This is a fragmented feeling after reading it. I don't want to take the responsibility of recommending books at all. It's more like putting the Naples tetralogy in the center of a square and taking it as the origin. Sometimes I walk around it, sometimes I go a little further, buy an ice cream, come back and sit for a while, and then I set off. . . . . . It's been a whole year since I last wrote, during which occasional thinking and disorderly preparation are not worth mentioning. At least I made a chat to comfort me.
Keats said that poetry is not in the poet.
Let's first come to the center of the square and bend down to see the trilogy.
The author of the Orthogonal Map of Naples is the Italian writer Elena ferrante. Ferrante is just an alias and has never been seen in public for many years. Media interviews or contact with readers must go through the publishing house, and she only exchanges letters. Speculation about her real identity and gender continued, and she even suspected that this pen name was synonymous with a group of people. After the four-part series, I read her clip, which is a collection of letters from ferrante, editors, media and directors. It only slightly satisfied my curiosity about her writing career and gave me a glimpse of her style. It is conceivable that her mysterious appearance will inevitably be speculated by the public as a posturing or a marketing strategy. The media has always been puzzled, and has tried, guided and tried many times, but ferrante has always maintained a consistent attitude in concealing his true identity. "I believe that after writing, there is no need for the author, and it will go its own way." "Write it, get rid of it, be free from its interference, and not be its captive." Therefore, she refuses any form of publicity, and her works have no photos of the author, deliberately keeping a distance from them. In her mind, "the only writers who can represent them are their words, and their personal lives are irrelevant." Even Tolstoy, together with his character Anna karenin, is an insignificant shadow. "
Fame, I became a mystery, like an urban legend. I don't think this is a good (or possibly vulgar) novel opening?
When words are dissolved in light, shadow, sound and painting
Step one, go east.
The Napoli Tetralogy 20 1 1-20 14 was published in turn. Although ferrante's other works have been put on the screen before, their popularity this time is phenomenal. Several interesting signs: the global original party surprisingly unanimously praised the TV series, and the scene was touching; The Tetralogy has become a bestseller and is also discussed as a fashionable topic in some circles in China. The "ferrante Pizza Shop" opened in Naples. There is no doubt that HBO's conscience production has contributed a lot to this, but I'm not sure whether these are pure good news for ferrante.
At present, only the first two "My Genius Girlfriend" and "The Story of a New Name" have been aired in the four-part series. The broadcast was stopped in 2020 due to the epidemic, and the third film is currently being filmed. When the first two films were broadcast, I read books first and then followed the drama. In order to compare, I tried to explore a topic I was interested in: the boundary of words and the limitations of movies and TV. I can only think of these dimensions for the time being: audience, theme content refinement, and imagination space.
Let's talk about the first point: "audience" is an important yardstick, a driving force and a constraint. Many things should be done around it, from the early stage to the late stage, especially in the film and television industry. "Entertainment" is in full swing. If there was a wriggle before, now I'm entering the room generously. Interestingly, opinion leaders in the domestic cultural circles have also rehabilitated "entertainment" in the past two years, with a calm expression and sincere attitude. So who is the target audience of ferrante's writing? She gave the answer in pieces, "publishing a book is to show what the author has in mind to others in the most appropriate form." If you consider what readers need, it is completely different. " Therefore, when making a literary work into a film and television, there must be a gap, or a gap, which needs to be explored and filled by both sides. Of course, "Entertainment" also has advanced works, which add luster to some extent without misinterpreting or humiliating the original. HBO made a title for my talented girlfriend, which is the first in a four-part series. This is a crucial moment to make a first impression. It conveys some information: "We know that you love this novel very much, and you may even be a little picky. Some of you knew Naples well in the 1940s and 1950s, so you will think about it and identify with it. Come on, we will meet your needs. " When the second film came out, the producer changed a new title: "Don't worry, we will continue the quality of the first film, but it is not static. These two women are growing up, and Naples changed in the fifties and sixties. We need to adjust our style. " Such a title naturally makes the audience full of confidence and expectation for the next content. The creator and the receiver are one. They have the same heart, understand each other, get together and repel each other. This is a natural process, and then they will get closer to each other.
The second point "theme content refinement" is of course related to the audience. The author has a theme line in mind when planning the layout of the novel, and everything else is the background for its service. This core thing may be weakened or even dissolved for entertainment purposes or various reasons in production and content review. At the same time, it will deliberately emphasize other details and occupy the line of sight. For this kind of putting the cart before the horse, sometimes only the original author hurts. The public is entertaining, the public does not know, and the public is very happy. Another situation is related to the reader's individual experience. Even if some plots attract the special attention of individual readers, they may not be selected for film adaptation, and there are always regrets. For example, I like the detailed description of Anabel suddenly sitting on his mother's lap, but it is obviously insignificant for the upcoming events in Ischia. Readers are blind people who touch elephants, but they don't see heaven and earth, and each takes what he needs; The time of film and television drama is limited, and the director needs to look at the overall situation and make bold choices.
The third point, "imaginary space", is what I am most interested in talking about, because it refers to the essential difference between words and movies. I can't do professional analysis and comparison, I just want to try to say two words: manipulation and experience.
The sense of rhythm is something that creators are very concerned about, and this word is also related to whether we have a sense of control as an audience. Film and television works have predicted and manipulated our reflex arc during the creation period. When watching movies, when we really vibrate at the same frequency as the creator, we will have a just right strong experience. On the contrary, we will feel bored or humiliated. But in either case, we are out of control and walk according to the designed rhythm, although losing control itself can also be a hearty experience-like hanging on a line before diving on a roller coaster or drifting in a corner under a slow mirror. Good writing certainly has its own rhythm, but compared with the audience, readers can have more control, because in most cases there is no time limit for reading, and there is no need to pay close attention to it within the specified time. My best reading experience is often accompanied by many pauses, thoughts, feelings, associations, and even silly smiles, trying to high-five the author. Novels will naturally be drawn by the plot, but this one-stop reading will also produce many points, which vary from person to person. There is an obvious writing style in ferrante's four novels: only a few strokes are the most thrilling. It's a bit like the heroine Anabel's consistent speaking style: go straight to the essence without mercy, pushing you into an infinite black hole, and readers have to work hard to climb out. This is an intentional and powerful blank space. I sometimes shake, and even have a faint feeling in my abdomen and heart.
The blank space in literature is not only reflected in the rhythm, but also in the implication between lines, the words and voices of characters, and the use of a large number of metaphors, which have brought challenges to film and television. Translation is a kind of secondary creation, from one language to another, but language is not only language, but behind it is the history and culture accumulated by one (or more) countries and regions for hundreds of years. Professor Chen Ying, the Chinese translator of the Tetralogy, also mentioned that even Neapolitan dialect and standard Italian should be adjusted differently in Chinese translation. Film and television is also a kind of "translation", which is a qualitative change from words to light and shadow, sound and painting. In this sense, this is a more difficult translation. Behind it is the exploration and reform of image and sound technology in the film's hundred-year history. And a good film and television creative group will also try to get close to "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance". This creation of HBO is a quite successful translation.
The biggest "translation" function of film and television is from abstraction to concreteness. It requires tasteful imagination, subtle and appropriate planning and meticulous execution. Casting is a representative test of "tasteful imagination", which is also one of the pleasures of watching the drama after reading the original. Seeing the characters appear one by one confirms my imagination: I noticed that the actor who plays Anabel has a unique forehead and towering roots, and he is wild and uninhibited. In the documentary interview, the actor who plays Lennon shows a strikingly similar character to the role, followed by Nunzia's state, Michela's eyes and Nino's skeleton. . . . . . Since then, the characters on these papers have had pulse breathing, and their dance steps, skirts, hugging books, snacks or children's arms have taken on new meanings. Time has been marked, space has turned, violence has left evidence, poverty has revealed its color, the quarrel in the shoe store has continued, the fireworks of the New Year have dispersed, and it is still raining cats and dogs outside the tunnel.
The taste and execution of HBO's sincere production in casting, setting, shooting, performance guidance, soundtrack music, service and other aspects provide the audience with a nuanced and fascinating viewing experience, but at the same time, other possible, more dynamic and talented imaginations are silently stifled. Just like years of online dating finally appeared, I found that girl is more beautiful than you thought, but this is a concrete living girl. She was satisfied, but at the same time she ended your fantasy. The so-called "restoration" or "loyalty" to the original work is a slightly narrow view. The world presented to you by film and television is beautiful and charming, and you have been trapped here ever since.
Writing and film and television are two forms, and it is hard to say who has a bigger boundary and who has a more promising future. For a writer, when your literary works are published, she will be separated from your body and mind and start to grow up on her own, just like a child who moved out at the age of 18. Of course, she is still your child, an independent child, whether she goes to Florence, new york or Peking. When you sell the film and television adaptation rights of your work, it's like ending the parent-child relationship and giving the child to the adoptive parents. There will be a lot of explanations during the handover, and the adoptive parents will laugh awkwardly and be polite. You may write to each other for a while, and then the children will be renamed, taken to plastic surgery, and then live on the streets or pampered. Suddenly one day you are told by passers-by that your child is now studying in Cambridge. Congratulations! You may cry and lament the greatness of genes; You may also lightly reply that it's okay, and then turn around and leave. Ferrante belongs to the latter.
She doesn't like that her works are only regarded as pure inspiration by directors and screenwriters. In Fragments, she confessed to the director who had previously remaked her other work, Hate Love, that she thought the film was great, but she didn't realize that words would eventually dissolve in light, shadow and sound. "Words will become irrelevant and almost invisible on the screen, but all the vitality will be revealed in the generation."
Two independent lives want to live forever.
Leave, stay
Take a second walk, go west and eat ice cream.
Because I couldn't catch up with the play for the time being, I decided to finish reading the last two books first during the holiday. The most typical label given by booksellers to the Naples Tetralogy is "a female epic about a friendship war spanning 60 years." I also read some book reviews, some of which were difficult, focusing on the development of novel structure routines, and then made a self-righteous parallel comparison with other famous works; Some are close to the plain, talking about Morant, a writer who has a far-reaching influence on ferrante; Some spread the connection between ferrante's works in different periods; Others are superficial, taking pains to list these plots, and then saying that they like them very much and are very touching.
Let me interrupt first. One of the two heroines, the heroine who is the narrator in the trilogy is also called Elena, just like ferrante. People will naturally guess how many autobiographical elements there are in the works. I believe that in other WeChat official account articles or short videos, the characters and main plots are introduced in detail, so I won't repeat them. Anabel is undoubtedly very eye-catching. No matter the role or the actor himself, I just want to say one of my feelings in the behind-the-scenes documentary: the whole film crew always pays attention to, protects and supports the actor who plays Lennon (Elena's nickname) on the set. Is it because, unlike Anabel, Lennon's character is not extroverted, and many thoughts and feelings are presented through inner monologues (voiceover) or subtle body movements, which requires a calm, restrained and even repressed performance technique, so he has been helping actors create and maintain this kind of emotion? Or is it easier for the audience to have a sense of substitution for Lennon as the narrator of the whole story? Or does this character really bear the author's emotional projection? I don't know the answer, but it's interesting to me that the director and the film crew pay special attention to Lennon as an actor. The play is so popular that the actors in Anabel have made up their minds to be an actor. Lennon's actor said, I don't know yet I don't want to decide so early. Maybe I will continue to study. What a successful casting, like her? Two people play as they are, one stays and the other leaves.
What impressed me most about the end of the four-part trilogy? I think the first thing is ferrante's writing attitude: the "literary truth" she has been pursuing-clarity, honesty and approaching truth. And its opposite is laziness, fear, convenience, peace of mind, self-justification, and things that everyone can easily believe and accept. She has many works that have been completed but decided not to publish, because they are literary and lack authenticity.
But sincerity is a kind of torture, which requires writers to pay a high price. It is not a plain photo that exposes acne and fine lines, nor is it a topless photo. It's more like operating on yourself, taking the initiative to tear open old wounds, or even cutting flesh and bones, without anesthesia or crying. After taking out the diseased part, I will study it carefully and then write an in-depth analysis report. Ferrante's scalpel is very sharp. It transcends women's most humble desires, the most secret curses, pretentious vanity, the power of crash and burn in love, the leap of class and the confrontation between family, men, city and social politics. This requires not only the author's wisdom and skills, but also the definition and taste of writing, persistence and self-discipline.
Ferrante admits that many stories of female characters in her works come from vivid characters in her past life. These pieces of inspiration are mixed in memories and form new impressions, so there is no so-called autobiography, just the writer's personal experience flowing everywhere. "Fiction in literature can make people tell the truth"-this reminds me of another sentence I heard, the original text of which I can't remember, to the effect that "nothing needs logic more than novels." ? It's really wonderful: the world is vast and absurd, and literary creation is the "fusion" of all things. After peeling the cocoon, there is nothing new in the sun, and people are still the same. We like to laugh and cry decently in the dark theater, and many of our life experiences begin with "I have a friend". . . . . . "I don't know these two women who lived in Naples, Italy in the last century. I can be them.
The second reason why I like ferrante is that she prefers some writing themes: mother and daughter, abandoned women, the relationship between cities, individuals and politics, and this kind of female friendship in writing is even more talked about. She never defines herself as a feminist or feminist writer, does not shy away, does not flatter or entertain, and keeps a distance from some labels that she doesn't know well but are full of marketing gimmicks. When she was a teenager, she was determined to imitate outstanding male writers because they provided rich and constructive things. Later, she came into contact with female literature, which gradually made her grow into a mature woman. She has a keen understanding of gender differences and women's situation in a patriarchal society, which can be seen everywhere in her works, but her "resistance" is open-minded, thoughtful and powerful: "As women, if we want to build a strong, rich and broad literary world, we must dig deep into our differences, especially we must not give up our freedom, be bound by any ideology, and get rid of all mainstream and correct lines and ideas. You don't have to obey any rules, even women on the same front. Writing requires great ambition and planned resistance. "
Female readers from all over the world wrote letters to ferrante, marveling at her empathy for them and her frank and forceful use of all kinds of indescribable experiences and emotions. I am also fascinated by some writing themes of ferrante. Sometimes there are scattered ideas that have neither source nor conclusion. At a certain moment, these ideas will be colored, but they will soon all be attributed to the fleeting white foam at sea. Once you have an interest in serious exploration, you will be embarrassed by your poor accumulation. The longitude and latitude lines in the brain are like ligaments that can't be opened.
For example, there were few examples of writing about women's friendship before the Napoli Tetralogy. Unlike male friendship, there are some established norms that have not been carefully analyzed and given so much complexity. When I was painting a play, I saw a lot of barrage and naturally chose to stand by. Some people like Lennon who is diligent, temperate, actively participates in the world and strives to achieve class change. Some people like Anabel's "self-elimination". She is lower and more sincere. Women's friendship is not only a simple portrait of two characters, nor is it just the enjoyment or robbing of resources described in brain-dead dramas. Strong relationships are always based on dynamic balance. The two give each other energy and will also prey on each other. Rain or shine is uncertain, and sometimes it will converge. Some insist, some leave. Don't try to find out whether you are more like Anabel or Lennon. They are just literary "integration". It is important that ferrante let us see ourselves here or there at this time or at that time. She shared an Italian proverb in pieces, "God takes care of my friends for me and I take care of my enemies myself".
As a reader, I sit in the dark and examine myself.
Well, after eating ice cream, I paced back to the center of the square.
In short, after reading the trilogy, I have my own gains and limited ability. This article cannot exhaust my thoughts. Finally, back to the beginning, after the publication of the work, it began its own independent life. Readers have their own needs, and there is no such thing as "correct reading". So, I've always wanted to say something about my past Chinese homework-fuck the central idea of induction and fuck the meaning of paragraphs!
If you are also interested in ferrante's Napoli Tetralogy, I wish you a happy reading! Let's catch up with the drama!
Stop writing. Good night.