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On adolescence, ugliness and the female experience.
‘Lies, lies, adults forbid them and yet they tell so many.’
Renowned for her Neapolitan Quartet, the pseudonymous Elena Ferrante is one of
Italy’s best-selling and most acclaimed authors. In recent years, she has gained
increasing international recognition for her exploration of the female experience,
identity, and class. Her novels are overwhelmingly recommended on world literature
or ‘in translation’ lists. More recently, her book My Brilliant Friend topped the
controversial New York Times list of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.
The Lying Life of Adults, published in 2019, may not have reached the same
commercial or critical heights as her earlier Neapolitan Quartet. However, it stands
as a testament of Ferrante’s masterful vision and her skillful prose in capturing the
complexities of the adolescent mind.
Set in 1990s Naples, The Lying Life of Adults centres on twelve-year-old Giovanna,
a narrator poised on the edge of adolescence and adulthood. The novel follows her
through a time of tumultuous change, during which she leaves behind her
comfortable childhood and becomes immersed in the adult world, specifically in the
lies upon which it is built. Betrayed by her parents’ secrets and the revelation of their
inner lives, Giovanna decides to visit her estranged Aunt Vittoria in the depths of
Naples, hoping to find answers. Here, she is exposed to a different world, where
vulgarity is commonplace and challenges her perception of identity and morality.
Torn between her past and present, as well as between the two halves of a divided
Naples, Giovanna embarks on a journey of self-discovery.
The novel opens with a powerful, unsettling declaration: ‘Two years before leaving
home, my father said to my mother that I was very ugly’. This statement, though
shocking, encapsulates the central theme of the novel – how ‘ugliness’, both physical
and emotional, intersects with the pressures of girlhood. So, what exactly does it
mean to be ‘ugly’ in the world Ferrante creates? Ferrante adopts several meanings,
each as important as the other.
I was most drawn to this expression of ‘ugliness’ in Giovanna’s reflection: ‘I feel ugly,
like I’m a bad person, and yet I’d like to be loved’. Many readers will likely find this
sentiment relatable, as it underscores the novel’s central exploration of adolescent
identity. It speaks to the universal tension of longing for love and acceptance while
dealing with feelings of inadequacy. This reflection also highlights the societal
tendency to judge adolescent girls by their appearance, subtly critiquing the
damaging effects of unattainable beauty standards on the developing mind.
Giovanna’s reflection is also significant when discussing the association of ‘ugliness’
with ‘badness’, a recurring theme in the novel that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Adolescence is often marked by feelings of isolation, unworthiness and shame -
disturbing but natural emotions tied to a changing body. Giovanna’s sense of
‘ugliness’ and ‘badness’ is connected to these physical and emotional changes as
she begins to rebel against her parents, abandon her friends, and neglect her
studies. Yet, despite these new emotions, she still longs to be loved and to return to
who she was before being engulfed in the ‘ugliness’ of puberty. In this way, Ferrante
sensitively intertwines ‘ugliness’ with the difficulties of girlhood.
One of the most poignant aspects of the novel, I felt, is its portrayal of female
sexuality. Ferrante depicts sex as uncomfortable, illustrating the pressures
adolescent girls often experience in formative relationships. Coerced and objectified,
Giovanna’s sexual experiences are never romanticised; instead, these experiences
are also, as the novel suggests, ‘ugly’.
Beyond Giovanna, the novel features a compelling cast of complex women. Vittoria,
to whom Giovanna is compared by her father in the opening lines of the novel,
stands out as perhaps the most intriguing of these characters. Giovanna’s desire to
know her Aunt is driven by her parents’ efforts to cut her out of their lives - her face is
even scribbled out of her father's childhood pictures. Yet, despite this rejection,
Vittoria becomes an alluring figure to Giovanna, someone she is simultaneously
repulsed by and drawn to.
Vittoria’s goddaughter, Giuliana, is also a standout character. Despite their unlikely
friendship, she is a figure Giovanna envies for her intense beauty and her
engagement to the elusive scholar Roberto. However, Giuliana is deeply insecure in
her relationship, fearing Roberto will leave her for an intellectual. For Giuliana,
Giovanna - and her cleverness - are qualities to admire and envy. This creates an
interesting and paradoxical relationship between the two women, further complicated
by Giovanna’s sexual obsession with Roberto.
Ferrante also explores class conflict through the tensions in Giovanna’s complex
familial relationships. Her parents represent the educated, liberal elite of Naples,
living in the affluent suburbs, while her estranged Aunt and her forged family
represent the working class, inexplicably associated with ‘ugliness’. This concern
resonates deeply across Ferrante’s works and is highlighted by the characters’
discussions of language and education, especially regarding their importance in
socio-economic mobility in the Italian context. For example, after visiting her Aunt in
working-class Naples, Giovanna begins to speak in dialect. Giuliana, on the other
hand, feels deeply ashamed of her lack of formal education, struggling with feelings
of inferiority in comparison to her fiancé, a respected religious scholar and university
teacher in Milan. Education and language profoundly affect the characters and
become barriers to their progression.
Ferrante’s exploration of these ideas never feels like she is talking down to the
reader; rather, she encourages the reader to reflect on the novel’s overarching ideas
without explicitly defining them or dictating how we should feel about them. The
Lying Life of Adults is the sixth of Ferrante’s works I’ve read, and I continue to be
impressed by her insights, conveyed in simple yet stunning prose and translated by
Ann Goldstein. This book captures the core themes Ferrante consistently and
delicately explores across her novels, almost serving as a Bible for the adolescent
girl. It is a book that resonates not only with those who are experiencing adolescence
but with anyone who has ever been there.
Ultimately, The Lying Life of Adults does not have a natural resolve or moment
where Giovanna and her peers eventually ‘come of age’. This is because the novel is
not only about Giovanna’s journey toward self-discovery but rather encourages the
reader to self-reflect, like in many of Ferrante’s works. As we witness Giovanna’s
experiences of vulnerability through adolescence, we are also invited to sit with the
discomfort of our own ‘ugliness’.
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