IN THE MARGINS
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IN THE MARGINS
In the Margins is a valuable text not just because it comes from one of our best living writers, but also because it comes from the most mysterious. (Ferrante’s true identity is still famously unknown, if speculated.)
This publication began as a series of craft lectures written by Ferrante for the University of Bologna and delivered in her guise by the actress Manuela Mandracchia. In it, the Italian novelist opens herself somewhat to the public by discussing her creative journey and giving us confessional glimpses at the passages that have most intimately influenced her. Revealing her cornerstone texts, from a poem by Dickenson to The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, Ferrante parses the relationship between the scribe who writes and what becomes circumscribed in the written work. For her, the defined perimeter both restricts and introduces shape so that the artform can exist in the first place.
You get the idea that Ferrante’s strength as a writer comes from the sheer intensity with which she has gripped the writing process since childhood. Literally, she starts by examining the margins of the page, and the psychological effect that writing between them produced in her. Later, she talks about feeling “locked” writing as a woman within the male tradition, and “cramped” in the compliant writing that enables her to structure a narrative, while she waits for the imaginative convulsions she feels are the moments of real writing.
The result, true to form, is a tightly composed series of reflections we think will be useful to anyone who’s contemplating their boundaries within gender and/or art. Ferrante navigates questions of process, inspiration, failure, and authority, from her unique vantage using Dante’s Beatrice, her own heroines, and other figures as rich examples.
Written by So Textual
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