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The Days of Abandonment

by Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (Translator)

3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 · rating details · 523 ratings · 112 reviews

"She is among the greatest Italian authors of recent years."-Corriere della Sera

"Ferrante dissects the personal microcosm so well, and with awesome lucidity and precision shows us the meanderings of a woman's mind, the suffering that accompanies being abandoned, and the awful rumbling of time passing."-El Mundo

"Elena Ferrante has given us a startlingly beautiful novel of...more

Paperback, 188 pages

Published September 1st 2005 by Europa Editions (first published 2002)

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Community Reviews

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Dec 21, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Sylvia Plath

Shelves: 2010, in-italy, reviewed

At one point I thought to abandon this book. It was really her or me. We were climbing a mountain together, she had lost her hold and was dangling, and I was making the decision to cut the rope or not. I almost did it. I had the knife in my hand. But would you do that to another person?

I couldn't. Not here. When I realized that I just couldn't go any further into the descent with Ferrante's character, I realized that I was thinking of her as a real person, someone who was experiencing the worst...more At one point I thought to abandon this book. It was really her or me. We were climbing a mountain together, she had lost her hold and was dangling, and I was making the decision to cut the rope or not. I almost did it. I had the knife in my hand. But would you do that to another person?

I couldn't. Not here. When I realized that I just couldn't go any further into the descent with Ferrante's character, I realized that I was thinking of her as a real person, someone who was experiencing the worst time of her life. She was collapsing around herself and it hurt to watch. Remember that feeling from The Bell Jar or The Trick Is to Keep Breathing? It makes you want to run, screaming, from all that raw pain, the horrible, self-destruction of it. Wanting to shake her and to tell her to snap out of it didn't help my reading experience either.

So, would you abandon her? Someone feeling like that? Would you give up on the book, even though it was frustrating, and going on and on and on, and, really, none of the characters had been appealing, even at the beginning -- there wasn't time, we are immediately immersed in this morass. Would I be worse than her husband for abandoning her, without giving her the time to read this short book?

No, of course, not. I'm over thinking it again. The book is just a book and one can read it or not. They are just characters, not people. I still felt guilty about wanting to give it up though. I felt guilty because books like this don't get written that often. This one was cruelly honest about how much one can hate other people, even one's children, when one's life starts falling apart. When was the last time a woman admitted that in print? Usually it's all cooing and sacrifice for them. Usually we're subjected to martyrdom and a happy reunion at the end because mommy was so willing to give of herself. I would read another book like this one not to have to suffer through that rubbish again.

Ferrante writes about how hard it is, discovering that you hadn't lived for yourself, just let yourself wrap your identity up in someone else. It's about coming back from madness. Ferrante doesn't spare her characters. What she wrote was like stabbing them, repeatedly, and then describing the blood as it poured out. It's horrific. It's important. I hate that word, important, because it means that I didn't really like the experience of reading this book. And I didn't really like this book. But I think it matters that it was written and I think it was written well. If you're into experiences that make you want to stick your head in the oven, this may be the book for you.
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Jul 19, 2010 Pollopicu rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a simple yet profound novel about abandonment and grief. I can tell Elena didn't write this to get a sensational reaction from her readers. I can also tell she didn't make any of it up. Knowing that Ferrante has shunned public attention and has managed to keep her real identity concealed from her readers confirms this for me.
When I heard about this story I knew I had to read it to judge it for myself. I know what pain and abandonment feels like. I knew I had to read it to be able to ver...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Dian Pranasari rated it 4 of 5 stars

Suatu hari pada bulan April, tepat pada saat Olga dan suaminya, Mario, sedang membereskan meja seusai makan siang, Mario mengemukakan keinginannya untuk berpisah. Perkawinan yang sudah mereka jalani selama lima belas tahun pun runtuh ...

Secara keseluruhan, tema yang ditawarkan The Days of Abandonment memang sangat sederhana, berkutat dengan kehidupan seorang istri yang ditinggalkan suaminya. Tak lebih. Namun, Ferrante menggambarkannya dengan sangat transparan dan intens, ia menolak eufemisme at...more Suatu hari pada bulan April, tepat pada saat Olga dan suaminya, Mario, sedang membereskan meja seusai makan siang, Mario mengemukakan keinginannya untuk berpisah. Perkawinan yang sudah mereka jalani selama lima belas tahun pun runtuh ...

Secara keseluruhan, tema yang ditawarkan The Days of Abandonment memang sangat sederhana, berkutat dengan kehidupan seorang istri yang ditinggalkan suaminya. Tak lebih. Namun, Ferrante menggambarkannya dengan sangat transparan dan intens, ia menolak eufemisme ataupun berlarat-larat kata sehingga hasilnya adalah novel yang ringkas dengan gaya tulis yang terasa brutal, lugas dan terkadang vulgar. Label ‘brutal’ dan ‘vulgar’ ini barangkali akan membuatnya disandingkan dengan Djenar Maesa Ayu oleh pembaca Indonesia. Akan tetapi kebrutalan dan kevulgaran yang disodorkan Ferrante dalam novel ini terasa sangat wajar, bahkan terasa jujur, bukan dibuat-buat agar lantas menimbulkan sensasi.

Ferrante berhasil menggali degradasi psikologi yang dialami Olga dengan sangat meyakinkan. Dengan telaten Ferrante mengajak pembaca menyelami proses transformasi Olga dari seorang istri dan ibu yang mengabdi pada keluarga, kemudian menjelma pribadi yang luluh lantak dan tenggelam dalam delusi, hingga akhirnya kembali menjadi pribadi yang mampu menguasai diri dan memegang kendali atas hidupnya sendiri. Novel ini pun berhasil terhindar dari jajaran karya yang sekadar menjual kesedihan.

Namun, meskipun ditulis dengan gaya tutur yang jernih dan sering kali indah (tentunya ditopang oleh terjemahan yang mulus dan luwes), The Days of Abandonment memang bukan novel yang menyenangkan untuk dibaca. Dari awal sampai menjelang akhir novel, pembaca terus disodori suasana yang muram dan membuat depresi. Karakter utamanya pun bukan jenis karakter yang akan disukai pembaca, karena tidak menampilkan sosok yang ideal dan selalu mampu bertahan, melainkan memperlihatkan dirinya sebagai pribadi yang terkadang harus tunduk pada kemarahan dan keterpurukan. Akan tetapi, tidak bisa dimungkiri bahwa banyak perempuan yang terjebak dalam peristiwa serupa dan merasakan hal yang dirasakan Olga, walau tidak banyak yang bersedia mengakuinya. Wajib dibaca!

Ost: I Tuoi Fiori (Etta Scollo)
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Jan 22, 2013 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, italy

No one knows who Elena Ferrante is, which is lucky, because the graphic venom poured out in this novel is so intense that it seems to be born of experience. Olga is 38, a native Neapolitan living in Turin with their two children, when her ambitious husband Mario leaves her for a much younger woman. The basic plot of the abandoned foreign woman is mythic, reminiscent of Euripides' Medea. Here is Olga, a literary professional who has given up everything for love, and who expresses her unlimited ha...more

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Oct 30, 2012 Nick rated it 5 of 5 stars

I picked up Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment’ absent-mindedly while in McNally Jackson in Soho. At first it seemed an unlikely choice. A book about a Neapolitan woman living in Turin who is told by her husband that he is leaving her for another woman.

This news is devastating enough for any person but for the heroine of Ferrante’s novel it is cataclysmic and sends her into a spiral of hatred fear and self-loathing.

What’s makes the book so fascinating is its coruscating honesty and passion...more I picked up Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment’ absent-mindedly while in McNally Jackson in Soho. At first it seemed an unlikely choice. A book about a Neapolitan woman living in Turin who is told by her husband that he is leaving her for another woman.

This news is devastating enough for any person but for the heroine of Ferrante’s novel it is cataclysmic and sends her into a spiral of hatred fear and self-loathing.

What’s makes the book so fascinating is its coruscating honesty and passion. Ferrante doesn’t put a positive gloss on her heroine’s collapse. Olga attacks her husband in the street; she is spiteful to neighbors, her old friends, even her children. She seems at times almost overcame with bitterness or too distracted to actually function in the real world. At one point her daughter stabs her in the leg with a pair of scissors but she is too out of it to realize until she sees the gaping wound.

There is something monstrous about her, as if the love she felt for her husband has been eviscerated and replaced by pure hatred. She is poisoning herself with her feelings and seems to be powerless to stop it. Perhaps her most terrifying fear is that she becomes like the’ poverella’, a woman she remembers from her Neapolitan childhood. The ‘poverella’ was so-called because she suffered the terrible fate of having her husband leave her for another woman. Eventually she becomes a sad and dejected object of pity and takes her own life. She haunts Olga, metaphorically and literally (at one stage she starts hallucinating the woman in her apartment)

Yet as the novel progresses we come to see that all this emotion is not self-destructive but cathartic. It’s almost as if she has an illness and her anger is the fever that needs to work itself out of her body for her to be cured.

Indeed this idea physically manifests it self in a scene near the end of the book when the family dog is poisoned and her son suffers a severe virus.

The dog dies, the son recovers and from this point so does Olga. For once the love she felt for her husband has vanished, the hate can leave too and she can move on with her life.

In the end the novel is upbeat. The ending sees her find not just herself but love in the form of her neighbor, a musician.

It’s one of those happy endings that is totally justified by the previous action. After all Olga has won. She has beaten her demons and those of a sexist society by facing them like a mighty warrior. It’s noticeable how fearless and combative she is during much of the novel, almost as if she were a mythical Homerian hero defeating magical creatures.

I can imagine this would be a very popular choice with any woman who’ve been through a traumatic break up but as man I still found it to be a compelling, if sobering, read.(less)

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Apr 04, 2011 Eugene rated it 4 of 5 stars

i let three trains pass on the platform so i could finish it. POV of a scorned bourgeoise. horror episodes of her total fury in sentences that sear and become beautiful. other times : accurate, intimate and desolate portraits of a broken self. a carefully balanced, patient plot that's worth battling through its accurate depiction of thick monotonous depression. but despite its extreme emotions, not manipulative or fantastic. in those contemporary fictions with similarly traditional ambitions, fe...more i let three trains pass on the platform so i could finish it. POV of a scorned bourgeoise. horror episodes of her total fury in sentences that sear and become beautiful. other times : accurate, intimate and desolate portraits of a broken self. a carefully balanced, patient plot that's worth battling through its accurate depiction of thick monotonous depression. but despite its extreme emotions, not manipulative or fantastic. in those contemporary fictions with similarly traditional ambitions, ferrante's hard-won poise and bitter realism are only palely reflected.

here's a bit:
I was like a lump of food that my children chewed without stopping; a cud made of a living material that continually amalgamated and softened its living substance to allow two greedy bloodsuckers to nourish themselves, leaving on me the odor and taste of their gastric juices. Nursing, how repulsive, an animal function. And then the warm sweetish odor of baby-food breath. No matter how much I washed, that stink of motherhood remained. Sometimes Mario pasted himself against me, took me, holding me as I nearly slept, tired himself after work, without emotions. He did it persisting on my almost absent flesh that tasted of milk, cookies, cereal, with a desperation of his own that overlapped mine without his realizing it. I was the body of incest, I thought... I was the mother to be violated, not a lover. Already he was searching elsewhere for figures more suitable for love, fleeing the sense of guilt, and he became melancholy, sighed. Carla had happened then into the house at the right moment, a figment of unsatisfied desire. She was then thirteen years older than Ilaria, ten more than Gianni... Mario must have imagined her as the future, and yet he desired the past, the girlhood that I had already given him and that he now felt nostalgia for. She herself perhaps believed she was giving him the future and had encourage him to believe it. But we were all confused, especially me. While I was taking care of the children, I was expecting from Mario a moment that never arrived, the moment when I would be again as I had been before my pregnancies, young, slender, energetic, shamelessly certain I could make of myself a memorable person. No, I thought, squeezing the rag and struggling to get up: starting at a certain point, the future is only a need to live in the past. To immediately redo the grammatical tenses (91-2) .

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Nov 26, 2009 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars

This novel is an unsparing, sometimes brutal, portrayal of psychological collapse. When the female narrator's husband suddenly abandons her and their two children for a younger woman, she learns that her sense of self is so completely interwoven with her estranged husband that she can find no new, solid footing. In fact, even as she finally begins to put herself back together again, speaking very, very relatively, she realizes that the disentanglement she seeks is ultimately impossible. Looking...more

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Apr 11, 2009 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Ferrante, Elena. THE DAYS OF ABANDONMENT. (2002; U>S-2005). ****. Ferrante is one of Italy’s most important and acclaimed contemporary writers. The jacket summary does an excellent job in recapping this novel. To quote: “One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me. He did it while we were clearing the table...” This is the first sentence of her novel. “This compelling novel that shocked audiences in Europe with its unsentimental and unyielding depic...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Gina Rheault rated it 4 of 5 stars

When my beloved spouse leaves, who am I? Olga, thrown off kilter, a deck of cards identity toppled, pieces scattered about, loses her bearings even though she is now the primary caretaker of two impressionable young children who sense that something is wrong with Mamma. Mamma is dangerous, not dealing, off somewhere, and she is not reliable or safe. How awful for a child. And its no picnic for Olga who has never gotten a stable sense of herself either before marriage or in marriage, who obsesses...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Robert Blumenthal rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is truly a searing novel, one that grabs you emotionally and doesn't let go until nearly the very end. Olga, a thirty-eight year old mother of two, is abandoned abruptly by her husband of 15 years, leaving her for a much younger woman. She becomes appropriately distraught, having difficulty navigating the routines of everyday living (cleaning, cooking, taking care of her children). She becomes effected emotionally, mentally and physically, culminating in an absolute day of utter hell. This...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: a-favorite-read

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 quarre...more 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. “(less)

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Oct 10, 2012 Stacey rated it 3 of 5 stars

There was something so compelling about this book that left me scrambling to finish it. Not because I thought that the narrative had any big revelations to provide me, but I just had to see it through to the bitter end.

I originally picked this up, intrigued by the title, and persuaded by the blurb that claimed that "rarely have the foundations on which our ideas of motherhood and womanhood rest been so candidly questioned". And certainly this is true. Olga is a woman who is, understandably, fal...more

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Jun 16, 2008 Marzia Bianchi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008

Extremely depressing Italian novel about a woman's decent into madness and recovery after her husband leaves her. Very compelling and well written.

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Mar 18, 2013 Jessica Alverson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Awesome, but terribly emotional and requires a good frame of mind to read. Prose is great, but very intense.

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Nov 22, 2012 Reid rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: women (and men) on the verge

Shelves: most-recently-read, literature-classics, fiction, 2012-reads, review

This novel could easily be called The Disillusionment of Olga, or The Loss of Meaning. It describes a woman’s plunge into the depths of that loss due to her abandonment by her husband, and results in the loss of all meaning as she’s known it, and hence her own self-abandonment. This is crucial and explains why she becomes completely unhinged personally, and why she reacts so strongly. The self-abandon (physical and mental) and the woman’s rage is described with grim, explicit, and credible detai...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Bethany rated it 5 of 5 stars

I understand that the author is a mystery and there is speculation whether the author is actually a man. That caused me to read the book more critically for language and tone. Some might consider the actions and thoughts of the narrator to be so extreme as to be improbable but I thought them believable in the context of the circumstances. It is a book that often has one worried and aghast for the narrators slow-motion tumble down the stairs of despair, depression and desperation; one constantly...more

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Feb 10, 2013 Roya rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was the first Elena Ferrante book that I have read, and I will definitely read her other novels. She writes with raw emotion and honesty. She writes all the things that women think, but that we may be afraid to express because it's not politically correct, makes people uncomfortable, and because it's "unladylike." Olga's spiral downward following her husband's abandonment after 15 years of marriage reminded me of my mother's experience, as well as the experience of some of my friends under...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Joy H. marked it as keep-in-mind

Shelves: literary-fiction, italy

Added 4/3/13. (first published 2002)

ELIZABETH STROUT INTERVIEW:
================================
What do you plan to read next?

"The Italian writer Elena Ferrante. I just read about her work and it seems like it might be scarily honest, so I want to check that out."
FROM: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/boo...
================================

See a review by a GR member here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

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Jul 08, 2012 Lola425 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Such an honest look at the kind of psychological gymnastics one can go through in the aftermath of the break up of a marriage. At first I found myself so angry at Olga because she was consumed with her rage and jealousy at the expense of her children's well-being. As the novel progressed, however, her temporary madness took hold of me and I realized she was in no position to choose her children over her suffering. This was another harrowing read, painful, and I'm not sure that I felt any relief...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Valisa Iskandar rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: culture, literature

I wonder how I would have felt if I had read this 2 years ago.

But I recognize every layers and nuances she describe, so vividly.

The emotional rollercoaster, the anger, the bitterness.

She captured everythign so magnificently, so profoundly and yet with such clarity and detachment... can you be passionately distant?

She offers passionate recounts of grief, anger, curiosity and madness about losing someone and a life so suddenly without apologising.

This is a book every woman should read...

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Aug 18, 2012 Bill rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

I enjoyed this book despite my sincere hatred for the main character.When Olga's husband declares he's leaving her one day after lunch, she goes circus-freak crazy: body-slamming her ex on the sidewalk, defecating in the park, smashing her neighbor's window, and talking smut to locksmiths. Yes, she was traumatized. No, I wouldn't want to find myself in her place. Nevertheless, I began to despise her when she whipped her dog repeatedly with a stick simply because she was a woman scorned. I found...more

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Sep 22, 2012 CoffeeBook Chick rated it 3 of 5 stars

http://www.coffeeandabookchick.com/20...

My initial interest in this book was solely based around the public shyness of the author. From Naples, Italy, Elena Ferrante's work is published by Europa Editions. Rumors abound on who the real identify of the elusive writer is. Some say she is covering for another writer. Some say it might be a male author. And some just think she doesn't want anything to do with public scrutiny.

It was intriguing and I wanted to pick the book up immediately. Thanks to m...more http://www.coffeeandabookchick.com/20...

My initial interest in this book was solely based around the public shyness of the author. From Naples, Italy, Elena Ferrante's work is published by Europa Editions. Rumors abound on who the real identify of the elusive writer is. Some say she is covering for another writer. Some say it might be a male author. And some just think she doesn't want anything to do with public scrutiny.

It was intriguing and I wanted to pick the book up immediately. Thanks to my local library, I was able to get it right away, and I promptly read it in a day and a half. I would have finished it a lot sooner, had I not thrust the book down for extended periods of time in complete disgust by several actions by the main character, Olga.

The down and dirty of this story is that Olga has been married to Mario (one heck of a sh*t human being) for fifteen years and they have two children. He decides to leave her, unceremoniously announced one day, and Olga is left completely alone in the city. The summer is upon her and she begins to unravel. Her identity with this man was clear for fifteen years and The Days of Abandonment is a thoroughly unapologetic view of one woman's breakdown. It is vulgar, it is heart-wrenching, it is disturbing. It's hard for me to say whether or not I liked it, though. When I look back at my notes on Goodreads, it seems pretty evident that I miserably and voraciously hated it. I don't think there is one single note I made in that day and a half that was positive at all. However, I don't feel right to say that I hated it. I'm conflicted.

Olga's husband is a complete loser. I hated him immensely. He is no honorable man. I understood the initial moments of Olga's immediate breakdown, sanity falling away in those first few moments, but the eventual result and actions (or inaction, in some cases) of her worst moments that occur with her children and her dog made me absolutely mute with helpless anger. I couldn't deal with any more pages of Olga falling apart, and so many times it was almost willingly. In part, I cheered her on to come out of it, since I did not want her to lose herself and allow her husband, that little moron, to come out unscathed. Argh, he was horrible. Horrible! But so was Olga and there is no excuse with it at all, I felt. So I was just frustrated. But it's when the actual finality of her weakness is evident with her responsibilities and her children, and then with her dog that I found it all completely unforgivable and I had absolutely no sympathy. There was just no way I, as a reader, could recover from page after page of this helplessness. I hated Olga.

After coming off of Kate Chopin's classic short story The Awakening, I'm struck by some of the similar themes of a woman falling apart, from books published more than 100 years apart. I'm annoyed by it because doggone it, women can be and are, much, MUCH stronger than this.

So that is why I am conflicted by The Days of Abandonment. I was insanely frustrated by Olga and was disturbed by her complete lack of common sense and how she miserably threw it all away, allowing her children and dog to suffer (which drove me BATTY with anger, resentment and frustration with her), but again, like The Awakening, it was still beautifully written. It was so VIVID, the descriptions of certain scenes absolutely painful, poetic and genuine. Amazing. There is almost a stream of consciousness to the writing style that I loved, but then again, it was also a stream of only Olga suffering all the time, and it was something like complete selfishness that overtakes her and she ultimately focuses only on her own pain, allowing others to suffer who depend completely on her. I get that this is extremely symbolic to the story, but it drove me nuts. Beautifully written, but absolutely frustrating to read.

It's very difficult for me give a thumbs up or down for this book. You read it and let me know what you think. For me, I wanted to devour the beautiful words (excellent translation), and then on the other hand, I wanted to throw the book across the room as I read.

I'll still read another one by Elena Ferrante, though.
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Jan 13, 2012 Karlo Mikhail Mongaya rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: excellent

“One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.” Thus began Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment, a novel chronicling a wife’s desperate struggle to cope with her new situation. From the first page onwards, the wife tells us her story with the same lack of sentimentality and brutal honesty.

And the wife is left alone to fend for “[t]he children, the dog, the shopping, lunch and dinner, money. Everything pointed out to me the practical consequences of...more

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Jun 26, 2010 Blanche rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 12, 2009 Rujeko rated it 2 of 5 stars

though elena ferrante is very mysterious and all -- "Though one of Italy’s most important and acclaimed contemporary authors, she has successfully shunned public attention and kept her whereabouts and her true identity concealed." -- and she certainly knows the ins and outs of the crazed female psyche, it's a bit much. pages and pages of our narrator slowly losing her cookies (admittedly after being abruptly left with two kids by her philandering ass of a husband) is interesting, in a voyeuristi...more

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May 09, 2008 Nancyc rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

Everyone knows divorce is a terrible ordeal. When a marriage, a family, is suddenly ripped apart by the husband leaving for a younger woman, the suffering is horrific. It's one of the oldest of stories. Countless woman have experienced it. Those who do, look on others embarking on the path with pity and knowing. Women who've experienced this kind of break up know that the only way through it is, well, through it.

But no one talks about it. Probably because it hurts so damned much. Eventually, the...more Everyone knows divorce is a terrible ordeal. When a marriage, a family, is suddenly ripped apart by the husband leaving for a younger woman, the suffering is horrific. It's one of the oldest of stories. Countless woman have experienced it. Those who do, look on others embarking on the path with pity and knowing. Women who've experienced this kind of break up know that the only way through it is, well, through it.

But no one talks about it. Probably because it hurts so damned much. Eventually, the mother and children get through the ordeal, each with their own private scars, but it just becomes a bad spot in the past, like a bruise on a banana.

Elena Ferrante talks about it. In Days of Abandonment, she goes into the home of Olga, Ilaria and Gianni and shows us what went on behind that closed door after Mario, husband and father, left them for Carla. The story is from Olga's point of view, and it is her anguish we feel most poignantly. But we see all of them, Olga, Ilaria, Gianni, even Otto the dog, swirling in the wake of Mario's departure. They plummet until it doesn't seem they can go any lower. Then they begin to heal.

The well-being of the mother and children can be measured by the way they view Carrano, their neighbor. When the story starts out, they see him through the eyes of Mario. Mario didn't like Carrano, and his observations were taken in by the rest of the family without question. After Mario leaves, Carrano goes through a remarkable series of transformations. He starts out sullen, unattractive and rude and migrates through lechery, incompetence to being a source of comfort.

Ferrante accomplishes all of her magic by showing us the transformations of Olga's outside world as she goes from shock to despair and up through the dregs to find her strength.

A fantastic book about an occurrence all too common but little understood. The book is difficult to read because the subject matter is so painful and displayed so graphically. But well worth taking the opportunity to become acquainted with this marvelous Italian talent. (less)

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Mar 13, 2013 Jay rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have been looking for this book for years. I read it at least 4 years ago and I could not for the life of me remember who the author was let alone the title. This novel reflects the raw emotion of an abandoned woman. It clearly depicts the depths of our strength. How it is that we get passed and through just about anything. Especially when we think that we will die from it, the emotional pain is just that great. But then we don't and we persevere, we become that much stronger!

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Apr 14, 2012 Janet rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: regular-books

I did a no-no...I judged a book by it's cover. And, of course, it misled me. I was in the mood to get lost in a story of a woman freeing herself from the chains of a limiting life...losing herself in passion and a bit of ecstasy thrown in for good measure. If I would have read the book jacket, I would have been enlightened that I was treading into a completely different variety of losing oneself. But, I didn't...(because sometimes I want no hints). While the writing was OUTSTANDING, I found myse...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Jiemin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Beautiful, gripping inner journey of a deserted woman, stuck with her lost self and children, regaining her identity and faith through her everyday being. Moving, mesmerizing, and reassuring. Makes you wonder, did the author go through a divorce too? How else would she be able to describe what was going on through Olga's mind, and nailed it down to the teeth? Once you pick up the book, you will be taken on the journey, to feel, ache, evolve, and be enlightened.

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Aug 17, 2012 Sean of the Dead rated it 4 of 5 stars

I work in a musuem and this was sent to our lost and found department. No one claimed it so I figured I'd take it home and I'm glad I did. This was a great read. Very sad, the protagonist really spirals into madness, I nver read anything quite like this. I read in a couple of days, couldn't put it down. Glad this Italian work made it's way to the states.

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Quotes from The Days of Abandonment

“The rules say that to tell a story you need first of all a measuring stick, a calendar, you have to calculate how much time has passed between you and the facts, the emotions to be narrated.” — 5 people liked it

“The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose” — 3 people liked it

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