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My Brilliant Friend Recap: All About My Mother
Lila returns to Lenù’s life just as she enters a new, challenging time as a mother and daughter.
But the question of who to leave the girls with is a real problem: Pietro is “too busy” at work to take them (notice how he’s allowed), Immacolata is too sick, there’s no way Lenù will ask Adele for a favor, and she hasn’t heard from Mariarosa in a while. This would be a throwaway moment if it didn’t perfectly symbolize the mirrored state of gender relations in each of the women’s houses, their public positions as feminists notwithstanding: Enzo is a real helping hand, while Nino has dinner with his wife and leaves his Other Woman waiting. Not content with violating her body when she was barely just a teenager and looking down her blouse in adulthood while she carries his own grandchild, Donato also over-emphasizes the role he played in her intellectual development: If it weren’t for him and his encouragement, Lenù wouldn’t be the writer she is today.
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