous difficulties for women in our not yet adequately redefined modern age, and that despite the advances of feminism, women cannot "lower our guard." Addressing women in writing, she states, "Every woman novelist ... should aim at being not only the best women novelist but the best of the most skilled practitioners of literature, whether male or female. To do so we have to avoid every ideological conformity, every false show of thought, every adherence to a party line or canon." She writes of the deep significance that feminism and post-feminism have had on her writing, though not overtly included in her work, and the fragility of the gains that have been won.
Ferrante is known for writing under a pseudonym and keeping her private life to herself, in her belief "that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors." Her thoughts and writing on this issue are some of the most profound of Frantumaglia (and there's a whole section on that word), taking a razor to the concept of fandom and author as celebrity. She thinks that "for real readers, who wrote it isn't important," and that even Tolstoy "is an insignificant shadow if he takes a stroll with Anna Karenina." "I believe that the true reader shouldn't be confused with the fan." She regrets that in many cases the name of the writer is "better known than his works." Ferrante notes that we know little about Shakespeare and other great writers, that knowledge of the writer is unnecessary for understanding an author's books. "A story is truly alive not because the author is photogenic."
For anyone who has read Ferrante's books and wants to know more about the stories behind the stories, this is a perfect book. For potential writers who wish to see the process of an expert, this is a great opportunity. Apparently this book was published in part to satisfy the interest in information about Ferrante, and to placate and accommodate her very patient publishers desire for more publicity for her books. Frantumaglia was first published in Italian, and came out greatly expanded in English and updated to this year (2016). Goodreads lists it at 224 pages, but my edition had 384 pages of text. [4★]
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