The Story of a New Name: My Brilliant Friend Book 2: Youth (Neapolitan Quartet)

Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity. I thought: now that Lila has let herself be seen so plainly, I must resign myself to not seeing her anymore.

I imagined that I was in a race against time, a race in which the writer always lagged behind.

Qu’est-ce que je fais ici ? Pourquoi je perds mon temps comme ça ? Les filles et Naples m’ont dévorée vive. Je ne travaille pas, je n’écris pas, j’ai perdu toute discipline !

It was an old fear, a fear that has never left me: the fear that, in losing pieces of her life, mine lost intensity and importance. And the fact that she didn’t answer emphasized that preoccupation. However hard I tried in my letters to communicate the privilege of the days in Ischia, my river of words and her silence seemed to demonstrate that my