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Maestra Oliviero
As the neighborhood loan shark and the “ogre of fairy tales,” Don Achille is a terrifying man who moves in the shadows of Lila and Lenù’s neighborhood throughout their childhood. Don Achille is a feared moneylender who has the power to make or break families in the neighborhood—and because Lila and Lenù know that they should fear Don Achille but don’t precisely understand why, they make him into a fairy-tale monster in their minds, imagining that he lives in their building’s cellar, collecting his neighbors’ refuse and using it to fashion a grotesque living armor for himself. In a way, the girls’ childhood vision of Don Achille is profoundly symbolic—as the neighborhood loan shark, Don Achille does take from his neighbors with impunity and he uses debts and threats of violence to make himself (seemingly) invincible. Ultimately, Don Achille is murdered by an unseen assailant; Alfredo Peluso, a carpenter who lost his livelihood gambling away borrowed money, is arrested for the violent crime. Don Achille’s death makes room for the Solaras to take control of the neighborhood—and it demonstrates to Lila and Lenù that not even powerful, fearsome men are invincible.
Don Achille Carracci Quotes in My Brilliant Friend
The My Brilliant Friend quotes below are all either spoken by Don Achille Carracci or refer to Don Achille Carracci. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Adolescence: Chapter 21
Quotes
Stefano, according to Lila, wanted to clear away everything.
He wanted to try to get out of the before. He didn't want to pretend it was nothing, as our parents did, but rather to set in motion a phrase like: I know, my father was what he was, but now I'm here, we are us, and so, enough. In other words, he wanted to make the whole neighborhood understand that he was not Don Achille and that the Pelusos were not the former carpenter who had killed him.
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Adolescence: Chapter 43
Quotes
Money gave even more force to the impression that what I lacked she had, and vice versa, in a continuous game of exchanges and reversals that, now happily, now painfully, made us indispensable to each other.
She has Stefano, I said to myself after the episode of the glasses. She snaps her fingers and immediately has my glasses repaired. What do I have?
I answered that I had school, a privilege she had lost forever. That is my wealth, I tried to convince myself.
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Adolescence: Chapter 46
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I didn't understand. The Solaras’ behavior seemed […] consistent with the world that we had known since we were children. What, instead, did [Lila] and Stefano have in mind, where did they think they were living? […] They weren't reacting to the insults, even to that truly intolerable insult that the Solaras were making. […] Was this her latest invention? Did she want to leave the neighborhood by staying in the neighborhood? Did she want to drag us out of ourselves, tear off the old skin and put on a new one, suitable for what she was inventing?
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Don Achille Carracci Quotes in My Brilliant Friend
The My Brilliant Friend quotes below are all either spoken by Don Achille Carracci or refer to Don Achille Carracci. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Adolescence: Chapter 21
Quotes
Stefano, according to Lila, wanted to clear away everything.
He wanted to try to get out of the before. He didn't want to pretend it was nothing, as our parents did, but rather to set in motion a phrase like: I know, my father was what he was, but now I'm here, we are us, and so, enough. In other words, he wanted to make the whole neighborhood understand that he was not Don Achille and that the Pelusos were not the former carpenter who had killed him.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 43
Quotes
Money gave even more force to the impression that what I lacked she had, and vice versa, in a continuous game of exchanges and reversals that, now happily, now painfully, made us indispensable to each other.
She has Stefano, I said to myself after the episode of the glasses. She snaps her fingers and immediately has my glasses repaired. What do I have?
I answered that I had school, a privilege she had lost forever. That is my wealth, I tried to convince myself.
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Adolescence: Chapter 46
Quotes
I didn't understand. The Solaras’ behavior seemed […] consistent with the world that we had known since we were children. What, instead, did [Lila] and Stefano have in mind, where did they think they were living? […] They weren't reacting to the insults, even to that truly intolerable insult that the Solaras were making. […] Was this her latest invention? Did she want to leave the neighborhood by staying in the neighborhood? Did she want to drag us out of ourselves, tear off the old skin and put on a new one, suitable for what she was inventing?
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