The Lying Life of Adults: A Novel

I read everything by Elena Ferrante

The Lying Life of Adults takes a narrow, bleak road through Giovanna’s adolescence. Ferrante tells the story with disarming realism and relatability but also runs through the story with a current of unbelievable caricatures, most prominently Vittoria. Much more exploration of the relationship between Vittoria and Giovanna’s father, Andrea, could have helped make the adults’ actions and opinions more believable but Vittoria is unrelentingly portrayed as a stereotypical corrupting witch. The prose is artful and subtle and the periodic hooks ending most of the short chapters are effective, but the whole story is too easily discarded as fanciful because the characters behave in bizarre ways. The novel is ultimately deflating, reminding me of how frustrating, confusing, and nihilistic youth truly is. For this, I give great credit to the author and translator. But if the argument is that Giovanna became an adult by the end of book, in a great culmination of awkward, meaningless sex, then the despair that I identify so strongly with throughout the book quickly becomes more of a statement about this unfortunate character, Giovanna, than about adolescence in general. Pure melodrama, uninterrupted by perspective and the real world, is exhausting and saps me of the ability to care about this character. In terms of writing, Ferrante crams too many rich devices into one story. There is a thread about lying and truth-telling, which could have made for an interesting book (and would have been in line with the title, of course), but it is undercut by other threads: someone’s beauty being a key to their overall worth, a tale of two Naples, religiosity, class conflict, the bracelet imbued with sentimental meaning. All of these are introduced as if they will be discussed and turned over but none of them ever get developed. While this is frustrating as a reader, there is also a strong tone of grounded truth in the experience of a teenager: many enticing things come along and we don’t have the attention span or sophistication to think them through more fully. Again, Ferrante’s tone and writing are superb, and there is an impressive authenticity in the voice. Depending on how unreliable we assume the narrator, Giovanna, to be, the overwrought plot and characters may even be warranted, but my hunch is that the narrator isn’t meant to be especially unreliable. This book attempts to walk a fine line in utter despair, careful to not go too far into overblown cartoonish tragedy. Unfortunately, after a stellar opening the book fairly quickly becomes a cartoon. I wish I had never met Vittoria.

This is a test review. We all know I loved this book.