Lottie Lomme
A friendship is the 5th novel by the philosopher from Bologna, which again partly takes place in the culinary student city. About a friendship between two girls in high school: Elise and Beatrice.
The story is written in the first person by Elise. About 15 years after the friendship is over. She has now had a child and works hard as a teacher and single mother.
Beatrice has become a world-renowned influencer with millions of followers in the years since their friendship. Elise looks back on their friendship and tries to unravel what it meant to her. We finally read the denouement in the final chapters.
The Story of Friendship
Elise has just moved to her father in a small town in Liguria after having spent primary and secondary school in the Piedmont.
Her mother was single, far from being an exemplary parent, and had to work hard for little money. Raising her children was an added burden.
Elise has an older brother who loses himself in the hard rock scene and in drugs. One day, her mother leaves her with her father, while she and her son return to the Piedmont.
Elise is left lonely and unseen in a dull provincial town with her father, whom she barely knows.
This being unseen is an important feature of Elise's childhood and recognizable for many teenagers, I think.
Many of us women think we've had a girlfriend who was more beautiful and popular than themselves, as Beatrice was before Elise.
More outgoing and more confident in himself. She made Elise feel seen. After all, your time in high school is one big experiment to determine your position in relation to others.
Then about 4 or 5 years of friendship is told, in which Beatrice's mother dies and Elise falls in love with Lorenzo.
The friendship between the women is very strong. Also in that period of puberty, which is a period of promises in which everything is still open and in which the emotions are so strong.
Beatrice is a confident beauty, or so it seems through the eyes of others.
She dares to show off clothes and her body while Elise wears baggy sweaters and sagging jeans and tries to disguise her body. They spend all their time together and are very familiar with each other.
When high school is finished, they move to Bologna where the three of them (including Lorenzo) study. Elise is happy, but Beatrice and Lorenzo are not.
Then something happens that causes the friendship to end abruptly.
Looking back (spoiler alert)
Every now and then we read between the report about the hurt feelings of Elise. We only read about the betrayal of her friend, but also about her own role in it at the end, when the whole picture comes back into the picture and Bea's perspective also returns.
They then have a big altercation, throw everything out and reconnect.
Of course it is easy to say that influencers lead a superficial life and that social media prevents real contact.
It is therefore nice that at the end Elise's resentment is nuanced and we see that the influencer of millions of others is still human.
And then we read the conclusion that growing up is not a loss, but a liberation and you can think about the question: does life really have to be told in order to exist?
An important question, not just for a writer, because I think we all long for something eternal at times.
My feelings about the first alternate. Sometimes growing up is a loss and sometimes a liberation.
And whether life should be told? What is told are varying stories. At 20 we look at our high school differently than when we are 30, 50 or 70.
And also then: if I feel good I will have a different version than when I feel bad.
People are not that balanced. Our stories change. They are usually not the boring stories we want to tell each other.
Not everything needs to be told to be cherished, by yourself. That doesn't seem eternal, but losing yourself in an instant offers it.
Like reading this wonderful book.
Want to read more from Avallone? A few years back came from her too light of life out, which I also reviewed for This is Italy.
A friendship
by: Silvia Avallone, translated by: Manon Smits
448 pp.
€ 24,99 (also available as an e-book for € 17,99)
The Busy Bee, August 2021
ISBN 9789403137315
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