My Brilliant Friend
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Do you know who the plebs are?
Elena offers the historical answer: The people.
But Maestra is looking for a more relevant contemporary reply, and trying to make a point to Elena.
Eventually, she says it plainly: Forget Cerullo and think of yourself.
Its the last time theyll share a vision for their futures.
According to Maestra Olivieri, Elena ought to cast herself outside the plebeian class.
When Elenas mother yelps, Who do you think you are?
its the frustration of her own smothered life talking.
And she makes an excellent point: Latin and Greek wont keep their family of six well-fed.
The Grecos ultimate decision to send Elena to school will be the wedge between the girls.
The memory is so vivid she still remembers the joke 60 years later.)
For the Cerullos it isnt so much a matter of financial impossibility, but rather clench-jawed stubbornness.
Sweet Rinos offer to pay her way from his wages is seen as mere manipulation.
In this episode its especially apparent why.
And when Elenas mother mocks her, asking, Do I have to say it in proper Italian?
Despite their worldly aspirations, the girls have never left their small neighborhood.
In Ferrantes novel the journey to the sea is more of a rite of passage than it is here.
I felt joyfully open to the unknown.
But afterward their world grows oddly smaller and they begin to drift apart.
He was wearing blue pajamas, she claims, old ones.
Its impossible for her (or anyone) to know these details.
But as Elena explained aboutThe Blue Fairyyou didnt feel the artifice of Lilas words.
The story is captivating and its teller was born to brew up narratives of her own.
Instead, as we know, Elena ends up the fiction writer.
Lilas jealousy, it seems, is well-founded.
