The Days of Abandonment

I had been warned by some reviews and by friends that had read "The Days of Abandonment" to realize that it may be hard to read and a little weird. I had just finished lounging in the pure ecstasy that only prolific readers know, of reading Ferrante's "The Neapolitan Series". Basking in the afterglow of that intense literary experience I immediately downloaded "Frantamaglia: A Writer's Journey" which is Ferrante's musings on writing her amazing books. It quickly became apparent that I would not be able to enjoy the full impact of the journal without reading "The Days of Abandonment". I should have known that Elena Ferrante is not capable of letting her readers down. I languished on every sentence of 32 year old Olga, attempting to navigate the first month of being suddenly abandoned by her beloved husband, Mario and their two children for a younger woman. Olga quickly finds herself behaving irrationally. The worst thing possible has occurred as far as she is concerned and she has no choice but to continue with the mundane duties of everyday life....caring for her children, managing everything in her home and trying to regain her sense of femininity and autonomy after being nothing but Mario's wife and loving mother to his children after 15 years. She loses it. Completely. Her life becomes literally a stream of consciousness. She is just not writing in this style....this is the way her life is unfolding. I have never experienced a writer put this kind of feeling down in words so very powerful and succinctly. Yes, it is weird. Because she is feeling exceedingly weird and the reader soaks up every bit of it. I have experienced this state of mind when I was very young and have often wondered how to verbalize it, let alone put words to describe it down on paper. The house, the children, the grocery shopping, the laundry, and every other ordinary life event become distorted and that is the way Olga tells us what she is experiencing. Before reading this book I would have told you that it was impossible to express these feelings the way that Ferrante manages to do. She does it and it is absolutely mesmerizing. If you are a Elena Ferrante fan, you cannot miss the "The Days of Abandonment". If you are new to this author, start with the Neapolitan series. You will get to know the author first and understand her extraordinary writing skills before you begin. This book takes you on Olga's emotional journey. It will become real to you, not just a literary experience. This author has captured a feeling, a mania, a phenomena, that before reading this book I would have thought that no one could do. This is painting with words. It is a rare, carefully written work, that deserves to be carefully read.

This story hit hard for me. I finally decided to read it after living through my own heartbreak 6 years ago. My husband left me in the middle of the night, returning to his ex-wife without warning. The emotional chaos that followed felt unbearable, and reading this novel was like seeing my pain laid bare on the page. Elena Ferrante captures the unraveling of a woman with brutal honesty. Olga’s inner turmoil, obsessive thoughts, and desperate attempts to hold herself and her children together mirrored so much of what I experienced. I even found myself, like Olga, testing interactions with others, trying to understand whether something was wrong with me, or if the world had shifted without telling me. It’s not an easy read—emotionally intense and sometimes overwhelming—but it’s real. Ferrante doesn’t sanitize the experience of abandonment; but she shows it in all its rage, confusion, and slow rebuilding. And at the end, I loved the way Olga gradual began to reclaim who she was and why she was needed for herself. She gave hope to a what she thought was a hopeless situation. Survival is possible even when it’s messy!

Beautiful writer very good translation, but unfortunately not my style. This book is not for the faint of heart. I couldn’t finish it which is very unusual.

If The Days of Abandonment were a theatrical play instead of a novel, it would have to be performed in one act. Once begun, it is impossible to wrench oneself away from the extraordinary power of a this narrative of a 40-ish woman who navigates Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s four stage of grief (denial, anger, depression and acceptance). In clear and non-pitying prose, Olga relates this: “One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me. He did it while we were clearing the table; the children were quarreling as usual in the next room, the dog was dreaming, growling beside the radiator…Then he assumed the blame for everything that was happening and closed the front door carefully behind him, leaving me turned to stone beside the sink.” Ms. Ferrante is unsparing in her portrait of Olga, without turning this into a maudlin tale or a “poor pity me, the victim” type of story. First of all, the prose is precise and exquisite (examples: Olga’s husband blew away the past “as if it were a nasty insect that has landed on your hand.” Or this: “In those long hours I was the sentinel of grief, keeping watch along with a crowd of dead words.” Or this: “Starting at a certain point, the future is only a need to live in the past. To immediately redo the grammatical tenses.”) As Olga falls into the void – the “absence of sense” – she falls into a frenzy of self-loathing and inertia. It take a strong stomach to read about her attempt to seduce a neighbor in a near-parody of what “making love” is really all about. During the end of that passage, it becomes clear that Olga’s “days of abandonment” are not caused by her husband Mario’s departure; rather, they are caused by her abandonment of herself. While she reaches rock bottom, she is also responsible for her young son and daughter and the innocent dog with “good dog eyes”, Otto. One feels their sense of confusion and betrayal as well – and commiserates. I have never read Elena Ferrante before and have rarely read a book with such raw honesty and such ferocious power. I am, fortunately, happily married but anyone who has ever suffered feelings of betrayal (and all of us do, at some point in our lives, through husbands, family members, friends) will gasp in shock at the authenticity of Days of Abandonment. I believe it’s a masterpiece.

Lately, I've found myself returning to authors that I've enjoyed in the past. Elena Ferrant is one of these authors. Here is my review of her book, The Lost Daughter, in case you missed it previously. In The Days of Abandonment, the title pretty much says it all. A short novel (188 pages but, with a story, and an intro that packs a wallop. "One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me. He did it while we were clearing the table; the children were quarreling as usual in the next room, the dog was dreaming, growling beside the radiator. He told me that he was confused, that he was having terrible moments of weariness, of dissatisfaction, perhaps of cowardice. He talked for a long time about our fifteen years of marriage, about the children, and he admitted he had nothing to reproach with us, neither them nor me, He was composed, as always, apart from an extravagant gesture of his right hand when he explained to me, with a childish frown, that soft voices, a sort of whispering, were urging him elsewhere. Then he assumed the blame for everything that was happening and closed the front door carefully behind him, leaving me turned to stone beside the sink." What follows is the story of a 38 year-old wife and mother with two young child who begins to unravel, losing all sense of normalcy in life with this unexpected announcement by her husband Mario. Of course, Mario's confusion is just an excuse, as there is a 20 year-old woman in the picture which is revealed early on. The new woman is actually a student Mario had once tutored, and then began to see on the side. He told his wife the affair was over, when in fact it was still going on. Olga was once a writer, but she traded her dreams of becoming famous for marriage and motherhood, and after 15 years of comfortable routines, she finds herself totally helpless with what has just happened. Once Olga kept a spotless house, cooked gourmet meals, her home is now in shambles, her children and even the family dog , Otto are neglected. She spends her time in desperation, writing letters to her husband - not even knowing where he is staying. She spends a lot of time analyzing what and when things started to go wrong in their marriage. She experiences, many of the stages of "death and dying" -denial, anger and rage, a bottomless pit of depression before she moves on to the final stage of acceptance. She has a hot and heavy sexual encounter with an older man, Carrano, who lives in her building, which could shock some readers. It's descriptive, complete with foul language and some remorse afterward. A sad incident involving the family dog occurs, and there is incident when Mario comes over to see the children and she invites him to stay for a meal that really left me chuckling. After several months of watching her own life spiral downward, Olga gradually begins to accept the fact that life as she one day new if will never be the same. This sparse book was so well written. It was translated from Italian, and the words just flowed so well. It's an additive read, told from Olga's point of view, which worked perfectly; she was a believable protagonist The story's ending was hopeful . I invite you read this book, and to go inside the mind of, "a woman scorned. "

After reading a few reviews I thought I knew what I was getting into. Hardly. I don't think I've ever read about abandonment in such a way. Realistic in it's dream-like anguish and rage - but extreme and frightening, the protagonist struggles to regain equilibrium and identity after her husband leaves her for a much younger woman (almost still a teenager). I once read that when couples divorce they'll often feel like they're losing their minds. Because when you become so intertwined with your partner you begin to depend on them for information that you don't need to remember yourself. You each become the other's external hard drive. Losing this is a big deal, even if it's no longer a fulfilling relationship. Olga depended on her husband for identity as well, she met him when she was young and grew with his goals and desires, rather than her own. Now in her thirties, she has to face these factors in order to understand herself without him. This creates a torment I've never seen so powerfully described. To complicate matters Olga has two children with her husband. Ferrante writes unromantically about motherhood in this circumstance. But her children are often what bring clarity back into her life, and they evolve with her. I don't think I could have managed to read this at a slower pace. I truly felt stuck in Olga's misery and couldn't leave fast enough, but drawn in all the same, and hopeful for a positive outcome. Although some do suffer in her wake. Though the story has been told before, Ferrante truly makes it new again. I highly recommend this book, but to be read in one or two sitings. The story, combined with the fact that Elena Ferrante (pseudonym) is shrouded in mystery make it all the more intriguing and worthwhile. This copy is a Europa edition - they're always great quality. The paper stock is nice and heavy and the spine will stay smooth after a few readings. In fact, my copy still looks completely unread. Quality stuff.

Every once in a while a book comes around that is very difficult to review. Ms. Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment is one of those. The reason for this is that, though I am enthralled by Ms. Ferrante’s technique and the emotional truth that she uncovers in her story, I just don’t like it very much. The story is straightforward enough: Olga and her two children, Gianni and Ilaria, are abandoned by her husband, Mario, for a younger woman; in fact, a much younger woman whom the entire family once knew well. Olga’s life proceeds to fall apart. The bulk of the novel examines the first few months of Olga’s life on her own. Though nothing about Olga’s subsequent behavior seems in any way false, her level of anger and violence is foreign to me. I cannot connect to her willingness to verbally abuse everyone around her, physically attack her husband, and severely neglect her children and dog. I understand there are real people like her but at my lowest I have never found it in me to act out in profanity and violence. Because of this, I am unable to fully appreciate this novel’s excellences. I also struggle with books that have no sympathetic characters. Not only is Olga problematic but also Mario. He abandons his family and appears to be guilty of statutory rape but exhibits not the slightest bit of remorse. The children behave horribly to a mother who is clearly struggling. These are difficult people with whom to spend time. However, the literary part of me cannot deny that this is a well-done book. In particular, I was carried to the end by how well Olga’s ascent out of depression played so well with the person that was developed in the first part of the book. But it was not enough to save the experience for me.

This book is a stomach-churning whirlwind of destructiveness and hate. The reason for the narrator's meltdown is her husband's abandonment of her for a younger woman: "Now at thirty-eight," she moans, "I was reduced to nothing, I couldn't even act as I thought I should. No work, no husband, numbed, blunted" (30). And so the self-pitying wail continues for countless pages. The narrator behaves as if she were the first and only woman to lose a husband. Her reactions are astounding. She is "overwhelmed by responsibilities" (78), she stops cooking and neglects her sick son and sick dog. She can't tolerate her children: "[M]ay be I really wanted to abandon them for ever, forget about them" (65). She wants to "levitate," to detach herself "from the earth"(97). Throughout the book, the narrator regards herself as a woman who has outlived her "usefulness" (110-111). "Usefulness" is a strange description for a woman, or a man, but given that, we wonder, has she lost, at thirty-eight, her attractiveness as a woman? She sees herself as "a cast-off body" (110). Incredible! Is Italy, in its attitude to women, still stuck in the nineteen-century, or is this the narrator's own individualistic and self-hating misconception? It is also worth noting, in the context of age, that she regards Carrano, her sympathetic neighbor, as old, very old, at fifty-three! This is how she describes him with her characteristic disdain: "What were the secrets of a man alone, a male obsession with sex, perhaps, the late-life cult of the cock. Certainly he, too, saw no further than his ever-weaker squirt of sperm..." (50). Really?! Has she never heard of men at Carrano's age, or even much older, who fathered children? Does life in Italy stop at twenty-five? Apparently, "this threatened dissolution of self," as James Wood describes it, originates in the warnings of the narrator's mother that "women without love lose the light in their eyes, women without love die while they are still alive" (44). And here rises, as if out of the Brontes' misty moors, the specter of the demonized woman, the poverella, an abandoned woman, who tries to kill herself and is shunned by all her neighbors when she returns from the hospital. Of course, our narrator is the new poverella. She is obsessed with her social humiliation and shows few signs of grief over the disappearing husband. She imagines herself as "the salamander, which can pass through fire without feeling pain" (57). To those who hurt her, she gives back in kind. She is "the queen of spades," "the wasp that stings," "the dark serpent." On one of her few exits from the house, she spots her husband with his lover and attacks him in the street "like a battering ram" (70). Her profusion of dark metaphors won't shame Lady Macbeth; but unlike Lady Macbeth, our narrator is neither a serpent, nor even a wasp. Apart from the few drops of blood she extracts from her husband, she neither damages him, nor wins him back. She is a helpless woman "at the very limits of coherence and decency," as Wood defines her, and in her sick imagination, she views herself the star of her own weird and melodramatic text. However, her neglect of her children, and the death of the dog are real enough. She tells us that her friends left her, but I am just wondering why she never seeks the help of a doctor or a therapist. Surely, there are therapists in Italy! Like Kafka's Gregor Samsa in "The Metamorphosis" and like the woman in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," Ferrante's narrator is a domestic prisoner. However, Kafka's bug and the woman who peels down the wallpaper are real prisoners driven to extremes by oppressive father figures they cannot escape. Ferrante's narrator creates her own prison by refusing help and struggle and by choosing instead to destroy her world and future in spectacular fits of temper tantrum. She fails in that, not due to her efforts or growth, but miraculously, through deus ex machina. Gilman's woman and Kafka's bug earn our sympathy; Ferrante's narrator taxes our patience and good-will. That this book has been so successful in Italy, and in other countries, is, for me, an unsettling enigma.

Il libro l'ho letto in italiano ed e bellissimo. Volevo regalarlo ad un amico che vive a Londra e non conosce l'italiano.

Trembling Love by Ferrante spoke of loss through death (suicide). The Days of Abandonment tells of the disintegration and reintegration were loss remains visual and tangible. The book reveals how even the best of people, the main character was a writer, can lose all aspects of normality in their distress. Ferrante reveals that even an intelligent and cultural person can descend into the most basic of behaviours and imaginations where the loss is a love betrayed. Also, the recovery towards normality is real and tangible.

Sometimes difficult to read, but as always Elena Ferrante's writing is insightful, colourful, sucks you in and makes you feel things every emotion her characters feel.

Ausgezeichnete Geschichte, realistische Beschreibung von einer hoffnungslosen Frau nach der Trennung von ihrem Mann, an dem sie sehr abhängig war.

Definitely one of the toughest books I have read recently. It's Travel Blog of Olga - from Sanity to Insanity. I have no idea how Elena was able to describe a degrading mental health and the depression so vividly - as if she has experienced it somehow. 70% of the book is taking you through the mental degradation of Olga. But I really appreciate how Elena has penned the whole saga - so well. Throughout the book I kept thinking - what is she going to do? Are her kids going to be OK? Will her Dog be OK? When will she care? When will she snap out of this torrential depression. Amazing book!!