Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘My Brilliant Friend’

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Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘My Brilliant Friend’

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This July, The New York Times Book Review published a list of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, chosen by 503 literary luminaries. The No. 1 book was “My Brilliant Friend,” by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein. And it wasn’t just critics and writers who loved the book; “My Brilliant Friend” came in at No. 8 in our readers’ choice list.

The book is the first novel in Ferrante’s so-called Neapolitan quartet, which tracks the lifelong friendship between Lenù and Lila, two women from a rough neighborhood in Naples, Italy, even as family, relationships and work pull their lives in different directions.

In this week’s episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Joumana Khatib, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles.

They also discuss comments and questions that readers submitted. If you’ve read “My Brilliant Friend” and want to join the conversation, we’d love to hear your reactions in the comments. We’ll get you started:

Emily Eakin: “I think one of the striking things about this book — which I found, on a second read, utterly engrossing, as engrossing as the first read, actually, I couldn’t put it down — is the efficiency of the world building.”

Joumana Khatib: “One of the things that struck me when I was rereading this was just how easily Ferrante is able to access the mind and life of a child, like a really precocious child, and how wonderful it is to inhabit that. And also how frightening.”

Greg Cowles: “It is propulsive and fevered. It drives you forward with characterization and with plot. But the language itself — she falls back reliably on comma splices and run-on sentences in a way that pulls you right through. One sentence leads to the next without even a ******* to break them up. And it’s not elegant, but it’s very effective in creating this kind of hypnotic tone.”

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to *****@*****.tld.

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