The Days of Abandonment
by Elena Ferrante
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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. With two young children to care for, Olga finds it more and more difficult to do the things she used to: keep a spotless house, cook meals with creativity and passion, refrain from using obscenities. After running into her husband with his much-younger new lover in public, she cannot even refrain from assaulting him physically. Olga conveys show more her journey from denial to devastating emptiness-and when she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal. show lessTags
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This is one of those books you're not going to fully understand unless you've lived it. The Days of Abandonment reminded me of reading Djuna Barnes' Nightwood. I was lovingly given the book by my high school English teacher as a graduation present. I read it, didn't understand it, and promptly disliked it. Cue a heartbreak later and suddenly Barnes' words were the only balm that could understand it.
The Days of Abandonment is the same. Ferrante writes with a passion I audibly and physically felt. My book is underlined to near death. She is the author of the angry woman. I have never had a piece of media that mirrored so much my own descent into madness after my "abandonment". There is something so mundane and horrifying about the show more constant reoccurring memories, the drinking and self-mutilation, the dissociation and depersonalization from your brain breaking under the stress of it all. And Ferrante writes about it. She does it without flinching, without caring how ugly it is.
When I first read it, I was angry. I was angry with Olga, wanted to scream and yell and kill like her, to destroy everything like we had been destroyed inside. Now, every time I open the book to look at passages I cry. I cry at how I once was, I cry for the loss of innocence I suffered, the innumerable scars I have inside that render me angry, bitter, scared, and selfish. I just keep repeating to myself "You're not a knickknack, no woman is a knickknack. La femme rompue, ah, rompue, the destroyed woman, destroyed, shit."
I'm also very happy I read it at the time of my life I'm at now. It took me a long time, but it felt so good when I wanted to shake Olga to tell her that her ex was an asshole. Maybe I'm not totally over it (and don't want to be), because I wish there was more of a discussion of her ex-husband's /faults rather than her resignation.
This read as a brutal novel for much of the book, the fierce sadness and occasional violence shouts out from the pages and reading it was exhausting. The final section is calmer and an easier read. A roller coaster of a novel that I can only imagine was tough to write and translate. In the first line the narrator's husband announces he is leaving. Set in Turin, it quickly felt clear to me that Mario is a coward who has another relationship lined up and he disappears to make a nest with his new partner for a while leaving a wife, two young children and a dog. Not a comfortable read but with less than 200 pages I would recommend it.
Beautifully translated by Ann Goldstein)
The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose.”
Having read all four of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet last year, I thought I knew what to expect from The Days of Abandonment. Chosen by my very small book group for our May read I was very much looking forward to a book I had suggested, however I was completely taken by surprise by the tone of this novel . In time, I am glad to say, I came to love The Days of Abandonment, but it did take me a little while to be convinced. The Days of Abandonment is on the face of it the story of a woman’s descent into despair following the ending of her marriage; however it is much more the portrayal of her show more actual breakdown, in all its ugliness and misery. I was ill prepared for the anger and gut wrenching raw intimacy of this novel – at times that anger is almost visceral – and there are moments when the reader really would rather look away.
One day just after lunch Olga’s husband Mario tells her he is leaving her. Olga; abandoned by her husband though not really believing he means to stay away permanently – having the rug ripped away she is left floundering. Left in the apartment with her two children and the family dog, Olga experiences a dark and frightening descent into a loss of identity. Haunted by the memory of a woman from her childhood who earned herself the name the ‘poverella’ she too was a woman abandoned, left destitute. Trying to maintain a good relationship with Mario, not ready to face up to the realities of her marriage, she recalls the flirtation her husband had with the young daughter of her friend some years earlier. Olga walks the streets of her city, at odds with who she is and where her life has taken her. Becoming a distant, distracted mother, Olga is often rather neglectful while she is locked into her own despair. She clings to her children , selfishly thinking more of her own wants than their needs.
“Even if I tried to tell myself that I had given him nothing, that the children were mostly mine, that they had remained within the radius of my body, subject to my care, still I couldn’t avoid thinking what aspects of his nature inevitably lay hidden in them. Mario would explode suddenly from inside their bones, now, over the days, over the years, in ways that were more and more visible. How much of him would I be forced to love forever, without even realizing it, simply by virtue of the fact that I loved them? What a complex foamy mixture a couple is. Even if the relationship shatters and ends, it continues to act in secret pathways, it doesn’t die, it doesn’t want to die.”
It is soon apparent that her husband has another woman, and fury and bitterness consume her. Taking her anger out on whoever is in her path, Olga’s behaviour spirals out of control. Olga must still try and cope with daily life – but her children have to make their own way home from school, the dog has to be exercised but Olga is struggling to maintain normal everyday life. She can’t accept at first that her marriage could be over. She imagines that she can make Mario return to her, first by demonstrating how without him the family is unable to operate as normal, then later by showing how they are coping well. Olga enlists the children’s help in her deceptions but the children just seem to become more bewildered by the situation, more distrustful of this new mother. When Olga comes home one day to find her husband has let himself into the apartment and taken away earrings which he had bought for her, Olga rashly arranges for the locks to be changed. Despite having been – as her young daughter later reminds her – rather stupid about locks in the past, Olga consents to the fitting of a complicated double lock. Bills go unpaid, the phone no longer connects to the outside world, a mobile phone gets broken, and an infestation of ants must be dealt with.
Carrano, the solitary musician who lives in the apartment below is drawn into Olga’s fragile existence when she finds his wallet and returns it late one evening. The awkward, mutually unsatisfying sexual encounter the two have on this occasion testament to Olga’s need to have somebody want her.
So when her son and the dog both fall ill at the same time, and she finds herself literally locked into the apartment Olga must draw on reserves which she doesn’t even feel that she has in order to look after her family. Olga has to face up to the fact that things have changed, that her life won’t simply return to how it was before.
There is so much to admire in this novel, Ferrante’s writing is extraordinarily good, there is an uncomfortable honesty in her depiction of this abandoned wife. I have read – since finishing the book that the novel was greeted with some controversy upon its publication in Italy in 2002 because Olga is often hard to sympathise with, her behaviour as a woman and particularly as a mother makes it hard for us to like her. In time Olga faces up to an entirely new view of Mario starting to see him through the eyes of others, she is surprised at what she finds.
“What a mistake, above all, it had been to believe that I couldn’t live without him, when for a long time I had not been at all certain that I was alive with him.”
I am looking forward to discussing this with my book group there is in this slight novel much to talk about. I can’t help but wonder about the anger which oozes from this novel, where it might have come from – and whether the story of Olga is that of the author about whom we know so little. show less
The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose.”
Having read all four of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet last year, I thought I knew what to expect from The Days of Abandonment. Chosen by my very small book group for our May read I was very much looking forward to a book I had suggested, however I was completely taken by surprise by the tone of this novel . In time, I am glad to say, I came to love The Days of Abandonment, but it did take me a little while to be convinced. The Days of Abandonment is on the face of it the story of a woman’s descent into despair following the ending of her marriage; however it is much more the portrayal of her show more actual breakdown, in all its ugliness and misery. I was ill prepared for the anger and gut wrenching raw intimacy of this novel – at times that anger is almost visceral – and there are moments when the reader really would rather look away.
One day just after lunch Olga’s husband Mario tells her he is leaving her. Olga; abandoned by her husband though not really believing he means to stay away permanently – having the rug ripped away she is left floundering. Left in the apartment with her two children and the family dog, Olga experiences a dark and frightening descent into a loss of identity. Haunted by the memory of a woman from her childhood who earned herself the name the ‘poverella’ she too was a woman abandoned, left destitute. Trying to maintain a good relationship with Mario, not ready to face up to the realities of her marriage, she recalls the flirtation her husband had with the young daughter of her friend some years earlier. Olga walks the streets of her city, at odds with who she is and where her life has taken her. Becoming a distant, distracted mother, Olga is often rather neglectful while she is locked into her own despair. She clings to her children , selfishly thinking more of her own wants than their needs.
“Even if I tried to tell myself that I had given him nothing, that the children were mostly mine, that they had remained within the radius of my body, subject to my care, still I couldn’t avoid thinking what aspects of his nature inevitably lay hidden in them. Mario would explode suddenly from inside their bones, now, over the days, over the years, in ways that were more and more visible. How much of him would I be forced to love forever, without even realizing it, simply by virtue of the fact that I loved them? What a complex foamy mixture a couple is. Even if the relationship shatters and ends, it continues to act in secret pathways, it doesn’t die, it doesn’t want to die.”
It is soon apparent that her husband has another woman, and fury and bitterness consume her. Taking her anger out on whoever is in her path, Olga’s behaviour spirals out of control. Olga must still try and cope with daily life – but her children have to make their own way home from school, the dog has to be exercised but Olga is struggling to maintain normal everyday life. She can’t accept at first that her marriage could be over. She imagines that she can make Mario return to her, first by demonstrating how without him the family is unable to operate as normal, then later by showing how they are coping well. Olga enlists the children’s help in her deceptions but the children just seem to become more bewildered by the situation, more distrustful of this new mother. When Olga comes home one day to find her husband has let himself into the apartment and taken away earrings which he had bought for her, Olga rashly arranges for the locks to be changed. Despite having been – as her young daughter later reminds her – rather stupid about locks in the past, Olga consents to the fitting of a complicated double lock. Bills go unpaid, the phone no longer connects to the outside world, a mobile phone gets broken, and an infestation of ants must be dealt with.
Carrano, the solitary musician who lives in the apartment below is drawn into Olga’s fragile existence when she finds his wallet and returns it late one evening. The awkward, mutually unsatisfying sexual encounter the two have on this occasion testament to Olga’s need to have somebody want her.
So when her son and the dog both fall ill at the same time, and she finds herself literally locked into the apartment Olga must draw on reserves which she doesn’t even feel that she has in order to look after her family. Olga has to face up to the fact that things have changed, that her life won’t simply return to how it was before.
There is so much to admire in this novel, Ferrante’s writing is extraordinarily good, there is an uncomfortable honesty in her depiction of this abandoned wife. I have read – since finishing the book that the novel was greeted with some controversy upon its publication in Italy in 2002 because Olga is often hard to sympathise with, her behaviour as a woman and particularly as a mother makes it hard for us to like her. In time Olga faces up to an entirely new view of Mario starting to see him through the eyes of others, she is surprised at what she finds.
“What a mistake, above all, it had been to believe that I couldn’t live without him, when for a long time I had not been at all certain that I was alive with him.”
I am looking forward to discussing this with my book group there is in this slight novel much to talk about. I can’t help but wonder about the anger which oozes from this novel, where it might have come from – and whether the story of Olga is that of the author about whom we know so little. show less
Even though I had just a lukewarm experience reading Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend / Neapolitan series, I thought I would give the author another chance to “Wow” me. Didn’t happen. Instead, this book left me wishing I had never, ever picked up a Ferrante novel, or at least, not this one. Her books – the ones I have read, which now total 5 – are filled with self-absorbed, angry people who feel that someone else (never them) is responsible for their life being “in the crapper”. Ferrante wraps these super annoying, incompetent characters in self-righteous shrouds and has them engage in destructive behaviours that affect the very people they are supposed to love and support, like their own children. Yes, Ferrante is a show more skilled writer but her subject matter is an exercise in destructive, over the top drama-filled navel gazing that is just tiresome reading. As if thoroughly draining her characters isn’t enough, Ferrante has to drain her readers too.
Overall, this has to be the most annoying story I have ever read. If you have never read Ferrante’s works and are wondering if her stories might appeal to you, I would recommend skim reading the first 50 pages of this one. I have noticed that Ferrante's stories all appear to follow the same formula writing style, characterizations and themes. As for me, I am finished with Ferrante’s books. I am done. show less
Overall, this has to be the most annoying story I have ever read. If you have never read Ferrante’s works and are wondering if her stories might appeal to you, I would recommend skim reading the first 50 pages of this one. I have noticed that Ferrante's stories all appear to follow the same formula writing style, characterizations and themes. As for me, I am finished with Ferrante’s books. I am done. show less
At the outset of The Days of Abandonment, the narrator’s husband announces that he wants to leave her. His announcement is void of emotion, reminiscent of Camus’ Meursault. His declaration is also entwined with self-serving professions of his own confusion and weariness after fifteen years of marriage. His wife is bemused at first, confident that he will come to his senses. Only gradually does it become plain to her that she has been abandoned, dispensed with, and – with the dawning realization that he has been involved in an affair for more than five years – humiliated. What begins in near tranquillity rapidly transforms as the narrator’s passion takes hold and rends her very sanity in response to her husband’s betrayal. It show more is a startling descent and entirely riveting. The narrator plummets to an almost bestial level only to, through the force of her own will, reascend, to rebuild her shattered sense of self, and reclaim her equilibrium.
Ferrante displays remarkable control here with her narrator. She never slips into parody, both conforming to stereotypes of the “abandoned woman” (here modelled on a particular abandoned woman from the narrator’s childhood thirty years previous) while at the same time aggressively attacking those stereotypes. It is fabulous writing. The lengthy description of the day in August during which her “madness” comes to a head whilst events conspire to send her almost beyond redemption is harrowing.
The ability that Ferrante displays in bringing her protagonist back from the brink is nothing short of astonishing. She avoids magical solutions as well as crassly romantic ones. And by the end we are certain that we are dealing with a narrator, and no doubt an author, who is entirely whole, grounded, and clear-sighted. Highly recommended. show less
Ferrante displays remarkable control here with her narrator. She never slips into parody, both conforming to stereotypes of the “abandoned woman” (here modelled on a particular abandoned woman from the narrator’s childhood thirty years previous) while at the same time aggressively attacking those stereotypes. It is fabulous writing. The lengthy description of the day in August during which her “madness” comes to a head whilst events conspire to send her almost beyond redemption is harrowing.
The ability that Ferrante displays in bringing her protagonist back from the brink is nothing short of astonishing. She avoids magical solutions as well as crassly romantic ones. And by the end we are certain that we are dealing with a narrator, and no doubt an author, who is entirely whole, grounded, and clear-sighted. Highly recommended. show less
This starts out intense and never lets up (in fact, Ferrante just turns up the heat.) I haven't been this captivated by a narrative voice for a long time. Anguished, twisted, perceptive, dark, self-reflective, painfully honest...Reminded me a little of the feeling of reading Dostoevsky (e.g. Crime and Punishment), but the "madness" is focused here into one sizzling short novel. Beware; after the first sentence, you will be locked in Olga's world until the last sentence.
Nos últimos dias estou com uma intensa crise de ansiedade, os motivos não vem ao caso, inclusive com pesada medicação. E sabe o que está me fazendo ficar razoavelmente calma? O desespero de mulher abandonada de Dias de Abandono da Elena Ferrante, sentir um desespero maior que o meu me faz relaxar, me faz perceber que as coisas não são tão horríveis assim, apesar de fato ser horrível.
Deve ser isso o que chamam de biblioterapia, longe de mim levar a literatura para um lugar de auto-ajuda, mas quando seu coração está prestes a explodir de dor, é reconfortante adentrar uma narração em que a dor que a protagonista sente é tão intensa quanto, mesmo que diferente.
Ah, ainda prefiro a Ferrante do que a versão do Starnone para show more essa história. show less
Deve ser isso o que chamam de biblioterapia, longe de mim levar a literatura para um lugar de auto-ajuda, mas quando seu coração está prestes a explodir de dor, é reconfortante adentrar uma narração em que a dor que a protagonista sente é tão intensa quanto, mesmo que diferente.
Ah, ainda prefiro a Ferrante do que a versão do Starnone para show more essa história. show less
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ThingScore 75
Though it's occasionally frustrating to watch Olga hit all the familar marks (one can practically read the signposts: anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance), we still root for her, for her damaged kids, even for the next imperfect man waiting for her attentions.
added by ScattershotSteph
Smoothly translated by New Yorker editor Goldstein, this intelligent and darkly comic novel [...] conveys the resilience of a complex woman.
added by ScattershotSteph
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Author Information
47+ Works 28,156 Members
Elena Ferrante was born in Naples, Italy. Her work includes Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, The Story of the Lost Child, The Story of a New Name, The Lost Daughter, Fragments, and My Brilliant Friend. She is the author of My Brilliant Friend which made The New York Times Bestsellers List and The New Zealand Best Seller List 2015. She was show more included on Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
List Taschenbuch (60503)
Gallimard, Folio (6165)
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Days of Abandonment
- Original title
- I giorni dell'abbandono
- Original publication date
- 2002 (original Italian) (original Italian); 2005 (English: Goldstein) (English: Goldstein)
- People/Characters
- Mario; Olga; Gina; Carla; Carrano; Gianni (show all 7); Ilaria
- Important places
- Turin, Italy
- Related movies
- I giorni dell'abbandono (2005 | IMDb)
- First words
- One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.
- Quotations
- "Now I know what an absence of sense is and what happens if you manage to get back to the surface from it. You, you don't know. At most you glanced down, you got frightened, and you plugged up the hole with Carla's body."
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I pretended to believe him and so we loved each other for a long time, in the days and months to come, quietly.
- Blurbers
- Waters, John; Maslin, Janet; Flanagan, Richard
- Original language
- Italian
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 853.92 — Literature & rhetoric Italian, Romanian & related literatures Italian fiction 1900- 21st Century
- LCC
- PQ4866 .E6345 .G5613 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures Italian literature Individual authors, 1961-2000
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
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- Popularity
- 12,172
- Reviews
- 64
- Rating
- (3.80)
- Languages
- 19 — Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 65
- ASINs
- 12
