Reading: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

 Now on deck is volume three of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. In this book Elena has finished her university studies and published a book. She has a fiance from a good family, and has managed to make her way out of her neighborhood. Lila is doing gruelling work in a sausage factory, living with her defender Enzo and her small son Rinu. The events of the students movements and poltical turmoil of 1968 are at the forefront of Elena's mind even as she deals with the transformations that marriage and motherhood bring to her.

Before I start readin, I'm listening to a podcast with her translator, Ann Goldstein. She started learning Italian while working at the New Yorker, so she could read Dante in Italian. Her private tutor was paid for by the magazine! Wow. She already knew French, Latin, and Greek. She has also written a book in Italian, about Primo Levi, whose works she has edited in English. She uses online dictionaries after her rapid first draft. The novels are not written in dialect; Ferrante tells you when a character is speaking in dialect, but then writes in Italian. She has also translated the screenplays for the RAI-HBO series. Those are written in dialect, and the actors are Neapolitan so they don't have to imitate the language. In Italy, they put subtitles on the dialect. 

Her translation relationship with Ferrante is through the publisher, and is fairly hands-off. I realized this when Rosemary's book was being translated; there isn't necessarily any collaboration, even when the writer speaks both languages. She did read the translation, and likes it, but there's not necessarily any feedback process.

Goldstein doesn't know who Ferrante is and is happy to turn away any inquiries. Ferrante's desire for anonymity predates her success and fame, and now is a statement about the market. Goldstein started as a proofreader at Esquire in the seventies, a job she got from an ad in the New York Times (those were the days!). Back then, there was more time to work on stories at the New Yorker. Writers chose to write on what they were interested in and Mr. Shawn approved or disapproved. A lot of freedom! Her work at the New Yorker today is as steward of copy. An editor, a fact-checker, legal, the editor-in-chief all read a story. Then it is put into type and reviewed by a copy-editor, to do line-editing. There's another pass by the editor to deal with queries, then it's reread by the copy-editor and a second reader as well.  This process has become more compressed, with computers to aid revising. And pieces that are being published directly online are not subject to the same process, although there is copy-editing and fact-checking.

Goldstein says that she wants the final copy to read as if it were written in English.

Reading: The Story of a New Name

I just finished The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante, book two in the Neapolitan Novels series. I'm about to start watching the next season of the series on HBO. My mother says she wanted to shake all of them. I get it, but it's gripping even if you could sum it up as men are shit and bitches be crazy. Each book ends on a cliffhanger.

Watching: My Brilliant Friend

I'm on episode five of My Brilliant Friend on HBO and it's an incredibly faithful adaptation of the book, so far.  The acting is uniformly terrific, and the materiality of the locations, the objects, the clothing, is all as important as the action and the communication of the characters.

I'm fascinated by the way the characters switch between Neapolitan dialect and standard Italian. One side of my mother's family was from Gesualdo, about 90 kilometers from Naples.I asked her why she doesn't like the books and she more or less refused to tell me until I've finished them. I have the second volume, The Story of a New Name, from the library.

Here's a great little interview with the costume designer, Antonella Cannarozzi, who was nominated for an Oscar for her work on I Am Love with Tilda Swinton.

Reading: Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

Elena Ferrante's first novel in her Neapolitan cycle, My Brilliant Friend, fell into my hands last week. I'm almost done with it. I quite like it, but my mother really disliked it, something about not liking any of the characters. She was unhappy that all her book clubs wanted to read Ferrante novels. I wonder if it hits too close to home.

 It has been made into a mini-series on HBO, which is adapting all of the novels in the series. Apparently Ferrante collaborated on the show, and it stays faithful to the book. I'll need to get the next book in the series before I watch the second season.