The prestigious newspaper The New York Times has published an ambitious list: the 100 best books of the 21st century, taking into account the evaluation of over 500 novelists, non-fiction writers, poets, critics, academics, book editors, translators, booksellers, librarians, and other literary luminaries, including Stephen King, Claudia Rankine, James Patterson, Roxane Gay, Marlon James, Sarah MacLean, and Min Jin Lee.

The result is a varied list that proposes the most important and influential books of the first 25 years of the century, where the respondents had the freedom to define what "best" meant for them. For some, the newspaper says, it simply meant "favorite." For others, it meant books that would endure for generations.

The number one spot is held by My Brilliant Friend, the first volume of what would become the fascinating four-book series of Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante, "one of the leading examples of the so-called autofiction," says The New York Times. "Reading this uncompromising and unforgettable novel is like riding a bike on gravel: It's gritty, slippery, and distressing, all at the same time."

'My Brilliant Friend,' the series

The collection of four books in this saga has been brought to the screen in a series produced by Italian public television in collaboration with HBO, which has so far released three seasons adapting the first three novels, and has yet to premiere the fourth and final installment, coming to Max this fall.

The series starts just as the book does, in the present day, with Elena answering the nervous call from Lila's son asking for his mother, who has disappeared without a trace. Elena doesn't know where she is, but she remains calm because she understands that Lila disappeared voluntarily. However, she can't help but be angry with her. Elena then turns on her computer to write the story of their friendship, a journey that spans six decades.

My Brilliant Friend is the account of a woman in her 60s who decides to retrace every step that marked her life, a life that began the day she met Lila, and that was parallel to hers ever since. Lila was her counterpart and the mirror in which she looked; she inspired her and made her see and believe they could be more than what the neighborhood had written for them. Lila was her muse.

The first book, just like the first season of the series, portrays two girls growing up in a poor and violent neighborhood in post-war Naples: the diligent and obedient Elena and her charismatic and wild friend Lila, who despite her fierce intelligence is seemingly limited by her family's meager resources.

From there, in the following seasons, the story expands to encompass ideas about art and politics, class and gender, philosophy and destiny, all through a focused approach on the conflicting and competitive friendship between Elena and Lila as they become complex adults.

One of the best adaptations of the story

The adaptation of Elena Ferrante's saga My Brilliant Friend portrays the fascinating story of a complex friendship. A story set in a violent, miserable, misogynistic Naples with marked class differences is the culture that laid the groundwork for works like The Godfather, but told from a female perspective.

It's a story of coming of age in a hostile environment that confronts Lenù and Lila with very difficult, often traumatic situations, where each relationship is depicted as a constant negotiation with the power held by men.

And their friendship is at the core of everything, with a changing and competitive dynamic in which each can be a source of frustration, representing what they aspire to but can't have, but above all, as mutual inspiration and admiration.

The complexity of that relationship is the greatest achievement of the novel and the series, in which both the reader and the viewer assume that Lila is the brilliant friend, until she refers to Lenù that way. They both are.

*This article has been automatically translated using artificial intelligence