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teresatumminello's review against another edition
4.0
These four essays originated as lectures (delivered by proxy). The third, “Histories I” is my favorite. I’ll save it for last.
The first seemed somewhat familiar in subject matter, though not in details, and that’s likely because I’ve read other essays in other formats about Ferrante’s reading/writing origins. Nevertheless, I have now discovered Gaspara Stampa through Ferrante’s description of her own discovery. Stampa was a 16th-century Italian poet and musician. Obviously, very accomplished female writers existed in many places of the remote past: We just don’t learn about them.
Ferrante talks about her own work in interesting ways in the second essay: what she tried to achieve with her first three novels; then, her inspirations and missteps in transitioning from their style to that of the Neapolitan Novels, especially as to the latter’s two characters embodying two different ways of writing.
The last essay was written for a different lecture series than the others. Delivered to a Dantean society, it speaks to Dante's influence upon Ferrante’s whole reading life, especially in his characterization and development of Beatrice.
In “Histories I,” Ferrante uses an [a:Emily Dickinson|7440|Emily Dickinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1626025785p2/7440.jpg] poem (see below) as a springboard. I found what she had to say about it fascinating and revelatory. She also expounds on [a:Gertrude Stein|9325|Gertrude Stein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1422989334p2/9325.jpg]’s [b:The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas|14950|The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Modern Library)|Gertrude Stein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1454375655l/14950._SY75_.jpg|2285834], especially as an example for her of women writing about women by deforming the form of autobiography. (I didn’t think I’d ever read the Stein, but now I’m interested.) I highlighted so many passages in this essay it might as well have been the whole thing.
*
“Witchcraft was hung, in History”
by Emily Dickinson
1583
Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day—
The first seemed somewhat familiar in subject matter, though not in details, and that’s likely because I’ve read other essays in other formats about Ferrante’s reading/writing origins. Nevertheless, I have now discovered Gaspara Stampa through Ferrante’s description of her own discovery. Stampa was a 16th-century Italian poet and musician. Obviously, very accomplished female writers existed in many places of the remote past: We just don’t learn about them.
Ferrante talks about her own work in interesting ways in the second essay: what she tried to achieve with her first three novels; then, her inspirations and missteps in transitioning from their style to that of the Neapolitan Novels, especially as to the latter’s two characters embodying two different ways of writing.
The last essay was written for a different lecture series than the others. Delivered to a Dantean society, it speaks to Dante's influence upon Ferrante’s whole reading life, especially in his characterization and development of Beatrice.
In “Histories I,” Ferrante uses an [a:Emily Dickinson|7440|Emily Dickinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1626025785p2/7440.jpg] poem (see below) as a springboard. I found what she had to say about it fascinating and revelatory. She also expounds on [a:Gertrude Stein|9325|Gertrude Stein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1422989334p2/9325.jpg]’s [b:The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas|14950|The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Modern Library)|Gertrude Stein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1454375655l/14950._SY75_.jpg|2285834], especially as an example for her of women writing about women by deforming the form of autobiography. (I didn’t think I’d ever read the Stein, but now I’m interested.) I highlighted so many passages in this essay it might as well have been the whole thing.
*
“Witchcraft was hung, in History”
by Emily Dickinson
1583
Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day—
veryberry_strawberry's review against another edition
I knew from the moment I read the title I wouldn't like it, but I decided that I would read and pretend that I liked it to seem professional and mature, buttttt... i gave up:/
alexluzparker's review against another edition
5.0
There’s something about Ferrante’s writing that makes you sit up a little straighter and lean in a little closer. These lectures-turned-essays feel like a tight little cluster of tangled, knotted thread she’s slowly helping you unravel. With each sentence, another pull and something else falls loose until you get to the end and it’s all straightened out. With each seemingly disparate reference, personal anecdote or idea introduced her thesis comes into sharper clarity: That in order to produce a capital T Truth, we have to explore outside ourselves,
“Writing is seizing everything that has already been written and gradually learning to spend that enormous fortune. We mustn’t let ourselves be flattered by those who say: here’s someone who has a tonality of her own. Everything, in writing, has a long has a long story behind it. Even my uprising, my spilling over the margins, my yearning is part of an eruption that came before me and goes beyond me.”
But also, that we are also capable to alter that lineage with the addition of ourselves:
“ ‘Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day—‘ (Emily Dickinson)
I believe that the pure and simple joining of the female “I” to History changes History. The History of the first line, the one that hangs the witch’s work on the gallows— note, something important has happened— is not, can no longer be, the History of the second, the one with which we find, around us, all the witchcraft we need.”
Even in her nonfiction writing, Ferrante maintains her knack for leaving her readers in quiet suspense, floating on the edge and clamoring for whatever’s next.
“Writing is seizing everything that has already been written and gradually learning to spend that enormous fortune. We mustn’t let ourselves be flattered by those who say: here’s someone who has a tonality of her own. Everything, in writing, has a long has a long story behind it. Even my uprising, my spilling over the margins, my yearning is part of an eruption that came before me and goes beyond me.”
But also, that we are also capable to alter that lineage with the addition of ourselves:
“ ‘Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day—‘ (Emily Dickinson)
I believe that the pure and simple joining of the female “I” to History changes History. The History of the first line, the one that hangs the witch’s work on the gallows— note, something important has happened— is not, can no longer be, the History of the second, the one with which we find, around us, all the witchcraft we need.”
Even in her nonfiction writing, Ferrante maintains her knack for leaving her readers in quiet suspense, floating on the edge and clamoring for whatever’s next.