Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
Published 2013 · 1 pages · 132,928 words · about 10 hours at an average pace · Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
How hard is Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay to read?
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay scores 63 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 48 out of 100
- The novel uses a rich, literary vocabulary that is generally accessible to a well-read adult, similar to 'The Great Gatsby' or '2666' but without their occasional obscurity. While terms like 'stradone,' 'malais,' 'hypotaxis,' and 'cantankerous' appear, they are either common literary words or clarified by context, not requiring specialized knowledge.
- Sentence structure: 68 out of 100
- Ferrante employs long, flowing sentences with extensive subordination and multiple clauses, often building complex psychological states or detailed descriptions. Paragraphs frequently extend for half a page or more, demanding sustained attention from the reader, placing it above 'The Great Gatsby' but below the extreme hypotaxis of Henry James.
- Abstraction: 62 out of 100
- The narrative is deeply grounded in concrete events and character interactions, yet it consistently delves into philosophical reflections on society, personal identity, and the nature of reality. The narrator frequently generalizes from specific experiences to broader theoretical conclusions, such as 'it's not the neighborhood that's sick, it's not Naples, it's the entire earth, it's the universe,' elevating the content beyond simple storytelling.
- Information density: 70 out of 100
- The text is dense with interwoven plotlines, character motivations, and psychological insights, requiring constant attention to detail and subtext. Each chapter introduces new conflicts, shifts in relationships, and layers of social commentary, making it more demanding than 'Lolita' but less encyclopedic than '2666' or 'War and Peace'.
- Narrative indirection: 50 out of 100
- The narrative is told from Elena's first-person perspective, offering explicit insights into her thoughts, feelings, and interpretations of events and characters. While Elena often reflects on her own biases and evolving understanding, the reader is largely guided through her direct internal monologue, reducing the need for extensive inference about plot or character motivations. This approach is more direct than the subtle subversion found in *Lolita* (72), where the narrator actively misleads, but more layered than the straightforward exposition of *1984* (35).
- Symbolic density: 75 out of 100
- The text is rich with recurring motifs that carry meaning beyond literal events, such as the contrasting 'neighborhood' and 'outside world' symbolizing Elena's internal conflict and societal pressures. Lila's 'dissolving boundaries' and the 'dirty pages' of Elena's book serve as potent symbols for psychological states and uncomfortable truths about female experience. While not overtly allegorical like *Moby-Dick* (90), the pervasive and deeply integrated symbolism, particularly around class, gender, and personal aspiration, elevates the text beyond the more straightforward symbolism of *To Kill a Mockingbird* (45).
- Ironic distance: 45 out of 100
- Ironic distance primarily manifests through Elena's retrospective self-critique and her evolving understanding of past events and relationships, rather than a significant gap between the narrator's stated meaning and the author's implied critique. Elena's journey of self-awareness, as she re-evaluates her own naivete or misjudgments (e.g., her changing views on Nino or Naples), provides an internal layer of irony. This differs from texts like *Lolita* (75) or *Ulysses* (88), where the author's ironic stance actively undermines or complicates the narrator's perspective for the reader.
- Resolution withholding: 82 out of 100
- The excerpt consistently resists definitive closure, leaving many significant personal and relational questions open-ended. The narrative is framed by the unresolved mystery of Lila's disappearance and fate, and Elena's internal monologues frequently end with unanswered questions about her marriage, her future as a writer, and the ultimate trajectory of her life and Lila's. This pervasive ambiguity, particularly regarding the characters' psychological states and the long-term consequences of their choices, places it closer to *Crying of Lot 49* (75) or even *2666* (92) in its resistance to neat conclusions.
- Structural complexity: 62 out of 100
- The narrative maintains a consistent first-person point of view from Elena, who narrates retrospectively, frequently shifting between the 'present' of writing and detailed flashbacks to past events. While this retrospective framing and deep internal monologue create a layered reading experience, the overall structure remains largely chronological within Elena's life story, without significant formal experimentation, multiple narrators, or disorienting non-linearity. This is more complex than the simple flashbacks of *The Great Gatsby* (55) but lacks the radical formal innovations of works like *Flights* (88) or *Ulysses* (98).
How Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay is regarded
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay holds a literary regard score of 74 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.