The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

“One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.”

A raw and uncomfortable exploration of grief, neglect, and their ugly repercussions. The Days of Abandonment explores the aftermath of Olga’s marital collapse following her husband's affair with a younger lover. Olga, left behind with their two young children, slips first into disbelief before falling into a seemingly insatiable pit of despair. Despite the novel’s excellent portrayal of misery and betrayal, I had difficulty digesting the ease with which the protagonist expressed viciousness, cruelty and on some occasions abuse towards her children and family dog. Of course, the running theme of this novel is not supposed to be appetising, and so in this sense it succeeds.

Ferrante indulges in the innermost workings of rejection, vulnerability, and psychological devastation, often portraying Olga as a woman whose own grief puppeteers her. Following the clichéd circumstances, Olga's resulting response sharply accelerates not only her own aggression towards Marco’s marital abandonment, but so too catalyses a maternal abandonment of her two children. Her resistance to traditional parental comforts is an important and aching expression of the many challenges intertwined with marriage and motherhood. Rarely have I been presented with such a complex struggle between a character’s self-neglect and subsequent attempt to remain competent for their children’s sake.

Adrift in the abyss of her own anguish, Olga becomes engulfed in vulgarity, desire, and emotional collapse. The weight of this novel feels incredibly tangible and stands as a deeply emotional and violent piece which challenges the reader to consider the boundaries of self-control. Though I consider the content to be somewhat of a distasteful narration, there is an undeniable bravery in the author’s literary vulnerability. Ultimately, while the content may be discomforting, the novel remains an incredibly raw depiction of a woman scorned, the catastrophe of infidelity, and the erosion of independence which accompanies many long-term marriages. Ferrante’s exploration of injustice at the hands of male desire and the consequence of faithlessness profoundly challenges traditional perceptions of femininity. My doubt lies not in the author's literary knowledge, but rather in her ability to inspire. With that being said, some writing is, of course, not intended to inspire or indeed evoke any pleasant feelings.

On reflection, my greatest enlightenment from Olga’s descent into agony is the crucial importance of maintaining at least partial individuality, even in the challenging environment of a marriage. While I would not necessarily recommend this book, particularly not to someone looking for an uplifting piece of literature, I do thoroughly acknowledge its unique depiction of a woman’s untempered wrath.

“I had taken away my own time and added it to his to make him more powerful. I had put aside my own aspirations to go along with his. At every crisis of despair I had set aside my own crises to comfort him. I had disappeared into his minutes, into his hours, so that he could concentrate. I had taken care of the house, I had taken care of the meals, I had taken care of the children, I had taken care of all the boring details of everyday life, while he stubbornly climbed the ladder up from our unprivileged beginnings. And now, now he had left me, carrying off, abruptly, all that time, all that energy, all that effort I had given him, to enjoy its fruits with someone else, a stranger who had not lifted a finger to bear him and rear him and make him become what he had become.”