My Brilliant Friend

August 27, 2012
The world of Elena and Lila, Neapolitan girls growing up after the Second World War, is small, casually violent, and confined to their poor neighborhood where everyone knows everyone and the few prosperous families dominate. There are rules and expectations, and everyone knows and lives by them. Except Lila: smarter and bolder than the others, she does what she wants, drawing Elena, who narrates the story, in her wake. But this is more than a conventional up-from-poverty tale. Elena completes her schooling; Lila does not. Elena leaves the neighborhood and eventually Naples and Southern Italy; Lila does not. Yet it is Lila and her dreams and caprices that drive everything. In fact, the narrative exists because the adult Elena, hearing that Lila has disappeared, decides to write Lilaâs story. And she does, in dense, almost sociological detail (the list of the members of the key families is actually necessary). This is both fascinatingâtwo girls, their families, a neighborhood, and a nation emerging from war and into an economic boomâand occasionally tedious, as day-to-day life can be. But Lila, mercurial, unsparing, and, at the end of this first episode in a planned trilogy from Ferrante (The Lost Daughter), seemingly capable of starting a full-scale neighborhood war, is a memorable character.

October 9, 2023
Based on Ferrante’s 2011 bestseller, this impressive graphic novel adaptation recalibrates the original story line of fraught friendship in post-WWII Italy with sensitive, buoyant drawings and economic yet powerful narration. Elena “Lenù” Greco and Raffaella “Lila” Cerullo grow up together in poverty and amid violence in 1950s Naples. Both girls show academic aptitude and ambition, especially Lila, who teaches herself to read and write. But only Lenù’s parents allow her to continue in school. She feels torn with pity, shame, and jealousy, believing Lila is “always one step ahead.” Meanwhile, Lila is pursued by nearly every man in town. The adaptation delicately, and sometimes more brazenly, captures the charge between the two, with a brilliant deep blue suddenly appearing or disappearing in emotionally charged sections. For instance, when Lila asks Lenù to swear they will “never leave each other,” the story turns to pages of wordless images depicting explosive fireworks in various blue hues. The colorful and lucid sketches crackle on the page. This adaptation exquisitely captures Ferrante’s story of a passionate and consuming friendship.