http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/10/02/elena-ferrante-an-answer/
Anyone besides me following this story? If so, thoughts?
I love the books and have been so curious about her identity but then a story like this is published and you realize that the essential truths to who she is are revealed in her prose, not in these external biographical details.
(Full disclosure: I haven’t read the linked story yet. But I did read the NY Times story from a couple of days ago.)
What to make of the similarities between Raja’s and the husband’s prose? And are we supposed to doubt that the German writer Wolf ever existed?
It seems it really matters to me a whole lot more than it should who writes the books I read. Some time back a friend suggested a man wrote the books. I wanted to imagine it was the narrator. 
Yes, I’ve been following this story.
I find the journalist’s motives sick, sexist, and totally disrespectful. His methods reprehensible.
I loved the books - they moved me deeply and affected me profoundly. I LIKED not knowing who was behind them, so I could judge them, and relate to them, strictly on their own merits and atmosphere. And not in light of whether or not they were autobiographical, or what drove the writer to write them.
If Ferrante was identified, and even if she hasn’t been, the drive to “unmask” her could mean she’ll never write again. And that would be a huge loss. A loss for which I will entirely blame this Italian dude and the NYRB. I suscribe to the NYRB, but may cancel in protest.
To be honest, I read and loved the books without having any idea that there was a mystery about their author. Learning about the mystery now is a minor factoid to me, it has no bearing whatsoever on my experience of the books.
I think some ways of trying to figure out the ID of an anonymous author are fine. Humans are curious, after all. But hacking personal financial records to verify an ID? I think that’s wrong. Yes, we are seeing something similar in Trump’s case–the leak of an old state tax return–but he’s running for president.
I am kind of stunned by the hostility this has engendered. Ferrante has been by far the best-selling author in Italy for this decade. It’s not so different from what would have happened if Joanne Rowling had written the Harry Potter books under a pseudonym . . . or what actually happened to Joe Klein when his roman a clef about Bill Clinton’s campaign became a runaway best seller. You can’t sell millions of books and expect anonymity.
Is there an example of anyone who has pulled that off in the past 150 years or so? There have been plenty of pen names, but I can’t think of a single case of actual anonymity for an author who was commercially successful during his or her lifetime.
As for Ferrante’s threat that being unmasked could stop her from publishing future books . . . that’s too precious for words. Experience tells me that the desire for ever more palatial apartments in ever more beautiful cities overcomes scruples like that. (In any event, both the “Elena Ferrante” implied by her work and all of the candidates for being the real Ferrante are well over 70. Unfortunately, experience also tells me there may not be many more high-quality Ferrante books in our future no matter what.)
I suspect what’s bugging people is one of two things, or a combination of both: (1) Ferrante’s work is very internally consistent and very personal. It feels like there is a real person’s autobiography embedded in it. If the author turns out – like Anita Raja – not to share hardly any of the experiences Ferrante’s protagonists have, that is a very impressive feat of literary imagination and execution, but it also feels like a fraud perpetrated on readers. (2) Raja brings back into play the suspicion that her husband, Domenico Starnone, is the real Ferrante, as suggested by a bunch of technical analysis of his prose and Ferrante’s, going back a decade. Maybe Ferrante is a collaboration between Raja and Starnone. (Also, maybe the similarities come from Raja editing Starnone’s work.) As tough as it is to think that the real Elena Ferrante did not grow up poor in Naples, it is almost unbearable for many to imagine that her books were written, in whole or in part, by a man (even a man who did grow up poor in Naples). It’s offensive even to suggest it – like the people who suggest that a commoner couldn’t have written Shakespeare’s plays, or that Kurt Cobain must have ghostwritten the first Hole album.
JHS, I don’t have a problem with Ferrante not growing up poor in Naples. I DO have a problem with a reporter going after someone who has for years asked for privacy specifically because she felt it would affect her work and artistic freedom. I would have a problem with people going after Pynchon. I HAD a problem with people going after JD Salinger, heck, I even thought it was wrong to go after Greta Garbo. Human being should be able to live in privacy. Or to buy apartments – even fancy expensive ones – without someone going through the paper trail of their paychecks. Ferrante is not a politician, and not a public figure. (Well, she is now…)
As for speculation that her work is really the work of a man – don’t most accomplished women hear the same thing? Specifically from men? 
This stinks to high heaven of pure unadulturated envy and sexism.
A friend told me Monday he hadn’t wanted to tell me earlier that linguistic analysis suggested starnone a long while back, because he knew it would distress me…
Even five years ago I would have agreed with you katlia mom but now I just don’t know
alh, don’t get distressed. In 1850’s England they couldn’t believe Currel Bell, the author of Jane Eyre, was a woman either.
yeah, I think the idea that Starnone is ACTUALLY the author is the problematic suggestion. It’s depressing how eager people are to jump on that.
I don’t like the unnessary intrusion, in general, but I didn’t love the books, either. I don’t think authorial identity is that germane to understanding a book.
People have gone after Pynchon plenty, and plenty have found him, but basically respected his privacy. The same was true of Salinger. Pynchon and Salinger both sought privacy, but neither hid his real identity or his real biography.
People have a funny ambivalence about authors’ biographies. They instinctively believe in the power of art and imagination to create worlds, and at the same time they care deeply about authenticity.
I have really mixed feelings about this ad I loved the four books and want to read some of the earlier work. I liked that the author was a pseudonym and the speculation about the identify. Now that it has apparently been revealed, I am not so happy to actually know. Even if a collaboration between husband and wife as co-authors, I feel that the four books are really remarkable and very well written in a distinctive voice. In today’s NYTIMES. there is a brief piece that Book One is being adapted for theatre production in London… hard for me to see this work as a stage play.
katliamom: my smartest friends are pretty much saying what JHS is writing.
I’ve been wondering today whether I could enjoy the Claudine novels if I knew they were written by Willie and not Collette. I honestly don’t know.
My first reaction to the Ferrante story was, “so many stories for men to tell, why “take” a woman’s story?” But I love these books and maybe I don’t care at all about the gender of the author.
- I don’t think authorial identity is that germane to understanding a book* When I finally grow up, I hope I get to this point.
It would certainly be useful to me.
adding: I feel very strongly Maynard had the right to her own memoir, which involved Salinger. Her story included his story, but it was very much her own story.
My issue is still how she was outed.
JK Rowling wrote a mystery under a different name. A partner in the firm of solicitors she used to represent her in the book deal told his wife the real story. His wife told a friend. Pretty soon, the world knew Rowling was the real author. The chain was so obvious…the person who “outed” her was known to be best friends with the wife of a partner in Rowling’s solicitors… that lots of people thought the leak had been manufactured by Rowling. Understandably, she was furious. This was a serious ethical breach and it cost the firm big bucks.
IMO, it’s probable that whoever supplied the financial records from the publisher engaged in an ethical breach. THAT’S what bothers me most.
As for Maynard, she wanted to publish Salinger’s letters to her. They weren’t “very much her own story.” To me, attempting to publish private letters for profit without Salinger’s permission is also an ethical breach. YMMV. Moreover, while it’s not my area of law, it’s my understanding that while she owns the letters Salinger sent her, the law is that he holds the copyright because they are his words.
I wouldn’t care if Elena Ferrante’s husband wrote the books – some of literature’s greatest female characters are the creations of men. But I would find it most interesting why he felt the need to “hide” behind a woman’s name. Afterall, we KNOW why women “hide” behind men’s names – often, it’s so that men will take their work more seriously. (Even JK Rowling thought boys would be more likely to read her novels if she went by JK rather than Joanne.) Why would a man do the opposite? What would he gain? If he thought he’d gain privacy, he guessed wrong, didn’t he?
The relationship between men and women – and in particular ambitious, talented women who are at least as smart (if not smarter) and accomplished as the men around them – is a great subject in the quartet. And I see a lot of these sexual politics in this whole “unmasking.”
Could it be that this male journalist was driven to reveal Ferrante’s identity because he just couldn’t wrap his mind around the maddening fact that Italy’s most successful and acclaimed contemporary novelist is not just a woman, but an anonymous one? By revealing who she is, isn’t he also bringing her down a few notches… these pointed revelations about the purchase of expensive real estate… the pointed contrast he presents between the poor Neapolitan working-class girl in Ferrante’s novels vs. the very different reality of the life of the “unmasked” Ferrante… the pointed comments abour studies that supposedly show her husband wrote the books…
All of this reeks of highly questionable motives. Sexist, envious motives.
Put it this way: if a Jose Ferrante was the pseudonymous writer of these books, would there be that much interest in rooting out the author? Woudl there be that much glee? (Not poor! Not even that Italian! And maybe not even a woman!)
There’s plenty reason to be suspicious of men’s motives when it comes to the acknowledgment of women’s accomplishments. I don’t think this journalists’s motives were particularly lofty. I don’t think NYRB’s motives to publish his findings were lofty. It’s a sad, sexist mess, this is.
Some have suggested the books wouldn’t have been so hugely popular if published under a male name. It is possible I wouldn’t have bothered to read them, if the author had been male. It is probable I would have responded differently to them if I had read them. This says more about me than anything else, but I don’t think I’m the only person approaching literature in this way.
Maynard doesn’t have copyright to the letters. At the time the debate turned into whether she had an ethical right to tell her story of being seduced as a teen by an older man, because so many wanted to protect the reputation of the older man. Salinger had been a hero of mine, and I was as horrified as anyone by Maynard’s story. Sadly, it does impact how I read Salinger… but I am trying to get beyond that. I have serious limitations as a reader.
alh, we all do! This thread is proof
I’m trying to think of any time the biography or personal motivations of a novelist had the slightest impact on my opinion of a book. I’m pretty sure the answer is never. There are many authors whose work I cherish. In some cases I’ve read their profiles or interviews, but only because I’ve stumbled upon them, not because I’ve sought them out, and in most cases it’s occurred after I’ve read their work. In any case, I remember those special books and recall virtually nothing about the authors. Whether a writer is a recluse or is hitting the late night talk show circuit the week the book is published–it’s just irrelevant to my reading experience.
I’ve absorbed a lot of commentary on the Ferrante revelation over the past day or two, most of it brimming with outrage that her desire for anonymity was not respected. But I just can’t whip up any outrage myself. Apparently her true identity has been an open secret in Italy for quite some time, at least within the literary community. Given the fact that she chose to publish her work worldwide (and by the publishing house she worked for!) and gave a number of interviews over the years, I’m a bit skeptical about the depth of her wish to remain anonymous. It wasn’t realistic to expect she could produce a such major work without setting off a fusillade of curiosity and detective work. One has to ponder the motivations behind it all. Perhaps she felt her work wouldn’t be as well received if it smacked of cultural appropriation. Perhaps it was a well-conceived PR ploy (my inner cynic keeps me contemplating this one). Perhaps she’s just eccentric. At the end of the day, I have to say this is a tempest in a teapot. And if she decides not to write again, well, that’s her choice (and a fairly neurotic reaction, if you ask me). The world will keep turning and great works of literature will keep being produced.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I didn’t care for My Brilliant Friend enough to want to read the rest of the books, but I think I’d feel the same way about any author.