My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend

by

Elena Ferrante

Language, Literature, and Writing Symbol Analysis

Language, Literature, and Writing Symbol Icon

Language, literature, and writing symbolize the complex connection that Lila and Lenù share throughout their friendship. From the time Lila and Lenù are young children, their relationship revolves around language. At first, the two barely speak—but soon, as both girls’ competitive natures become evident and as their connection deepens, their friendship becomes a way for them to test the boundaries of spoken and written communication. Throughout the novel, Lila and Lenù use spoken and written language, their love of literature, and alternating dialects in order to express themselves to one another and the world around them. When Lenù continues in school and Lila goes to work, Lila still tries to keep up with Lenù by checking books out from the library incessantly and eventually reading Lenù’s Greek, Latin, and Italian textbooks alongside her. Throughout their friendship, Lenù expresses fear that Lila will always be smarter, more articulate, and more expressive than she is—yet at the end of the novel, it is Lila who refers to Lenù as her “brilliant friend.” In this way, language represents the strain that living very different lives puts on Lila and Lenù’s friendship, as well as the mutual respect and admiration they hold for each other despite their differences.

Throughout the book, language, literature, and writing continue to serve as important symbols of instances in which the two girls are attempting to connect with one another across the vast distances their friendship weathers. As Lenù continues in school, Lila develops a chip on her shoulder about what Lenù’s access to education will mean for their friendship. When Lila begins communicating and having relationships with older boys, Lenù worries that she herself has chosen wrong in dedicating herself to her studies rather than striving to advance herself through social or romantic pathways instead. When the girls exchange written communication, each envies the other’s writing style: Lenù despairs when she realizes how easily and naturalistically Lila is able to communicate through letters, and Lila is upset and intimidated when she reads Lenù’s essay against religion and realizes how good her friend has become at developing strong written arguments all by herself. In this way, Ferrante uses language, literature, and writing as a symbol not only of connection, but of competition. The written and spoken word are external representations of the ways in which Lila and Lenù idolize each other while simultaneously seeking to prove themselves to and, ultimately, best each other.

Language, Literature, and Writing Quotes in My Brilliant Friend

The My Brilliant Friend quotes below all refer to the symbol of Language, Literature, and Writing. 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:
Female Friendship Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

I was really angry.

We’ll see who wins this time, I said to myself. I turned on the computer and began to write—all the details of our story, everything that still remained in my memory.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Lila’s Son / Rino
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 23
Explanation and Analysis:
Childhood: Chapter 7 Quotes

Anyway, however it had happened, the fact was this: Lila knew how to read and write, and what I remember of that gray morning when the teacher revealed it to us was, above all, the sense of weakness the news left me with.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Maestra Oliviero
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:
Childhood: Chapter 15 Quotes

Things changed and we began to link school to wealth. We thought that if we studied hard we would be able to write books and that the books would make us rich. Wealth was still the glitter of gold coins stored in countless chests, but to get there all you had to do was go to school and write a book.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Childhood: Chapter 16 Quotes

"All they did was beat you?"

"What should they have done?"

"They're still sending you to study Latin?"

I looked at her in bewilderment.

Was it possible? She had taken me with her hoping that as a punishment my parents would not send me to middle school? Or had she brought me back in such a hurry so that I would avoid that punishment? Or—I wonder today—did she want at different moments both things?

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo (speaker), Fernando Cerullo, Nunzia Cerullo, Elena’s Mother, Elena’s Father
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 8 Quotes

I tried to remind her of the old plan of writing novels… […] I was stuck there, it was important to me. I was learning Latin just for that, and deep inside I was convinced that she took so many books from Maestro Ferraro's circulating library only because, even though she wasn't going to school anymore, even though she was now obsessed with shoes, she still wanted to write a novel with me and make a lot of money. Instead, she shrugged… […] "Now," she explained, "to become truly rich you need a business."

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Rino Cerullo, Fernando Cerullo
Related Symbols: Shoes, Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 12 Quotes

I told her in a rush that I was going to the high school. […] I did it because I wanted her to realize that I was special, and that, even if she became rich making shoes with Rino, she couldn't do without me, as I couldn't do without her.

She looked at me perplexed.

"What is high school?" she asked.

"An important school that comes after middle school."

"And what are you going there to do?"

"Study."

"What?"

"Latin,"

"That's all?"

"And Greek."

[…]

She had the expression of someone at a loss, finding nothing to say. Finally she murmured, irrelevantly, "Last week I got my period."

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo (speaker), Rino Cerullo
Related Symbols: Shoes, Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 132-133
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 15 Quotes

She had begun to study Greek even before I went to high school? She had done it on her own, while I hadn’t even thought about it, and during the summer, the vacation? Would she always do the things I was supposed to do, before and better than me?

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 141-142
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 34 Quotes

Lila was able to speak through writing; unlike me when I wrote, unlike Sarratore in his articles and poems, unlike even many writers I had read and was reading, she expressed herself in sentences that were well constructed, and without error, even though she had stopped going to school, but—further—she left no trace of effort, you weren't aware of the artifice of the written word. I read and I saw her, I heard her.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Maestra Oliviero, Donato Sarratore, Nella Incardo
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 226-227
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.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Don Achille Carracci
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 259
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 53 Quotes

When she gave me back the notebook, she said, "You're very clever, of course they always give you ten."

I felt that there was no irony, it was a real compliment. Then she added with sudden harshness:

"I don't want to read anything else that you write."

"Why?"

She thought about it.

"Because it hurts me," and she struck her forehead with her hand and burst out laughing.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Nino Sarratore
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 300-301
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 57 Quotes

"Whatever happens, you'll go on studying."

"Two more years: then I'll get my diploma and I'm done."

"No, don't ever stop: I'll give you the money, you should keep studying."

I gave a nervous laugh, then said, "Thanks, but at a certain point school is over."

"Not for you: you're my brilliant friend, you have to be the best of all, boys and girls."

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo (speaker)
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 312
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 62 Quotes

Nothing diminished the disappointment. […] I had considered the publication of those few lines […] as a sign that I really had a destiny, that the hard work of school would surely lead upward, somewhere, that Maestra Oliviero had been right to push me forward and to abandon Lila. "Do you know what the plebs are?" "Yes, Maestra." At that moment I knew what the plebs were… […] The plebs were us. The plebs were that fight for food and wine, that quarrel over who should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those increasingly vulgar toasts.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Nino Sarratore, Maestra Oliviero
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 329
Explanation and Analysis:
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Language, Literature, and Writing Symbol Timeline in My Brilliant Friend

The timeline below shows where the symbol Language, Literature, and Writing appears in My Brilliant Friend. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Childhood: The Story of Don Achille, Chapter 6
Women’s Work Theme Icon
Poverty, Social Climbing, and Sacrifice Theme Icon
Maestra Oliviero writes the word “sun” on the chalkboard in Italian. She asks Lila to read what is... (full context)
Childhood: The Story of Don Achille, Chapter 8
Women’s Work Theme Icon
Poverty, Social Climbing, and Sacrifice Theme Icon
...is able to solve complex sums in her head and spell difficult words in perfect Italian. Lila’s smarts appear “like a hiss, a dart, [or] a lethal bite” to her fellow... (full context)
Childhood: The Story of Don Achille, Chapter 11
Poverty, Social Climbing, and Sacrifice Theme Icon
Love, Sex, and Strategy Theme Icon
...time, Lenù receives her first declaration of love. One afternoon, while returning home from buying bread, Lenù realizes that Nino and his brother are behind her. Nino catches up with Lenù... (full context)
Childhood: The Story of Don Achille, Chapter 13
Female Friendship Theme Icon
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Poverty, Social Climbing, and Sacrifice Theme Icon
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...the girls should pursue an education. Lenù’s mother is against letting her daughter continue studying Latin, seeing education as a pointless thing—Lenù’s father, however, advocates on Lenù’s behalf, and soon her... (full context)
Childhood: The Story of Don Achille, Chapter 15
Female Friendship Theme Icon
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...admissions exam. She declares that if she gets into middle school, she’ll simply use Lenù’s books rather than pay for her own. (full context)
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...Achille, Lila buys a copy of Little Women instead of a new doll. Lila has already read the book several times—it is her favorite. The girls begin meeting in the courtyard... (full context)
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...to amass a great amount of wealth and glittering treasure. Lila believes that if they write books, they will become rich. She suggests the two of them write a novel together—but... (full context)
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...The teacher replies that Lila should be studying rather than wasting her time with fanciful novels. Lenù is confused by Maestra Oliviero’s attitude—and she’s upset when Maestra Oliviero still has not... (full context)
Women’s Work Theme Icon
In the aftermath of writing The Blue Fairy—and learning of Maestra Oliviero’s failure to read it—Lila becomes reserved and disheartened,... (full context)
Childhood: The Story of Don Achille, Chapter 18
Female Friendship Theme Icon
Masculine vs. Feminine Violence  Theme Icon
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The Uses of Community Theme Icon
...neck, spraying blood all over his kitchen and killing him. Lila becomes fascinated with the story of Don Achille’s murder and repeats it over and over again, each time focusing on... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 5
Female Friendship Theme Icon
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...in the room. Lenù wonders why Lila keeps abandoning her—and why Lila is taking out books without sharing them with her. (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 6
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At the end of the school year, Lenù does poorly on her Latin exam and is told she’ll need to retake the test. Her father becomes angry with... (full context)
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...if Lenù will meet her once a day in the public gardens and bring the Latin schoolbooks along. Lila wants to study with Lenù as Lenù prepares to retake the exam. (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 7
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Lenù and Lila continue studying Latin together, and Lenù is surprised to realize that Lila already knows a great deal about... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 8
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...working on a plan: they want to persuade Fernando to make a fancy line of shoes that will sell well in the center of town, on the Rettifilo in Naples. Their... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 9
Women’s Work Theme Icon
Poverty, Social Climbing, and Sacrifice Theme Icon
...Fernando Cerullo, Nunzia Cerullo, Rino Cerullo, and, in fifth, Elena Greco—Lenù herself. Lenù receives a book as a prize. She offers to take the Cerullos’ books with her to give to... (full context)
Female Friendship Theme Icon
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Love, Sex, and Strategy Theme Icon
...plan to visit Lila at Fernando’s shop the next day and bring her all the books she won. Pasquale also asks if Lenù would like to come to Gigliola’s house for... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 10
Female Friendship Theme Icon
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...they will enroll her in the nearest classical high school—she even offers to buy Lenù’s books herself. She also tells them that Lenù has been seen with Pasquale Peluso, and they... (full context)
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...find out more details and comes home reporting that someone has delivered to Melina a book of poems written by Donato Sarratore—he has inscribed the book for her and pointed out... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 11
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Love, Sex, and Strategy Theme Icon
...at the shop and begin talking and joking with Rino and Lila about the many books Lila has won, Lenù notices that Pasquale is stealing many furtive but intense looks at... (full context)
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Lila takes Lenù to the back and pulls Donato’s book, Attempts at Serenity, from a shelf. Lila reveals that Antonio brought it over to get... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 12
Female Friendship Theme Icon
Women’s Work Theme Icon
Poverty, Social Climbing, and Sacrifice Theme Icon
...and some tools. Lila tells Lenù that they are at work making a man’s traveling shoe, only able to make progress for a few minutes each day while their father is... (full context)
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Women’s Work Theme Icon
...in response, asks: “What is high school?” Lenù explains that she is going to study Greek. Lila looks as if she is “at a loss.” She hesitates a moment before declaring... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 14
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...on a gramophone with Rino. Lila approaches them and tells Lenù that “gramophone” is a Greek word. (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 15
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Lenù is frustrated: Lila has clearly begun to study Greek on her own before Lenù herself has even gotten to high school. Lenù is upset... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 17
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...these things about the world, she soon becomes uninterested in him. She begins devouring library books about World War II, the Allies, and Italian history. She tries to figure out who... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 18
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...draws the attention and praise of her teacher, Maestro Gerace. Lenù attributes her success in Greek to her studies with Lila. Lenù’s classmates—even the ones who have known her since childhood,... (full context)
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...Lila, Lenù learns that Lila has been teaching herself in her spare time not just Greek but also English. Lenù is taken aback—she herself knows nothing of English. Lila excitedly talks... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 19
Female Friendship Theme Icon
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...begins to feel strong and confident. She notices that when Lila talks to her about Greek and literature, Lila seems to be trying to prove herself to Lenù and demonstrate that... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 25
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Lila’s interest in books, languages, and learning drops off. She never studies with Lenù anymore and insists that reading... (full context)
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...is no “energy” in her learning anymore. Lenù urges Lila to start going back to reading and studying again, but Lila is uninterested in doing so. She reveals that Marcello Solara... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 27
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...few weeks, Marcello has continued trying to make peace with the Cerullos by patronizing the shoe shop, inviting Rino for a drive, and other shows of goodwill. Lila is perturbed by... (full context)
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...tacitly suggests Fernando consider expanding his shop. He begins praising the idea of making new shoes. Rino becomes visibly uncomfortable. Marcello says he knows that Rino and Lila have made a... (full context)
Female Friendship Theme Icon
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...is huddled at the top of the stairwell near the terrace entrance. She clutches the shoes to her chest and declares that she doesn’t want Marcello to touch them or even... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 30
Female Friendship Theme Icon
...Nella cares for her paying guests—but otherwise, Lenù is free to swim, take walks, and read. She writes to Lila every single day and swims in the suit Nella sews for... (full context)
Female Friendship Theme Icon
...life, her own life is losing “intensity and importance.” Lila doesn’t answer any of Lenù’s letters. At the end of July, after the English family departs, a Neapolitan family is due... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 32
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...the next few days, Nino is quiet and introverted. One night, when Lenù falls asleep reading, she wakes up with the light off and the book closed. Lenù believes Nino has... (full context)
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...and clipped as she tells him about Lila working in her father’s shop. Lenù stops writing to Lila after this conversation.  (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 33
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...him as a balm not just against Nino’s aloofness, but against Lila’s as well. Lenù writes one final letter to Lila, lamenting the fact that she hasn’t heard from her all... (full context)
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...begins to admire him even more for his “high-flown sentences” and great feeling as a writer. Lenù has an increasingly difficult time reconciling Nino’s words about his father’s cruelty and betrayals... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 34
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...25th of August—Lenù’s 15th birthday—two important things happen. The first is that she receives a letter from Lila early in the morning, which she devours, struck by Lila’s beautiful writing and... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 35
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Lenù is disturbed by Lila’s letter. She struggles to write back—she feels her language is insufficient and that she cannot capture... (full context)
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...the kitchen, she stares at the pots on the wall and thinks of Lila. She rereads her friend’s letter and clutches Nino’s bookmark. After a while, she hears footsteps. Donato enters... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 39
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That night, Rino taunts Marcello about Stefano’s new car—and the fact that Stefano purchased the shoes for 25,000 lire. Marcello laughs the provocations off. Over the next several nights, Rino continues... (full context)
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One day, as several workers and apprentices arrive to begin renovating the shoe shop and start work on some new products, Stefano arrives at the shop with a... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 41
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...month, she has gotten rid of Marcello, found a way to move forward with her shoe designs, and become engaged to a wealthy young man. Lila has everything, and as Lenù... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 44
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...feel that the Lila she knew—the Lila who wrote The Blue Fairy and the beautiful letter to Lenù in Ischia, who loved books and languages so intensely—has disappeared. Lenù realizes that... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 45
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...to the Cerullos’ defense when he hears that Silvio Solara has threatened to squash Fernando’s shoe business before it even begins. Lenù tries to defend Lila’s relationship with Stefano and her... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 46
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Lenù feels triumphant about Lila’s good fortune—and her own part in securing it. The shoe shop is busy at work making Cerullo shoes, even as Fernando and Rino clash over... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 48
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...goes to school the next day, however, Professors Gerace and Galiani praise her most recent Italian paper and Gerace reads a passage before the final exam committee. Hearing her words come... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 49
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...Lenù and the stationer’s girls, buying them all sandwiches and entertaining the children while Lenù reads. One day, Lenù spots Lila at the beach looking like a movie star in big... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 50
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...professes his love for her and says he can’t live without her. He offers to read her some love poems he's written her, threatening to kill himself if she refuses to... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 51
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...the preparations being made for it become entangled with the “rancorous birth” of the Cerullo shoe company. While Fernando and Rino make Lila’s designs, they must also keep up with cobbler... (full context)
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...rude digs about Lila’s family or expresses worry about returns on his investment in the shoe company. Lila always sides with her family during these disputes, and Stefano always apologizes profusely... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 53
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...Lenù finishes a draft of the article, she knows the only person she trusts to proofread it is Lila. Lenù brings the pages to Lila and explains Nino’s proposal. Lila is... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 54
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The next morning at school, Lenù shows the paper to Nino. He praises her writing and walks away, seeming hurt, without saying goodbye. Lenù parts form Nino feeling they’ve gotten... (full context)
Adolescence: The Story of the Shoes, Chapter 61
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...Naples. Lenù is struck by Nino’s articulateness and his informed opinions. He urges Lenù to read newspapers and magazines. Lenù is embarrassed—all her life, following Lila’s example, she has only read... (full context)