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In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing
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About This Book
Four new and revelatory essays by the author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lost Daughter In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as "an oracle among authors." Here, in these four crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers. She writes about her influences, her struggles, and her formation as both a reader and a writer; she describes the perils of "bad language" and suggests ways in which it has long excluded women's truth; she proposes a choral fusion of feminine talent as she brilliantly discourses on the work of Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Ingeborg Bachmann, and many others. Here is a subtle yet candid book by "one of the great novelists of our time" about adventures in literature, both in and out of the margins.
Reviews
"You may have gathered that In the Margins will be most enjoyed by Ferrante completists."
"She is both less aggressive and less elusive than she appears in her interviews, laying out her ideas in a straightforward manner, defining her terms and identifying her sources, both personal and literary."
"While each essay in the collection engages its own topic, all four cohere along this thematic through-line, offering critical insight into the question of how one can 'learn to use with freedom the cage we're shut up in.'"
"In the Margins is not a book on craft; I suspect it will hold limited interest for nonfans."
"I margini e il dettato is a book filled with suggestions and musings that try to extract the elusive meaning of writing ..."
"Her ideas can be distilled down into: powerful prose emerges from dutiful prose; all writing is built on the shoulders of great literature; the paradox of realism is it requires truthful lies; and it's a real bitch to get what's in your head on to the page."
"There are gems aplenty here, on writing in general and about Ferrante's specifically; that things come together for her only once they fall apart, breaking free of genre and convention, and the 'necessary other' at the heart of her widely ready Neapolitan Novels."
"Ferrante is a generous guide, taking us through her evolution as a writer and the processes she draws on in each story."
"Four essays illuminate the mind of Ferrante (The Lying Life of Adults) in this dazzling collection ..."
"In this and in other works, Ferrante reminds us what a gift anonymity can be to the reader."
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