The Lying Life of Adults (La vita bugiarda degli adulti in Italian), one of Elena Ferrante’s most recent books, has been made into a Netflix series.
Before Christmas, I read that this new show based on Elena Ferrante’s book would debut on Netflix on January 5th and I thought I had better read the book before watching the tv series.
As you may know, I am not the biggest fan of Elena Ferrante. I absolutely admire her impeccable prose, her use of language, and the way she describes her characters – her mastery in using adjectives always strikes me. However, for some reason, her stories do not capture me.
I have read L’amica geniale – My Brilliant Friend in English – years ago and I enjoyed it but I have never felt the urge to read the other books of the quadrilogy. I kept saying that I should read them but somehow never really committed to doing it. Last year, I read La figlia oscura – The Lost Daughter in English – and although I admired the elegant prose, I wasn’t really captivated by the book.
This is more or less what happened with The Lying Life of Adults as well. I haven’t read the actual book yet listened to it on audiobook – the Italian version is read by the amazing Neapolitan actress Anna Bonaiuto and I love her! – and my opinion remains the same: the prose is stunning but probably too cold and distant for me.
Although Elena Ferrante always writes about human relationships and powerful emotions, somehow I do not feel involved. But this is just me: many people love Elena Ferrante’s books and she always gets fantastic reviews from literary critics, so don’t be influenced by my point of view and don’t miss the chance to enjoy some great literature!
Like all other Elena Ferrante books, The Lying Life of Adults is set in Naples. One of the things I loved about the book is the constant repetition of street names and places in the city and while listening to the book I would always find myself looking them up on Google Maps, so I have also virtually traveled around Naples while reading the novel. I have never been to the city and I can honestly say this book really made me want to go there!
The book is a coming-of-age story told by Giovanna, a teenage girl who lives in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Naples. Her parents are both professors and she is living a happy yet uneventful childhood. One day though, she hears her father say that she looks more and more like her Aunt Vittoria every day.
She knows that everybody hates Aunt Vittoria in her family, to the point that she has never met her. There are no pictures of her in the house and nobody even mentions her. But now she absolutely wants to see her. She wants to meet that Aunt that her parents despise so much. The meeting with Vittoria, a vulgar yet passionate lady who lives in one of the poorest areas of the city, changes everything for her.
Vittoria unfolds secrets from the past and basically throws Giovanna’s life into chaos. She is now torn between two worlds, the refined Naples of the heights and the vulgar one of the depths, and by moving between them, Giovanna tries to find her truth. She goes through pain and discomfort and tries to make sense of everything that’s happening to her but she is alone in doing so because the adults are deeply involved in their own lives and do not seem to care.
After reading the book, I started watching The Lying Life of Adults on Netflix and I have to admit that I enjoyed it way more than the book itself. The screen adaptation is really close to the book – to the point of using the same lines and dialogues, in certain cases – but adds a visual element that makes the story more powerful. Naples is a character in itself and so are the locations where actions take place.
Moreover, the two actresses playing the two main roles are really great. Giovanna is played by Giordana Marengo, a young girl who makes an impressive debut, while Vittoria is played by Valeria Golino, who is perfect at portraying the fierceness of Vittoria. Both the acting and the imagery give the story an energy that somehow the book lacks, at least in my opinion, and that’s what made me like it way more.
If you want to read more about the tv series, you can check this review by The Guardian, and here is the official trailer on Netflix if you are curious about it. If you are interested in reading the book, you can find it in English translated by Ann Goldstein and published by Europa Editions.
Have you read Elena Ferrante’s books? What do you think of them?
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If you sign up for Giorno dopo giorno, you will receive an email every other day for 365 days. Each email will contain a prompt, a little exercise, something to watch, read, or listen or something that will gently force you to practice your Italian every day, making it part of your daily routine.
I am relieved to hear that you are not a particiular fan of Elena Ferrante’s books. Neither am I! Her books seem to be LOVED by everyone I know in the US. I am thinking that maybe “her”( I used quotation marks because I don’t really know who Elena Ferrante is) books are not as popular in Italy as they are in the US.
I read My Brillian Friend because everyone raved about it and told me I would love it. ( I think they thought it would be meaningful for me because I am italian- american). I didn’t like it at all and I didn’t read the remaining books in the trilogy. I even tried to watch the series on Amazon Prime. I thought it would help with my Italian listening skills , but much of what they say is in Neapolitan dialect as I recall. I couldn’t finish watching it. I got to the part where the father threw his daughter out the window and decided I was done with the series too.
I saw an adaptation of another Ferrante book, The Lost Daughter. It was an English production. It was OK.
As The Lying Life of Adults is in italian. I will try it again as a listerning exercise.
Well, I do not know if her books are less popular here but probably there is less “obsession” about her work, if you see what I mean. Her Neapolitan series is very popular but her other books are less so, in my opinion.
Regarding the TV series, there is some Neapolitan in it too – Aunt Vittoria speaks dialect – so I used subtitles 🙂
I can’t say strongly enough how much I thoroughly enjoyed Ferrante’s series of books that start with “My Brilliant Friend.” Finally, someone has written a “coming of age story” for not one, but an entire neighborhood of women. How many novels have I had to read in the name of literature about bookish men and how they suffered in isoldation for one reason or another. Here the focus is on two intelligent, talente,d bookish women who want to be writers. This is all interwoven with the history of the time (which I also lived through) and a neighborhood that could just as easily be any lower class neighborhood in America today, also realistically constructed. \Both “brillant friends” have different experiences but the type of friendship they have and what they must face all rings true to my life and that of my sister and other women I know. I am truly sorry you did not experience a connection to this novel, as one who is an avid reader yourself, but my thought is, “Finally! It is about time intelligent women – and women who suffer for their intelligence or despite it – is made the center of a novel.
That’s great to hear! I’ll try again in the future, maybe it was not the right moment!