My Brilliant Friend – 9

Brilliant, indeed. Elena Ferrante’s novel, the second of the quartet, is brought to life by the subtlest of expressions on Lila and Lenu’s faces. Lenu, in fact, makes a total of two short speeches in the course of eight episodes, yet we feel we know what she is thinking every moment. Lila, by contrast, is an enigma, one of the great enigmatic characters of fiction (Ahab? Steerforth?). No one, least of all her best friend Lenu, can read her mind, but we can’t take our eyes off her. Somehow we are able to follow the constellation of the Naples neighborhood that requires an Index of Characters in the book. The settings are gritty and real, but no moreso than the people. Already I miss them.