Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante
Posted in Other fiction, Reading Reviewed at 12:00 on 25 January 2025
Europa Editions, 2022, 135 p. Translated from the Italian L’Amore molesto (Edizioni e/o 1999) by Ann Goldstein.
Troubling Love was Ferrante’s first novel. It is narrated by Delia, whose parents’ marriage had always been troubled by her father’s jealousy of her mother Amalia’s attractiveness to men, in particular to a man named Caserta who acted as selling agent for the cheap pictures, mainly of gypsies, which Delia’s father painted for a living.
The events of the novel range over decades taking in Delia’s memories of her life growing up but mainly describe the aftermath of Amalia’s death by drowning – apparently suicide – clad in only a new bra. This aspect puzzles Delia since her mother had not been one for indulging in new clothing; make do and mend was one of her characteristics.
A cache of new clothes (possibly bought for her by Caserta) in her mother’s apartment is all the more puzzling because they seem to have been intended for Delia to wear but show signs of Amalia having at least tried them on.
All this sends Delia off on a quest to find Caserta; and the truth about her mother and father’s life. There are foreshadowings here of Ferrante’s later and more famous Neapolitan Quartet (see reviews, here, here, here and here.) A certain claustrophobia in the setting, dark goings on in normally deserted parts of buildings, an interest in older men but in this one Ferrante displays more of a lack of squeamishness about bodily secretions. There are visceral details about Delia’s unusual bodily reactions to stress.
Unlike in the Quartet though, Troubling Love is about the difficulties of shaking off the influence – and inheritance – of parents. For a first novel it is very accomplished indeed.
Pedant’s corner:- Translated into USian, “sawed off” (sawn off.) “I let each stitch become unsewed” (unsewn.)
Tags: Ann Goldstein, Elena Ferrante, Italian fiction, Neapolitan Quartet, Translated fiction, Troubling Love