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The article proposes an analysis of the third novel of Alba de Céspedes, Quaderno proibito (1952).. Particular attention is devoted to the publication of the work, in serial form, in a very popular magazine: a choice read as a symptom of the author’s will of communicatig with a wide and sexually connoted audience. We thus analyze the structure of the novel, detecting both the constructive strategies designed to tune in to the wide audience of ‘she’ readers, both references to different genres (Diary Familienroman, Bildungsroman, sentimental novel, social novel) that de Céspedes exploits to give aesthetic force to her message.

La corposa tetralogia L’amica geniale di Elena Ferrante contamina i moduli del Familienroman, del romanzo di formazione e della narrazione di indole storico-sociale. Il gioco di specchi tra i di- vergenti destini delle due protagoniste dà vita ad un congegno narrativo che corrode e mette sottilmente in dubbio il diagramma progressivo dell'emancipazione sociale e personale di Elena. Sull’onda della delusione storica e del fallimento delle utopie di una generazione, a prevalere è infine il fascino regressivo del ritorno alle origini del materno e alla vischiosità claustrofobica di una Napoli popolare senza speranza di riscatto. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante’s intense tetralogy presents a cross-fertilazation of Familienroman, Bildungsroman and historico-social narrative. The divergent destinies of the two female protagonists, which Ferrante conveys through mirror effects, generate a narrative ‘machine’ that destroys and questions the very narrative of the protagonist Elena’s social and personal emancipation and progress. The disillusion with history, the failure of the utopia of a whole generation are the hallmark of Ferrante’s latest work, which is therefore dominated by the regressive lure of the return to the maternal and to the claustophobic stickiness of a working-class Naples, where no redemption is possible., ENTHYMEMA, No 11 (2014)

ENTHYMEMA, No 13 (2015)