Geniální přítelkyně 2 - Příběh nového jména – Ferrante Elena (2025)

The second volume of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet follows directly on from the end of the previous novel: Raffaella Cerullová, known as Lila or Lina, has become Mrs Carracci and leaves for her honeymoon. For Elena, the story’s narrator, it is not easy to come to terms with this change; just as during their school years, she wants to keep up with her friend in everything. The novel follows both women through their youth, focusing on their discovery of sexuality and the pleasure and pain connected with it, as well as the difficult position of brilliant, free-spirited girls who still long for love in a world of Neapolitan men for whom love primarily means possession. This theme resonates with the historical background of the story: the dazzling 1960s, when Italy is finally awakening to life after years of fascism and war, developing economically, encouraging trade and enterprise, but also unscrupulous ambition, while discovering entertainment and material prosperity, or at least the illusion of it. The sexual revolution arrives alongside student and workers’ unrest, conflicts between the political right and left intensify, and the Solaras’ Camorristi become the unchallenged rulers of the neighbourhood, although their ambitions reach far beyond it. Elena and Lila experience a fateful hot summer on Ischia, bringing both of them love, passion and much pain, which they can overcome only through the written word. Writing as therapy, as a search for order, and as a way of both reviving and killing off reality takes an increasingly important place in their story, while this honest account of female friendship once again captivates with its depth and intensity. The book is in Czech.