This leaves Olga disoriented with rage and you feel her grasp slowly dissolving to catastrophic proportions it’s so cleverly written (also disturbingly funny at times) you feel the torment dripping off the pages. BookREVIEW: Days of Abandonment. Reviewer Lynda Woodroffe. The complete review's Review: . Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2015. Ordinarily the lack of curiosity about those outside one's class explains why: the preference for one's circle of intimates where uncertainties and dangers are kept away. Check out our review of Ferrante’s latest book, or get to know her English translator. It is incredibly realistic and painful to feel Olga's alienation: from a world where "everything was reduced to an aseptic voice" (p. 68) She tries desperately to put on a brave face: "To those who hurt me. People everywhere fall apart at being abandoned. It is very good but hard to read. The Days of Abandonment. Incendiary & insightful, Elena Ferrante is one authentic discovery! Elena Ferrante is a very skilled writer, and 'The Days of Abandonment' doubtlessly a very strong piece of writing. Be warned, however, that - at least beginning from roughly the halfway point - this is not a … I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss this simply as a novel about an unhinged woman. Ambitious men prefer architecture over sensitivity, evidence shows. Complex plotting in the dissolution of a marriage, it's astonishing that she can achieve a sense of grandeur in a subject so common it's almost not even worth noting. This page works best with JavaScript. I read this right before reading "Ties" by Domenico Starnone, who is said to be Ferrante's husband. So I was looking forward to the book. When past that I began to get into the mind of the wife to watch how her life exploded. This is not the first time Mario has left the … After reading the four 'Neapolitan Novels' and 'Troubling Love', I finally got around to reading Ms. Ferrante's first published novel - 'Days of Abandonment'. Review by Brandon Winchester ★★★ Movie #2704: The Days of Abandonment. those who want to explore the workings of the mind, First person novels featuring women going slightly or more than slightly bonkers are not hard to come by, in fact they may be a whole sub-genre. The author just used the different and more formal terms to describe her pain. Elena Ferrante is a pseudonymous Italian novelist. This was emotional and searing and I finished it in one afternoon and it left me some combination of sad and angry and melancholy for the rest of the day, and it's going to be a pretty long time before I can talk about it, I think. Nothing like reading another 700 page book from Mitchell or Murakami. In particular, the ups and downs Olga … Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, Most of us Have Been There....Ferrante Captures Her "Days of Abandonment", Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2017. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. That's a first sentence that leaves you turning pages quickly, even though Olga's descent into pain and near madness is as hard to read about as a train wreck is to watch. The Days Of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante. The Days of Abandonment Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community … The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante Wow, The Days of Abandonment was well written with important things to say, but still pretty tough for me to read. This is the kind of surrealist stuff that I expected … Be warned, however, that - at least beginning from roughly the halfway point - this is not a … In less than 200. Olg. Notes from Elena Ferrante’s final revisions to The Story of the Lost Child.. Over the past ten years, the translation into English of Elena Ferrante’s ­novels—including Troubling Love, The Days of Abandonment… Not a very liberated woman. A smattering of thoughts about one of my most stressful reads of the year. While her husband is off living the life, shagging his new mistress and all but disappears from the scene she ends up questioning everything about her marriage, her sanity and her place as a mother. Verified Purchase. A knock against "women's literature"is that it never aims for, or achieves, a large-scale canvas. With Margherita Buy, Luca Zingaretti, Goran Bregovic, Alessia Goria. The book reveals how even the best of people, the main character was a writer, can lose all … This novel is a powerful account of the emotional stresses of abandonment. When I was young, I saw my mother go through something similar. " It's a heartbreaking story, probably not to be recommended if you are after something lighthearted or frothy, but highly recommended if you want stunning writing and a fascinating and real character study of a broken woman who puts herself back together again. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. Set in Turin, it chronicles a woman's descent into madness when her husband leaves her and their children for a younger woman. by Europa Editions. Well worth reading, and an enticement to continue discovering Ms. Ferrante's work. You feel her painful wrath and her emotional distress so alive you can feel it. It's true that the violent rage that overtakes the protagonist is sometimes hard to take. A woman who has been rejected by a man is a thing to be reviled, a creature rejected by the community, a monster who frightens children. (p. 76). The Days of Abandonment is the gripping story of an Italian woman’s experiences after being suddenly left by her husband after fifteen years of marriage. Olga is abandoned by her unfaithful husband, leaving her for a much younger woman. I hesitate between giving this book 3 or 4 stars. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband with two young children … Next on my list was The Days of Abandonment. The Days of Abandonment is unpleasant: Olga is not a very good parent (and though Mario tries to draw the children into his new life, he soon also tires of them), and Olga does not act very nicely to almost anyone she deals with. Not only that, her sentences are so delightful and can turn from horrifying to elating in a matter of seconds. This book was kind of melodramatic. Still, I wanted to read a perspective that I don’t find an American books. Verified Purchase. How wrong I was. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. In fact, I was so upset about what happened to the dog, it made me dislike the main character greatly. Nothing like reading another 700 page book from Mitchell or Murakami. Margarita Buy brings one of her finest performances to "The Days of Abandonment," but apart from her sensitivity, this overly familiar drama offers little real insight into the suffering of a … Things fall apart and she becomes "A broken clock that, because its metal heart continued to beat, was now breaking the time of everything else." I first heard about Elena Ferrante about a year ago when everyone seemed to read her Neapolitan saga. "The Days Of Abandonment" is no exception. poisoned , due to the nature of the husband that left - he was not a friendly character - and treated the other residents in the community with rudene, No, this has nothing to do with the Neapolitan Quartet, as it is a separate story. Anyway, I won't let that soften the blow, because this was torture to listen to. An anatomy of a breakdown after husband abandons her for a younger woman, Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2016. It isn't just a book about an affair, it's a book about the deepest, darkest feelings a person can have about themselves and other people, and the precautions they must take to save themselves from drowning. I had just finished lounging in the pure ecstasy that only prolific readers know, of reading Ferrante's "The Neapolitan Series". Aging, friendship, intellectual pursuits. Most people have been on the receiving end of a horrible breakup where they find themselves utterly destroyed and devastated, and Ferrante's descriptions are spot on. Her four-book series of Neapolitan Novels are her most widely known works. (p. 107) She does manage to survive with her kids and eventually has a final conversation with Mario about their separation in which she confronts him: "Now I know what an absence of sense is and what happens if you manage to get back to the surface of it. The Days of Abandonment is a first-person narrative from the perspective of Olga, a 38-year-old mother of two (Gianni and Illaria), recently left by her husband, Mario. So I was looking forward to the book. Welcome back. Burned on a funeral pyre with him. Hardly. 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