The Days of Abandonment

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 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. ( )

This treads some of the ground Ferrante later retreads in the Neapolitan series. It's pretty uncompromising, brutal, unpleasant and shocking as Olga breaks down after her husband leaves her and their children. But it also feels less accomplished than the later books, a bit too over the top in places and less believable. It's still good, but she kept getting better, so reading the earlier books afterwards feels a little disappointing. ( )

L'autrice riesce a trasformare il lettore in un faro che illumina la vita di Olga in un periodo difficile che non può nemmeno dirsi tragico per la sua banalità. Ho fatto fatica a interrompere la lettura ogni volta in cui la vita faceva capolino (bisogni fisiologici, lavoro, esigenze di familiari) e, durante le pause, la presenza di Olga continuava ad accompagnarmi, con il suo dolore sordo in bilico tra normalità e follia. Lo spettro di un'escandescenza in cui anch'io, perché no, avrei potuto o potrei un giorno ritrovarmi. ( )

I liked this book very much. It consisted mostly of what was going on in her mind after her husband abandoned her for another woman. Just trying to get out of bed every day and go through the motions of being completely on her own, taking care of two children and having no career and wondering what the heck you're going to do now, on your own. ( )

This was a tough read as it is difficult to read or watch someone slowly lose their mind due to some traumatic event that they can not cope with. I enjoyed it as I could easily relate with so many things written in this book.

The two harshest critics of this book will be women who never experienced anything like Olga and can not even imagine such things being done, said and thought, and will judge her very harshly and the other type of woman will be one who actually went thru a very similar situation and found the strength to yank up her boot straps to get it together and feels everyone should do likewise.

It does not work that way - trauma and how one copes, whether the person has children, friends and pets to consider, is individual, and without help, there will be a lot more victims than just the sufferer. ( )