#21// lying life of adults + christmas romance
the new Ferrante...
Dear Reader,
Do you have a plan for December? When I realized today is the first day of the last month of 2020, I had no idea what to do. Usually I read lesser this month (or read through a personal list/backlisted titles/not review copies) and try to spend more time with friends and family. But what do I do this year? Stuck at home, no relatives visiting, and in no mood for baking cakes. Should I go on a personal cooking mission and be the newest ‘Julia and Julia’? (Excellent movie btw). I also try to be less active on social media, schedule posts and so on. But this year? Would I be bored to death if I don’t jump into the social media blackhole? I am thinking of sending no holiday cards this year, so there’s nothing to buy/write/send either. Which brings me again to ‘what do I do to end this year well’? <other than have books for company, that is>
Read
I devoured Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults, translated brilliantly from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, recently and it got me into a really bad Ferrante-hangover. In her latest novel, Ferrante gives you exactly what the title says—the lying life of adults. Somewhere after 130 pages, the protagonist Giovanna wonders, “What happens in the world of adults, in the heads of very reasonable people, in their bodies loaded with knowledge?” The novel answers this question, as teenagers teeter into adulthood or rather they are violently and unexpectedly pushed into adulthood.
Giovanna’s father’s comment that she is ugly like her Aunt Vittoria, an aunt about whom the family never talks about, an aunt whom she has never met. This careless comment by her “unfailingly courteous” father throws her into an unsure place. Her insecurities gain visibility. She looks for Vittoria in the fuzz of her upper lip, exagerratedly high forehead, thick eyebrows, fat lower lip, breasts that she is ashamed of, heavy earlobes, her face. This worry of being compared to an aunt who has brought shame to the family eats her alive and she decides to meet the said aunt. And when she does, she cannot come to a conclusion whether her aunt is ugly or beautiful (but she gives her freshly squeezed orange juices and tsk-tks at the parenting G has had). She wonders how her parents, who love her the most could think that she is this—ugly or uncouth or everything-wrong. That’s when G's lies begin. She wants to secretly meet her forbidden aunt while keeping her parents ‘happy’.
Families are made and broken easily in The Lying Life of Adults. Fathers leave wives for lovers, a mistress finds a family with the wife and children and thinks of them as ‘her own’ after the man dies, children worry about fathers and stepfathers and joke about mothers being sluts. Ferrante’s keen and astute observations pierce your heart — in some scenes, she shines a torchlight right into your eyes, deep into your soul. One such scene for me was a dinner conversation where Giovanna’s play date with friends is intruded by legs and ankles of adults —folded in secrets — under the dining table.
There are love triangles, unrequited love, messy affairs, and shocking betrayals (often so deep that they are simply shoved into a mind-cupboard to be never addressed again). Even though, this is the life of adults, Ferrante gives us children failing at school, teenagers getting accustomed to their sexuality and trying to fit in, and child-friendships scarred by the transgressions of adults. There’s pity, sympathy, selfish motives, ugly crying, ugly dicks (fair warning, there are passages on dicks and teenagers talking about sex stuff) — everything that comes your way as you graduate from an innocence to the lying life of adults.
You will find ashes of Lila and Elena (from Ferrante’s famous Neapolitan series) in this novel. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first novel in the series, My Brilliant Friend. I read it many years ago and gave it a 3.5 star. But the characters, Lila and Elena, consumed my thoughts all these years. I would be lying if I say I haven’t thought about them at least once a week, ever since I read it. And after The Lying Life of Adults, that is just what I want to do. I want read the Neapolitan novels and find myself once again like a deer in the headlights. Ferrante, shine that torchlight on me. Blind me, please.
The Lying Life of Adults was a 4.5 star for me. I really enjoyed surrendering to such a fine novel. However, the last section falls short. It was almost as if Ferrante wanted to quickly wrap it up while I was expecting more prose, more raw truths, and more hurt. Would recommend this for your December treat.
Watch
Dash and Lily is the cutest Christmas TV show to watch. It follows a clue-in-books that blossoms into a romance. It is cheesy, fluttery, there’s a happy ending, lots of snow, Christmasy stuff and tall shelves of books everywhere. There are lots of scenes at The Strand in New York that’ll make you wish you could teleport to the store and buy yourself one (or ten) Christmas gift. After every episode, I went on a nostalgic trip (in mind, not literally) to the Strand which I visited some years ago. I would love to visit again and buy ten books (last time I bought just one). I wouldn’t know how the show compares with the book series, but this is a lovely binge watch.
Amazing links
- Very good—Finding a healthier relationship with social media (when you want to quit, but can't) (Katie Cowan, Creative Boom)
- The pleasure of taking a bath — To hell with it all is such a soothing read (Gina Tomaine, Philly mag)
“The hot bath is a balm…It offers moments so deliciously lazy, you’ll probably feel a tiny pang of guilt that you’re not, I don’t know, folding a mound of laundry or vacuuming something. But that will pass. And then you’ll want more. You’ll never want it to stop.”
- How to recreate your lost family recipes, according to historians and chefs (Reina Gattuso, Atlas Obscura)
"Family culinary history is chronicled in our tales and written records, but it also lives in our senses and our bodily rhythms. Your food history is in the way you bring roti to your mouth, with a flick of the wrist just like your grandfather’s; the way you put hot sauce on your greens; the way you cut your brisket, in the shape of a pan that has long since ceased to exist."
- A digital cloud zoo where the activities of hundreds of zoo and aquarium animals are live streamed online—so cool! (Pudding)
- Advice from experienced people on how to deal with life in long-term isolation (Tim Herrera, New York Times)
“In fact, some people have been through all of that and then some. Take, for instance, an astronaut who spent nearly a year in space. Or the station leader of a research outpost in Antarctica. Or one of the eight people sealed inside the artificial ecosystem Biosphere 2 for two years in the early 1990s.”
This year has not been easy for any of us. And more difficult for some than the others. Here's hoping it ends well and January brings with it bright rays of hope.
Until next time,
Resh x
(This newsletter may contain affiliate links which might earn me a very small commission at no extra cost to you)
If you liked this newsletter, the best way to show support would be to forward the subscribe link to a friend or share via your favourite social media. Also write back to me :)