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Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Neapolitan Novels Book 3) Kindle Edition

by Elena Ferrante (Author), Ann Goldstein (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 13,543 ratings
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Part of the bestselling saga about childhood friends following different paths by “one of the great novelists of our time” (The New York Times).
 
In the third book in the New York Times–bestselling Neapolitan quartet that inspired the HBO series My Brilliant Friend, Elena and Lila have grown into womanhood. Lila married at sixteen and has a young son; she has left her husband and the comforts her marriage brought and now works as a common laborer. Elena has left the neighborhood, earned her college degree, and published a successful novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned interlocutors and richly furnished salons. Both women are pushing against the walls of a prison that would have seen them living a life of misery, ignorance, and submission. They are afloat on the great sea of opportunities that opened up for women during the 1970s. And yet, they are still very much bound to each other in a book that “shows off Ferrante’s strong storytelling ability and will leave readers eager for the final volume of the series” (Library Journal).
 
“One of modern fiction’s richest portraits of a friendship.” —NPR
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Previous page
  1. Book 3 of 4
    Neapolitan Novels
  2. Print length
    495 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Europa Editions
  6. Publication date
    September 2, 2014
  7. Reading age
    18 years and up
  8. File size
    4691 KB
  9. Page Flip
    Enabled
  10. Word Wise
    Enabled
  11. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  12. See all details
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  1. My becoming was a becoming in her wake. I had to start again to become, but for myself, as an adult, outside of her.
    Highlighted by 1,151 Kindle readers
  2. “The waste of intelligence. A community that finds it natural to suffocate with the care of home and children so many women’s intellectual energies is its own enemy and doesn’t realize it.”
    Highlighted by 1,072 Kindle readers
  3. The solitude of women’s minds is regrettable, I said to myself, it’s a waste to be separated from each other, without procedures, without tradition.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

''Rising far above the melodrama of a typical coming-of-age story, this third in Ferrante's four Neapolitan novels exhibits keen intellectual curiosity and heartfelt passion as it continues to explore the lives of childhood friends Lina and Elena Superbly translated, this tour de force shows off Ferrante's strong storytelling ability and will leave readers eager for the final volume of the series.'' --Library Journal (starred review)

''Ferrante continues to imbue this growing saga with great magic, treating the girls' years of marriage and motherhood with breathtaking honesty while envisaging the turbulence of political and social unrest in 1970s Italy. Though originally planned as a trilogy, the story doesn't finish here, as this book ends with a hook that will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next installment.'' --Booklist (starred review)

''Ferrante writes with the kind of power saved for weather systems with female names, sparing no one, and Those Who Stay is a tour de force. I don't want to read anything else.'' --Jennifer Gilmore, New York Times bestselling author

''Surpass[es] the rapturous storytelling of the previous titles in the Neapolitan Novels.'' --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

''Ferrante has authored a 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman' that captures not only the forging of a self but the salvaging of it.'' --Vogue, praise for the series

About the Author

Elena Ferrante was born in Naples, Italy. She is the author of My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, and her previous novelsThe Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter. She is one of Italy's most important and acclaimed contemporary writers. Her true identity is unknown.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B079MHDBZ2
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Europa Editions (September 2, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 2, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4691 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 495 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 13,543 ratings

About the author

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Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante

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Elena Ferrante is the author of seven novels, including four New York Times bestsellers; The Beach at Night, an illustrated book for children; and, Frantumaglia, a collection of letters, literary essays, and interviews. Her fiction has been translated into over forty languages and been shortlisted for the MAN Booker International Prize. In 2016 she was named one of TIME’s most influential people of the year and the New York Times has described her as “one of the great novelists of our time.” Ferrante was born in Naples.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
13,543 global ratings
An amazing author. BUT pages are bound incorrectly (I learned on page 192) & so I cant read the rest
2 Stars
An amazing author. BUT pages are bound incorrectly (I learned on page 192) & so I cant read the rest
Pages are bound wrong — meaning they're shorter in width from page 192 - 208, and now I'll have to stop reading in the middle until I get a new copy somewhere. I want to return/refund it, but I've annotated it with thoughts and notes that I'd like to keep. Pretty disappointed because I was really enjoying it (I love Ferrante... definitely worth the read in terms of content).
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Top reviews from the United States

Charles R. Myers
5.0 out of 5 stars I can't remember when I have been so completely taken with a series of novels as I have been with these beautifully written and
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2015
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Those Who Leave is the third book in the author's "Neapolitan Novels" (with the fourth, The Story of the Lost Child, scheduled for publication in the U.S. in September 2015) and it is as gripping and enthralling as the first two. The series is set in a somewhat insular neighborhood of Naples. It is now the late 1960s and 1970s and the two main characters, whose friendship constitutes the center of the books, are now somewhat estranged as their lives have grown complicated and divergent. Still living in Naples, Lina has separated from her husband and is raising her young son while Elena has graduated from college and published a novel. But the actually events of the narrative are not the author's primary concern. Rather, it is the internal life of the two characters and how their own idiosyncratic reactions provide a shape to their stories. In addition to drawing complex characters, Ferrante provides a fascinating portrait of the culture of this slice of Italy during rapidly evolving times. Taken together, the novels are both a coming-of-age story and a coming-into-maturity tale of two diverse women who somehow maintain their own complex, and often convoluted, relationship. I can't remember when I have been so completely taken with a series of novels as I have been with these beautifully written and deeply realized stories, and I am having trouble waiting for the final volume. I recommend Those Who Leave and the two previous books in the series with absolutely no reservations.
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MJ
4.0 out of 5 stars no payday of an ending but a nice reading experience
Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2017
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Once, when I was a teenager back in the good old 1990's, I was reading Seventeen Magazine and came across a candy-bar ad. The ad was a picture of the candy-bar, and the slogan that it was "totally nuts." In the background there was a lot of text in very fine print. I started reading this text, which was a parody version of a 90's teenage girl rambling on forever about nothing. Phone conversations, clothing descriptions, the word "like" thrown in every tenth word or so. Yet I kept reading the whole thing. I was mesmerized and oddly soothed by the repetitive nothingness of the "story." And then, over halfway through, the story was interrupted by congratulations for making it through such a "nutty" story and offered me a free teeshirt.

What does this have to do with Elena Ferrante's novel? The repetitive, almost nothingness of the story through the first three books had a similar feeling for me, and I found myself remembering that ad for the first time in many years. Much as I was compelled to finish the advertisement, I also could not put these books down, and I have now finished the 4th novel. This being said, I do not know if I can honestly describe them as being great storytelling. The protagonist (Lenù) is unlikable and rather selfish and short-sighted. She has enough intelligence to excel in school with a lot of hard work, but she never exhibits her own opinion and keeps trying to act in a way that people will reward with praise rather than have any ideas or presence of her own. But yet she is sympathetic at times as someone trying to be her best self, using education as the means. Lila, the friend, is fascinating, but remains a bit of an enigma throughout the books. I wished many times that we were reading the story from her perspective. But I did read it all, and the two women characters do grow up and hit milestones of life throughout the books, but the pattern that they go through remains the same always as they age.

Definitely worth reading if you are a reader of novels. A well written, and a unique kind of story for sure, but kind of like reading a teenage girl's long ramble of her inner consciousness that she is aware someone is going to read one day. But the novel does provide plenty of deeper themes to think about and ponder. Feminism, poverty, the modern era and how it changed society, and yet how things stay the same too. The mid-century Italian setting was interesting and was a great atmosphere to the novels. Perhaps if a free tee-shirt had been offered in the middle of the book, it would have gotten 5 stars from me, but alas that was not the case.
10 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Love These Books!
Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2022
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I saw the series before reading the books and I am so very glad I am reading them! Ferrante is an amazing writer - so much detail & insight, you understand how these character's personalities easily after the first book. I still have the fourth in this series to go & definitely plan on reading her other works as well.
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propertius
5.0 out of 5 stars Shelve This Series Between Proust And Faulkner
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2014
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It appears that Elena Ferrante is intent upon surprising her readership constantly not only in the intensity and complexity of her work, but also in the form. It had been anticipated that this book would be the capstone of her Naples trilogy, the other two books being "My Brilliant Friend" and "The Story of a New Name." This is not the case since the ending of this book indulges the reader by indicating that a fourth "Naples volume" is in the making.

This book indicates that her ambition is almost Proustian or Faulknerian in scope for this series. There is the continuation of the tortured relationship between the narrator Elena and her childhood friend Lila and the ebb and flow of all the tributaries that haunt these two, whether it be the old neighborhood, the mangled relationships of old lovers, families, regional disputes etc. Where this volume diverges from the other two is that there is more theoretical talk between Elena, Lila, and Elena's lover and her husband. When a writer has a character talk about the art of writing and the creative process, you should pay close attention to those sections.Yet this novel does not yield an inch to its predecessors in dramatic intensity and I feel that it surpasses them substantially.

Not only is there an intensity but also an urgency conveyed in this book that accelerates to the last chapter which ends with all the force of old Hollywood cliffhangers. However whereas the other two books in this series could almost be read as stand-alone works, this one does require that the reader to have acquainted himself with the at least the second book in the series.

There is a constant sense of wonder in that Ms. Ferrante conveys the "woman's perceptive" or sensibilities throughout the novel without falling into preaching or propagandizing. This is certainly art, after all we do not limit say a Hemingway by saying he writes for men or T S Eliot's "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" is only for shy middle-aged men, we would be doing them and us a disservice. And so it should be for Ferrante. No one can read this book and not come away with a heightened sense of the human condition and one may start thinking of the story of and the relationship of Elena and Lila in the same way with think of Caesar and Cleopatra or Achilles and Hector. It is that great.
54 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Carolina Port
5.0 out of 5 stars Genial
Reviewed in Brazil on January 1, 2023
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Maravilhoso!
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Margarida Saraiva
5.0 out of 5 stars quatro livros excelentes
Reviewed in Spain on March 15, 2021
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não é um thriller de ação, mas a história toca pelo realismo e profundidade emotiva
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MARCELA CORTES
5.0 out of 5 stars Just wonderful!
Reviewed in Mexico on January 2, 2020
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Her writing is one of the best I’ve come across. She has a gift to enthrall the reader with amazing character building and uncomplicated languaje, while exposing social issues of misoginy in the Italy of the 60’s & 70’s.
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Mama Poco
5.0 out of 5 stars 女性の人生
Reviewed in Japan on July 9, 2023
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イタリアナポリで生きる女性達の人生をしばし共有。強く共感させる筆致で、読書の幸せを感じてます。
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Lexie
5.0 out of 5 stars Getrennte Wege- verschiedene Welten
Reviewed in Germany on August 22, 2017
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Natürlich war ich sehr gespannt wie es nach dem zweiten Buch mit den beiden Protagonistinnen weitergeht.

Ich wurde nicht enttäuscht .

Die beiden Freundinnen sind in den 70er Jahren angekommen .

Elena, die das Glück hatte , dass ihre Begabung nicht nur bewundert , sondern auch gefördert wurde , hat einen Universitätsabschluss und inzwischen Bekanntheit erlangt durch ein Buch, das sie veröffentlicht hat.

Sie hat einen Kommilitonen geheiratet, dessen Vater Professor ist.

Sie hat in eine progressive, politische linksstehende Familie eingeheiratet, die nicht gegensätzlicher zu ihrer Herkunftsfamilie sein könnte, was die Autorin auch thematisiert

Inzwischen hat Elena zwei Kinder, mit denen sie zum Teil ihre liebe Not hat und zu denen sie auch ein zwiegespaltenes Verhältnis hat, wie ich gefunden habe

Lila hingegen ist in Neapel geblieben. Sie wohnt bei Enzo, mit dem sie ein nur ein rein platonisches Verhältnis hat.
Sie zieht ihren Sohn Gennaro alleine groß.

Lila arbeitet in einer Fabrik, deren Arbeitsbedingungen sehr verbesserungswürdig sind.

Lila gelingt es allerdings, sich von der Arbeit in der Fabrik zu befreien und sie arbeitet in der damals noch brandneuen Computerbranche, in der sie dank ihrer Intelligenz einen bescheidenen Erfolg hat

Die Geschichte der Protagonistinnen wird im Kontext mit der Zeit der siebziger Jahre weitererzählt , dem politischen Umbruch , den Bedingungen für die Arbeiter,aber auch dem Terror.

Dieser hat auch Menschen aus dem Bekanntenkreis von Lila und Elena in seinen Bann gezogen hat.

Auch wenn es mir manchmal nicht ganz gelungen ist das Handeln der beiden Heldinnen nachzuvollziehen, oder mich gar damit zu identifizieren (warum ist Lila nicht von Stefano längst geschieden, warum ist sie völlig ohne Geld von ihm gegangen, warum ist Elena nicht zufriedener ) so habe ich diese Fortsetzung dennoch mit Begeisterung gelesen.

Ich freue mich auf den vierten Teil!
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