By Auguste Meyrat.

In the New York Time's list of "The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century," the critics placed Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, and by extension the next three books of her Neapolitan series, at the very top. In their estimation, these books represent the best literature of the last quarter century.

Even for those who have read the series (or watched the TV adaptation), it's not exactly clear why this is the number one book of our day. In style and substance, Ferrante hardly breaks new ground. The most that one could say is that her characters and setting are well developed and true to life. Her themes are also familiar, as she charts the challenges of growing up, maintaining relationships, thriving in a career, and coming to terms with one's identity. Again, her depictions and reflections on these ideas are realistic and clear, but not necessarily profound.

Even by the standards of today's critics, who generally seek out manifestations of the woke Zeitgeist, the novels fall short: the whole cast of characters are white, mostly heterosexual Italians. It's true that socialism and feminism are discussed throughout the series, but the writer's commitment to reality effectively tarnishes these fashionable ideologies. Italy in general, and Naples in particular, are dysfunctional places made all the worse by leftist politics. And the women in the books are far from empowered despite their outward social progress.

So, is there something that explains the books' acclaim among NYT critics? I believe there is. Better than any other novel or novel series, Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels thoroughly capture the spiritual, moral, cultural, and material decline of the modern West.

The story centers around the friendship of Elena (Lenu) Greco and Raffaella (Lila) Cerrullo, two girls who grow up in post-World War II Naples. The neighborhood is plagued with poverty, mob violence, radical leftist politics, and domestic violence. Nevertheless, both Lenu and Lila do well at school, Lenu because she works hard and aims to please and Lila because she is intellectually gifted. The two girls' paths diverge as Lenu continues her studies, allowing her to rise above her circumstances, and Lila marries young following the prescribed path of most women in her neighborhood.

Each novel in the series covers a stage of Lenu and Lila's lives: childhood (My Brilliant Friend), young adulthood (The Story of a New Name), adulthood (The Ones Who Leave and Those Who Stay), middle and old age (The Story of the Lost Child). Both characters experience the typical milestones of maturity, enduring the joys and sorrows of marriage, parenthood, and work, increasingly each envying the other in a multitude of ways.

Although this setup might suggest some kind of character growth and several poignant lessons, this is rarely the case. The characters simply grow older, never wiser. Lenu makes a host of bad decisions and hurts everyone around her, but never thinks to blame herself or apologize to anyone. Moreover, unlike every other character in the series, Lenu is often blessed with good fortune, which allows her to accomplish her goals. Yet she never expresses gratitude.

Worst of all, Lenu is an unimaginative, humorless bore, yet somehow becomes a famous writer - maybe a projection of Ferrante herself? All of Lenu's supposed literary successes are instances of her recounting moments in her life, discussing Naples, and/or regurgitating pretentious feminist theory. Nothing and no one actually inspires her, much less teaches her to write the way she does, except maybe Lila from time to time.

As such, each novel becomes successively more tedious: Lenu drifts upward through life, learning nothing; Lila's fortunes rise and fall arbitrarily; and the rest of the characters tend to follow a predetermined (usually downward) course, exhibiting little personal agency. It's a world mostly devoid of redemption and meaning, which is tolerable in the first volume, bu...