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Raffaella Cerullo + Transition state theory
"She was like that, she threw things off balance just to see if she could put them back in some other way." - Elena Ferrante
largely inspired by this post by my beloved @elenagrec and this discussion i've had with @prismelit
Lila and the Men Around Her: A Means of Possession
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Credit: pictures on the left are from filmmaker Catherine Breillat’s interview at the Berlin Film Festival (originally found on justabore on TikTok)
l'amica geniale - 4x09 "la scomparsa"
What a perfect picture
fucked up
just started re-reading the books, there'll be more
Hi,
so to start I want to say that it's so nice that there are some accounts like yours so interested and active in My brilliant friend, so thank you for all the content and interesting takes that you write, some are very beautiful to read and re-read!
In any case: yesterday I was talking about the fourth book with a friend and the relationship between Lila and Alfonso came to my mind, in particular the scene of Alfonso's funeral, and it almost depresses me how at this event both his friends and his family misses, indicating how Alfonso has becomed alone and vulnerable.
Subsequently, I thinked about a second part of that scene that, when I read it the first time, puzzled me: the presence of the Solara brothers at the funeral. I was like: the guilty always go to the crime scene? It was a symptom of remorse, indicating their possible involvement? They were actually more blameless than we can imagine? And the final reaction of Michele to Lila, his unexpected burnst of rage toward the woman? How many lectures could have, apart the sign of his unequivocal descend into the darkness? He wasn't clearly mentally stable during the ceremony, let alone quiet, could he really be sorry/sad/guilt-ridden for Alfonso's fate? (for you of course, we'll never know what Elena Ferrante wanted to say).
And the absence of Alfonso's pals at his funeral, may be due to fear of exposing? Or maybe the Solara brothers risked more (only in terms of reputation, at least) show up not only at the mourning ceremony - but also to the burial!
Sorry for the wall of text if the message is too long, thank you very much! Have a nice day :)
Hi, thank you! I think I started posting some of my MBF takes here to avoid flooding my mutuals' TLs on Twitter, so it's nice to know that they have some readership! 😅
Regarding your questions (obviously SPOILERS for book 4), the Solaras remind me of my great-aunt and her (many) offspring. They're a dangerous bunch of fascist sympathizers, but if there's one thing they have mastered, it's pretending. They have been present in every funeral, every wedding, dressed with the finest clothes. They have always behaved very correctly even if their own lives were a mess. They are assholes, but they need to show power and class to the world outside.
The Solaras have a lot of power over the people of the rione and, in times of grief, they need to appear in public as polite, generous and compassionate. Alfonso may be a touchy subject, but they were one of them anyway, so even if Alfonso's family had disowned them, the Solaras had to do better. Also, if Marcello had been involved in Alfonso's violent murder, which seems likely, what better than to show up and fake some grief?
Michele's case is different - he may be suffering some kind of true grief himself (Alfonso had been his lover for several years after all). In the funeral, he was "very thin" and looked everywhere "with the eyes of a madman", so he probably was at least conflicted. The fact that both of the Solaras were present on every part of the funeral, even if they didn't technically have to, seems to indicate that they are following some kind of rite of farewell, maybe to calm Michele's guilty conscience.
However, guilt is not an emotion that the men in MBF are very familiar with; feeling guilty means questioning yourself, and that's strongly discouraged in an environment where men are taught to be tough, decisive and virile. If Michele is feeling, say, some kind of remorse for Alfonso's brutal treatment and final murder, he quickly finds a way to channel this emotion into anger (which is a much more acceptable emotion for men and is often used as an excuse for fucked-up behaviors all over the world).
Lila is the object of Michele's anger because, in Michele's mind, he's been tricked, he's been played with for years, and now even Alfonso is dead because of this stupid game (1). Lila made him do it! She was the one who came up with the plan to enslave Michele and emasculate him though TEH GAY. Michele believes (and maybe he's right) that, without Lila, Alfonso wouldn't have dared to change so much as to seduce him, or at least not that consistently. Remember that Alfonso's model for a woman was always Lila, that she was very much involved in their physical change, and that Alfonso and Lila almost looked like twins for a while, an uncanny resemblance that fascinated both Michele and Lenù (2). Even Lila had previously told Lenù that the beating that Michele gave Alfonso was a beating that he would've wanted to give her. I'm not surprised, then, that when Lila confronts him, Michele reacts with such violence, and vows to take away everything that she has.
What has always been a bit more weird to me is how both Solaras come to Lila and Enzo after book 4's Main Shock Event and play the role of the protective grandfathers. This puzzles me because they don't just show up in a public event like a service or a funeral, the Solaras actually go to their apartment *by night* to talk to them in private. Even from the perspective of someone who wants Enzo and Lila to suffer, this is not fun compared to the humiliation of telling them that in a public event, and it's way more dangerous, because the situation is so tense that Enzo (or Enzo and Lila together) could've tried to hurt them physically or kill them. I guess this is all done to cast some doubts about whether they really did it or not, but it works; while I'm pretty sure that the Solaras killed Alfonso, whether directly or not, I'm not sure that the Solaras took Tina or at least intended to make her disappear.
As for Alfonso's (queer) friends from the piazza dei Martiri and why they didn't come to the funeral, the rione Luzzatti is a dangerous neighborhood. Those guys were probably used to meeting discreetly in each other's places and on specific places of the Quartieri Spagnoli. Whether they actually cared for Alfonso or not, it's simply not safe to attend their funeral, especially if some of them knew Michele and knew how unstable, violent and dangerous he could be.
I'm trying to recall a comic by Ralf König where a man dies of AIDS (probably in the late 80's) and his friends, some of them in drag, show up to his funeral to the dismay of his very conservative family. Drama ensues, but the guys stay as a sign of resistance. It's a different take but sadly I don't remember the title of the album. I do recommend the author for funny and VERY queer stories, especially his earlier work.
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(1) Even Lenù thinks on similar terms before feeling, well, guilty, and giving herself a more balanced take on the story. But Lenù and Michele share a similar fascination with Lila and they attribute everything to her ambivalent influence. If something goes well, it must be because of Lila's extraordinary abilities; but if something goes wrong, it's also Lila fault.
(2) I'm pretty sad that we won't see Fabrizio Cottone in one of Gaia Girace's dresses and looking like her twin, because the casting team surely took into account his malleability in terms of looks. I'm still curious to see who plays Alfonso's role in S4.
— Do we want to stay like this or do we want to change? Taking "My Brilliant Friend" characters out of context to draw them all together, chilling like the big found family they definitely are not? Most likely than you think. But yesterday was my birthday and I have a permit that says I can do what I want.
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