Elena Ferrante on the screen adaptation of her book: 'I want to say, let's give it up'

Stripped down, the novel suddenly appears to the writer a trick of literary words, a fraud

I speak as an inexperienced screenwriter. When I write a book, and someone decides to make it into a movie, I’m glad.

Then? Then the work begins. My first impression is traumatic, as the literary cover is torn off my novel by the screenwriters. It’s a terrible moment: I worked on that text for years, and now everything seems to become impoverished: places, events, characters. A city square minutely described is reduced in the screenplay to the simple common noun: square. An event to which I devoted many pages shrinks, becomes a stage direction. Characters become names, actions are abridged, as are lines of dialogue. Stripped down, the novel suddenly appears to the writer to be a trick of literary words, a fraud, and she is slightly ashamed. The story, in this summary form, is banal. The density I thought I had achieved has vanished. I have to acknowledge that I failed to include things that now seem essential and gave too much space to what now seems superfluous. I want to say, “Let’s give it up – my novel doesn’t seem suitable.”

Related: Elena Ferrante: ‘People who are enemies for no reason fascinate me'

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