0004000800’s Reviews > The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism > Status Update

4.5/5

I liked this book a lot, and I’ll be forever grateful for it (and for the Neapolitan Quartet), it showed me a new way of reading, a new mode of looking at things (mainly literary works), critically analyzing them and gleaning more from them than by just taking the text at face value (I’m not sure sure that I’ve used that expression correctly but oh well). I can’t wait to read more and more books like this!

Amy’s letter was good! I really liked this book.

“Ferrante’s is a universe of violent remembrance and tender, even intimate erasure.” Lili’s letter was so good!

Cont. and I’m afraid of them too. And I oh so want to write about it that but I need to write some notes and put my ideas together in a legible manner. I’m almost done with this book (I’m at the last part)and I’m so grateful for it, for giving a glimpse of literary critique (and for making me consider getting into the literary theory books and all the non-fictions about literature) I can’t wait to read more

“I’m afraid of mothers who sacrifice their lives to their children,” she writes. “I’m afraid of mothers who surrender themselves completely and live for their children, who hide the difficulties of motherhood and pretend even to themselves to be perfect mothers.” What I love the most about Elena Ferrante is her ability to put things—that I had thought about fo a while—into words! I love this.

That last essay was very interesting (I just wish they’d all leave the poor woman alone, I don’t get the obsession with “uncovering” her identity).

I’m only halfway through the first article but I’m enjoying it a lot!