Elena Ferrante: A writer’s talent is like a fishing net, catching daily experiences that can educate

We fall in love with a text partly for the way it unwittingly informs us

There’s a very old function of literature that over time has lost currency, probably because of its dangerous proximity to the political and ethical spheres. I mean the idea that one of the purposes of a text is to instruct. Over the past 50 years, we have wisely convinced ourselves that the pleasure and enjoyment of a text are at one with its style. Very true: a text is made up of words, and the more beautifully chosen and put together the words are, the more seductive the text, and the more disruptive to the body of the reader. But the words, delighting us, shape our visions of the world; they penetrate our bodies, flow in and alter it, educating our gaze, feelings, even our position on different issues. Besides giving pleasure, style, in accordance with a long tradition, moves and teaches us.

We fall in love with a text partly for the way it unwittingly informs us; that is, for the wealth of vivid, true experiences that pass from the writer directly into the life of the reader. It’s not just the meticulous choice of vocabulary, the metaphors, the memorable similes. What counts is how the writer inserts herself into the literary tradition – not only with her ability to orchestrate words, but with her ideas and the very personal store of urgent things she has to tell. An individual talent acts like a fishing net that captures daily experiences, holds them together imaginatively, and connects them to fundamental questions about the human condition.

Related: Elena Ferrante: ‘If people still told their stories in verse, I would be too embarrassed to write’

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