{"id":1842,"date":"2021-05-12T10:45:54","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T09:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?p=1842"},"modified":"2021-05-12T10:45:54","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T09:45:54","slug":"recent-reads-elena-ferrante-and-ronan-hession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/05\/12\/recent-reads-elena-ferrante-and-ronan-hession\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent reads: Elena Ferrante and R\u00f3n\u00e1n Hession"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the Easter week I read a couple of books that had been sent to me as gifts, and so I\u2019m taking a break from my formal reviews this week to talk to you about my two \u201choliday reads\u201d \u2013 one of the best-known works of contemporary translation, and the follow-up to a brilliant debut.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend<\/em><\/a>, tr. Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions, 2020; originally published 2012)<\/h2>\n

Okay, I\u2019ll admit it: I didn\u2019t especially want to like Ferrante. I\u2019m not generally drawn to already-famous authors, and (possibly because whenever I say I read \u201cwomen in translation\u201d the stock response is often \u201coh, so you must like Elena Ferrante?\u201d) I felt obstinate and contrary about reading Ferrante\u2019s work until Europa sent me The Lying Life of Adults <\/em><\/a>last year. I enjoyed the stand-alone novel and my introduction to Ferrante, but it\u2019s no exaggeration to say that embarking on the Neapolitan Quartet is something I\u2019ve been putting off for years. So\u2026 how did it go?<\/p>\n

Well, if you\u2019ve ever watched The Big Bang Theory<\/em>, my experience of reading My Brilliant Friend <\/em>was something like the time Sheldon tried to ramp up his irritation levels by listening to Taylor Swift but\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cturns out I love her\u201d. Indeed. Turns out My Brilliant Friend <\/em>is entirely deserving of all the hype. The storytelling manages to be both intimate and vast, focusing on individuals and relationships but spiralling out towards an entire community and city, and locating the region within its country\u2019s history. After the prologue (set in the present, with the narrative then rewinding by several decades \u2013 a technique I particularly enjoy) it took me a while to get properly into the story \u2013 there is an impressive cast of characters (and, mercifully, a handy character guide at the start of the book) and though the childhood sections were necessary for background and introduction to the characters, their way of life, and their place on a generational continuum within the community, the point when I really got immersed in the story was when the two protagonists Len\u00f9 and Lila start to grow up. This is when Len\u00f9, the narrator, begins to develop an awareness of the boundaries of her world, and the ways she both does and does not want to escape. The true focus is, of course, on Len\u00f9\u2019s \u201cbrilliant friend\u201d Lila, a girl whose presence makes Len\u00f9 feel that she is truly present in the world, for \u201conly what Lila touched became important.\u201d This is a beautiful story of friendship and rivalry, working-class hardship and middle-class aspiration, social expectation and adolescent desire: if you\u2019ve already read it then I can only add to the superlatives attributed to it and if, like me, you\u2019re late to the Ferrante party, then I highly recommend you head on in.<\/p>\n

So there it is: I\u2019m a Ferrante convert. There is a small catch: I\u2019ve written before<\/a> about Ann Goldstein\u2019s translations, which I find linguistically rich but occasionally jarring. It was in reading My Brilliant Friend <\/em>that I realised why: at times I feel as though the story is being told to me by an Italian who hasn\u2019t quite grasped English syntax. This clearly isn\u2019t an impediment to communication of the story (or worldwide success), but in terms of translation it\u2019s not my preferred approach. Nonetheless, this is a beautiful and (mostly) engagingly narrated story, heartbreaking in its daily sorrows and told with a keen eye for both intricate detail and general observation. My experience of reading it was true escapism; I felt quite bereft when I reached the end, and will certainly be reading the rest of the quartet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

R\u00f3n\u00e1n Hession, Panenka <\/em><\/a>(Bluemoose Books, 2021)<\/h2>\n

A rare thing for me: reading a book that\u2019s not a translation, and not written by a woman. For this to happen it has to be a pretty special book, and if you haven\u2019t already discovered R\u00f3n\u00e1n Hession, he\u2019s certainly a pretty special writer. His debut novel, Leonard and Hungry Paul <\/em>(Bluemoose Books, 2018, reviewed here<\/a>), was a runaway success, and deservedly so: its gentle warmth and understated humour were absolutely delightful, and it\u2019s no surprise that it found its way into so many readers\u2019 hands and hearts. With Panenka<\/em>, Hession gives us something very different but no less remarkable. The heart of the novel is Joseph, a former footballer whose nickname \u201cPanenka\u201d is \u201chis sadness and his story.\u201d We meet him as he is in the grip of a debilitating headache attack that he calls \u201cthe iron mask\u201d, and it is quickly revealed that this is a symptom of a terminal illness. In the time he has left, Panenka carries on with what he has made of his rather unspectacular life \u2013 a renewed closeness with his daughter Marie-Th\u00e9r\u00e8se (an anxious supermarket team leader recently separated from her husband Vincent), an affectionate relationship with his seven-year-old grandson Arthur, a (non-football-related) job that we don\u2019t discover much about until a dazzling final scene, and a group of affectionately antagonistic acquaintances he meets with regularly at Vincent\u2019s, a caf\u00e9-bar run by his ex-son-in-law. This is a small town, and Panenka stayed there even after his footballing career was cut short by a mistake to which fans \u2013 then and ever since \u2013 have attributed the decline of the local football team, whose glory Panenka had apparently been destined to secure.<\/p>\n

Hession\u2019s passion for football shines through, but in a way that is entirely inclusive, and not at all off-putting to those of us less well acquainted with the beautiful game. The dissection of match performances between the gang at Vincent\u2019s is, like all of Hession\u2019s dialogue, perfectly observed \u2013 one of the great strengths of his writing is that it always makes me feel I\u2019m amongst friends. In fact, if there was one criticism I could make (and you\u2019d have to push me hard to make it) it would be that the dialogues are so<\/em> perfect \u2013 none of the retrospective \u201cwhy did\/didn\u2019t I say that?\u201d angst is necessary for these characters (but then, inarticulate dialogue wouldn\u2019t make for great reading, so this isn\u2019t really a criticism at all). In fact the characterisation is superb, with plenty revealed about the characters but much also held back, in a way that reflects how we\u2019d get to know people in real life. When I read Hession\u2019s writing I can\u2019t help imagining him observing conversations and behaviour as the years go by, so recognisably human are his characters and their interactions. There would have been plenty of opportunity for facile or schmaltzy resolutions to the various broken or fragile relationships, and Hession steers clear of this in a way that shows great tenderness for his characters. And the final scene\u2026 no spoilers, as ever, but you might want to keep a tissue handy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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