Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults: Giovanna’s Search for Home
By Margaux Trexler
THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS
By Elena Ferrante
Translated by Ann Goldstein
In Elena Ferrante’s latest work, The Lying Life of Adults, teenager Giovanna Trada is torn between two Neapolitan homes: the first of her parents and the second of her elusive Aunt Vittoria. After overhearing her parents compare her to her disgraced and estranged aunt, Giovanna seeks out Vittoria, hoping to uncover the truth about their similarities. As their relationship grows, Vittoria urges Giovanna to look at her parents with a more critical eye, as Vittoria herself does due to past familial disputes. Vittoria tells Giovanna, “look at them, your parents, look at them carefully, don’t let them fool you” (Ferrante 86), and Giovanna executes this mission. Vittoria’s ominous commands bode the collapse of Giovanna’s parents’ marriage; as Giovanna begins to scrutinize them, she uncovers their infidelity, lies, and immorality. These deceptions tarnish Giovanna’s family life and home, and render her essentially homeless. Thus, Giovanna finds herself pulled between her parents and Vittoria, between the two homes within Naples, and struggles to assert herself in a world that seems to be crumbling around her.
As the novel progresses, Giovanna not only struggles with finding security geographically but also within herself, and her story and progression into womanhood expand on the traditional notions of home and family. Since Giovanna no longer feels as if she belongs in her home, she is thrust into the world to find a new one and throughout her search, Ferrante explicitly challenges accepted notions of these domestic concepts. She suggests that a home is not necessarily where one was born and grows up, but somewhere (or someone) each of us must actively search for throughout our lives. This exploration of what a home actually is provokes questioning into the nature of familial relationships and the power of a chosen home over an inherited one.
Ferrante also does not hold back when describing the pains of blossoming womanhood or Giovanna’s deep despair at her parents’ betrayal, masterfully summing up the often mortifying state of teenage development. Especially notable is Giovanna’s revelation that she desires to be degraded, a need exacerbated by her emotional and physical state of depression at losing her cherished childhood. Giovanna expresses this desire in a painful quotation, “A very violent need for degradation was growing inside me—a fearless degradation, a yearning to feel heroically vile” (Ferrante 163). By not shying away from the essence of teenage life and feeling, Ferrante places each reader into the body of Giovanna, and regardless of lived experience, makes you feel what she is feeling. This provoked empathy within readers proves that even childhood and teenage life is laced with innately “adult” problems. Even though Giovanna is a teenager, her story transcends her age and embodies the darkness of life and love that exists at all ages.
Finally, the way Ferrante leans into both romance and vulgarity brings her setting of Naples into a colorful reality. Sex lies at the heart of the antagonisms throughout The Lying Life of Adults and causes painfully real conflicts. Giovanna watches and experiences how sex can destroy homes, families, and relationships, even those of adults. She at times finds humor in her sexual experiences and, other times, despair. Ferrante’s fluid and evocative language captures both the magnetism of desire and the crushing aftermath of adultery and unfulfilling relationships. The balance between the light-hearted and sweet parts of the narrative and the darker moments mimic real life—by not succumbing to either trope, that life is perfect or that life is horrible, Ferrante creates a world that seems so real one forgets it is fiction.
Ferrante’s unabashed dive into Giovanna’s emergence from adolescence—filled with deceit, lies, shame, humiliation, and failure—proves once again the writer’s undeniable talent for capturing the essence of life: the good, the bad, and the wished-to-be-forgotten. It is impossible not to feel Giovanna’s deep longing for identity, guidance, and romance as she navigates life and the lies of the adults around her. The Lying Life of Adults gorgeously speaks to the innate human desire to feel like you belong, whether that be within a home or among other people. Ferrante’s microcosm of Naples encompasses a global reality of desire that spans generations and touches on the core human desire to be wanted.
THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS
By Elena Ferrante
Translated by Ann Goldstein
Europa Editions. 322 pp. $26.