I'm wandering the same. I have read this open letter and I cannot understand what the letter about. What author tries to tell? Why he have wrote this letter? Unclear message with unclear motives... My guess based on this, that the letter is exploded emotional instability caused by books of Elena Ferrante.

But, I'm not sure: if I cannot understand something, it doesn't mean that it is nonsense. Seems the only way to crack this and to understand what happens is to stop being ignorant about Elena Ferrante and read some of her books. Doesn't seem to be a fun.

I'm only watching the TV series on HBO. It's about two girls growing up in post WW2 Italy, and it feels like it's filling in the part missing in the Godfather movie series where the women's lives should be. At least from the TV show there are sympathetic portrayals of complicated characters, from recaps I've read the book series is enormously popular among women, and most of Italy is watching the live broadcast, and it's caused crowding in places in Italy mentioned in the books due to people going on My Brilliant Friend location themed tours ala Game of Thrones in Croatia or Lord of the Rings in New Zealand.

The article writer implies the books are a joint project between a man and his wife. I think part of the controversy is the trolling opportunity - some people might think it would be trollish to suggest the author is a man or men's rights activists would relish it being a man. This brings the controversy to the level of the internal Google Damore memo.

The Neapolitan Novels were quite well recieved. Eventhough they are widely loved, it never felt like the story was simplified in order to reach a large audience. Ferrante wove together the culture and politics of Naples over the decades with the intimate personal lives of the characters. I look forward to revisiting these books when I'm older, since I'm sure my perspective on main character’s various life stages will change as my own life changes (I'm 28 now).