Student Blogs

The novel, “Agostino” by Alberto Moravia was not what I expected from its description. I found this story to be extremely different than most texts I’ve read before, but still interesting. I also liked the writing style of the story. I felt it had more flow and structure than the previous texts we’ve covered, but … Continue reading Week 5: Moravia’s “Agostino” → read full post >>

    While reading Agostino I was disturbed by the relationship between thirteen-year-old Agostino and his mother. It quickly became clear that Agostino had a less than innocent attraction towards her. I think Moravia was direct with regard to  Freud’s Oedipus Complex as Agostino was entering a reality where he realizes that he unconsciously desires a sexual union with his mother and spends the remainder of the book trying to repress it. When his mother starts to spend time with her new love interest Renzo, Agostino feels neglected and jealous. The summer was the start of his sensual awakening, not only did he feel pride for being associated with his mother’s beauty, but with the association of his new friends, he learnt what his desires meant and why he didn’t like his mom spending time with Renzo.

    Agostino’s shame later turns to anger towards his mother for example on page 69 “unable to bear his mother’s unawareness or his own attentions, he wanted to shout, “Cover yourself, stop showing yourself to me, I’m not who I used to be.” He uses his new friends as a distraction from his situation with his mother, but the more time he spends with them the more he comes to realize how naive and childish he is. They expose him to rough behaviours, a perspective on the low-income class, and gave him a strong male presence that he had been lacking since the death of his father. They viewed him as weak and sheltered, so he had to work on being the person he thought they wanted him to be. His newfound sexuality paired with his new friends gives him an overwhelming escalation into manhood. The change that happened within him this summer had already been a source of suffering for him and getting kicked out of the house of prostitutes gave him the idea that he was still young and how he was not yet a man “and many unhappy days would pass before he became one.”

    Overall I thought the story was well written and an easy read. It had a number of well presented themes that I enjoyed, including class, sexuality, and coming of age. I thought the author’s psychoanalytic approach illustrated Agostino’s agony of his position and attraction to his mother.  My question for the class is how do you think Agostino’s relationship/attraction to his mother will affect his future relationships?

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    While reading Agostino I was disturbed by the relationship between thirteen-year-old Agostino and his mother. It quickly became clear that Agostino had a less than innocent attraction towards her. I think Moravia was direct with regard to  Freud’s Oedipus Complex as Agostino was entering a reality where he realizes that he unconsciously desires a sexual union with his mother and spends the remainder of the book trying to repress it. When his mother starts to spend time with her new love interest Renzo, Agostino feels neglected and jealous. The summer was the start of his sensual awakening, not only did he feel pride for being associated with his mother’s beauty, but with the association of his new friends, he learnt what his desires meant and why he didn’t like his mom spending time with Renzo.

    Agostino’s shame later turns to anger towards his mother for example on page 69 “unable to bear his mother’s unawareness or his own attentions, he wanted to shout, “Cover yourself, stop showing yourself to me, I’m not who I used to be.” He uses his new friends as a distraction from his situation with his mother, but the more time he spends with them the more he comes to realize how naive and childish he is. They expose him to rough behaviours, a perspective on the low-income class, and gave him a strong male presence that he had been lacking since the death of his father. They viewed him as weak and sheltered, so he had to work on being the person he thought they wanted him to be. His newfound sexuality paired with his new friends gives him an overwhelming escalation into manhood. The change that happened within him this summer had already been a source of suffering for him and getting kicked out of the house of prostitutes gave him the idea that he was still young and how he was not yet a man “and many unhappy days would pass before he became one.”

    Overall I thought the story was well written and an easy read. It had a number of well presented themes that I enjoyed, including class, sexuality, and coming of age. I thought the author’s psychoanalytic approach illustrated Agostino’s agony of his position and attraction to his mother.  My question for the class is how do you think Agostino’s relationship/attraction to his mother will affect his future relationships?

read full post >>

This week I chose to read the novel Agostino by Alberto Moravia. My decision to read this book came from some reviews I read on Goodreads that left me wondering what this novel was about. The story of Agostino was … Continue reading → read full post >>

  Nada by Carmen Laforet really captured my attention as the book was filled with drama, relationships and betrayal surrounding a young university student. Laforet did an excellent job in portraying the characters as somewhat delusional as I often found myself questioning many of their actions. Although this book has a lot to unpack, this …

Continue reading "Laforet “Nada”"

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 This week I chose to read Nada by Carmen Laforet.

The main protagonist, Andrea, was excited about the trip by herself to the place she had adored. She is moving to Barcelona to attend university and study literature. The descriptions Andrea had made when she arrived in Barcelona all seem to be dark and gloomy. After she got to her relatives house, it “all seemed like nightmare” (p5) to her. She was first greeted by her grandma who seems to have forgotten about her, then it was her uncle Juan whom she described as“ a skull in the light of the single bulb in the lamp” (p6) and seeing “several ghostly women” (p6) when she looked up.

The house seems to be in disorder and suffocating. It is filled with cobwebs, dust and a bathroom that seemed like a witches’ house (P8).

She described the room she is staying as “like the attic of an abandoned palace” and“like a grave mound surrounded by mourners” (p9). When the candle got put out, Andrea thought she “was trembling with undefinable terror” (p9). Not only the house, there also seems to be tension between the family members. There are a lot of arguments and fights going on, even Andrea’s uncle Roman told her not to be frightened as it happens everyday (p18).They also have a complicated relationship going on in the house.

The reason why Andrea is making friends and connecting with people around her age may be because of the wish to escape from her family. “Only these beings of my own generation and my own tastes could support me and protect me from the somewhat ghostly world of older people” (p44). I believe being with her friends allows her to briefly escape from the pain/conflicts her estranged family brings. She especially cherished her friendship with Ena.“She made me feel that I was everything I wasn't: rich and contented” (p53), being with Ena helped her feel a sense of belonging because no one she loved has ever shown her so much affection as Ena had (p52). Ena is able to make her feel loved in a way that her family never provided. The thought of leaving her family never left her even when she was with Pons, “Illustrations of… Pons leading me by the hand, out of my house and towards happiness” (p181).

A question I have for the class is: When Andrea just got to Barcelona, aunt Angustias told her not to become friends with Gloria or she would be disappointed. If it was you, would you avoid Gloria just to be on aunt Angustias good side?

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 This week I chose to read Nada by Carmen Laforet.

The main protagonist, Andrea, was excited about the trip by herself to the place she had adored. She is moving to Barcelona to attend university and study literature. The descriptions Andrea had made when she arrived in Barcelona all seem to be dark and gloomy. After she got to her relatives house, it “all seemed like nightmare” (p5) to her. She was first greeted by her grandma who seems to have forgotten about her, then it was her uncle Juan whom she described as“ a skull in the light of the single bulb in the lamp” (p6) and seeing “several ghostly women” (p6) when she looked up.

The house seems to be in disorder and suffocating. It is filled with cobwebs, dust and a bathroom that seemed like a witches’ house (P8).

She described the room she is staying as “like the attic of an abandoned palace” and“like a grave mound surrounded by mourners” (p9). When the candle got put out, Andrea thought she “was trembling with undefinable terror” (p9). Not only the house, there also seems to be tension between the family members. There are a lot of arguments and fights going on, even Andrea’s uncle Roman told her not to be frightened as it happens everyday (p18).They also have a complicated relationship going on in the house.

The reason why Andrea is making friends and connecting with people around her age may be because of the wish to escape from her family. “Only these beings of my own generation and my own tastes could support me and protect me from the somewhat ghostly world of older people” (p44). I believe being with her friends allows her to briefly escape from the pain/conflicts her estranged family brings. She especially cherished her friendship with Ena.“She made me feel that I was everything I wasn't: rich and contented” (p53), being with Ena helped her feel a sense of belonging because no one she loved has ever shown her so much affection as Ena had (p52). Ena is able to make her feel loved in a way that her family never provided. The thought of leaving her family never left her even when she was with Pons, “Illustrations of… Pons leading me by the hand, out of my house and towards happiness” (p181).

A question I have for the class is: When Andrea just got to Barcelona, aunt Angustias told her not to become friends with Gloria or she would be disappointed. If it was you, would you avoid Gloria just to be on aunt Angustias good side?

read full post >>

I am made to believe that it might be better to be in one’s own company than in the wrong one after reading Alberto Moravia’s “Agostino”. However, I think not having fun would definitely leave the narrator in an existential mindset. By avoiding this, he is trying to find some meaning through attaining experience that […] read full post >>

When I first began this book, I could not stop thinking about a theory I learned in psychology. While it may not be directly correlated, I was instantly considering how it could be applied to Agostino. It is called the Oedipus complex. That is, where children can develop a desire or protectiveness of the opposite […] read full post >>

“Nada” is currently my favorite novel so far. The novel takes place after the Spanish Civil War and the narrator is an orphan named Andrea, who was ecstatic to be able to study literature in Barcelona to the point she carried her luggage by herself as she had enough strength due to “[her] youth and […] read full post >>

This week, I chose to read Agostino over the other option based on a brief summary of this short book. I thought that Agostino sounded more interesting. This story explores the idea of virginity (both sexually and in terms of being young and inexperienced in life), awakening, love, identity, sensuality, adolescence and adulthood. I think I would have had a very different experience reading this text if I was younger or even the same age as the narrator, but reading it now as an 18 year old, I feel like an adult observing the moment of awakening of a new teenager and I honestly secretly felt relieved that I've already passed that phase of my growth. What I mainly got from him was confusion - and the teenage years are definitely some of the most confusing times of our childhoods. Emotions and hormones run high and new doors are opening, and it's when kids start to realize how much deeper life goes than the simple pleasures of children's play. 

18 isn't even that old, and I'm not saying that the hardest part of life has already passed, but when I am presented with someone like Agostino, who is just beginning this chapter of his development and whose most intimate thoughts I can hear, I feel as if I have lived much longer than he has and I feel as though I have decades more experience than he does. I remember when I was 13 years old and I was just passing into the beginnings of the adult stages of my life. Just like Agostino, I was awkward, weird, and unsure where I fit in. I wanted to please other groups of people my age, but I also wanted to stand out and be something more than I was. 

There was one quote that I liked a lot. "So he found that he had lost his original identity without acquiring through his loss another." This quote goes with the theme of identity and Agostino's sense of confusion with who he is and how his relationship with his mother has suddenly transformed. This quote makes me imagine him as something floating, unanchored and submissive to the push of the waves. It's a sense of being lost and not knowing how to realign his person according to his new perspective. I wish there was a way for someone to really help him through his struggle, especially with his odd attraction and attachment to his mom, but he's really just grappling with this on his own.

Here is the question I am presenting this week: If Agostino came to you for advice on how to navigate his confusion on his loss of identity, based on your experience as a teenager, what would you say?

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This week, I chose to read Agostino over the other option based on a brief summary of this short book. I thought that Agostino sounded more interesting. This story explores the idea of virginity (both sexually and in terms of being young and inexperienced in life), awakening, love, identity, sensuality, adolescence and adulthood. I think I would have had a very different experience reading this text if I was younger or even the same age as the narrator, but reading it now as an 18 year old, I feel like an adult observing the moment of awakening of a new teenager and I honestly secretly felt relieved that I've already passed that phase of my growth. What I mainly got from him was confusion - and the teenage years are definitely some of the most confusing times of our childhoods. Emotions and hormones run high and new doors are opening, and it's when kids start to realize how much deeper life goes than the simple pleasures of children's play. 

18 isn't even that old, and I'm not saying that the hardest part of life has already passed, but when I am presented with someone like Agostino, who is just beginning this chapter of his development and whose most intimate thoughts I can hear, I feel as if I have lived much longer than he has and I feel as though I have decades more experience than he does. I remember when I was 13 years old and I was just passing into the beginnings of the adult stages of my life. Just like Agostino, I was awkward, weird, and unsure where I fit in. I wanted to please other groups of people my age, but I also wanted to stand out and be something more than I was. 

There was one quote that I liked a lot. "So he found that he had lost his original identity without acquiring through his loss another." This quote goes with the theme of identity and Agostino's sense of confusion with who he is and how his relationship with his mother has suddenly transformed. This quote makes me imagine him as something floating, unanchored and submissive to the push of the waves. It's a sense of being lost and not knowing how to realign his person according to his new perspective. I wish there was a way for someone to really help him through his struggle, especially with his odd attraction and attachment to his mom, but he's really just grappling with this on his own.

Here is the question I am presenting this week: If Agostino came to you for advice on how to navigate his confusion on his loss of identity, based on your experience as a teenager, what would you say?

read full post >>

Alberto Moravia’s Agostino depicts the confusion, family, and other interpersonal relationships, as well as the aim to reach the state of adulthood of a thirteen-year-old boy fascinatingly. In this book, it can be seen that the protagonist, Agostino, has a complex, intersective, and relatively interdependent relationship with two images that contribute to the development of […] read full post >>

This week I read Carmen Laforet's work Nada, and here are some of my post-reading feelings. 

Through this week's reading of Nada, I learned about the desolate landscape of post-war Barcelona. Through the subjective and objective perspective of the protagonist, the author takes the protagonist's family as the main object of description, creating a microcosm of the miserable post-war society at that time. The author's expression is very delicate. The article contains a lot of reports of the scenery, which highlights the eerie atmosphere of the family and shows the protagonist's rejection and fear of living here. The words of the article are straightforward, but the emotions revealed are meticulous and accurate. It's easier to understand how the author feels and how things have gone.

The protagonist comes to Barcelona to complete her studies and seeks refuge from her relatives. Still, when she lives here, she gradually gets to know everyone who lives in the family and the unusual relationships between relatives. During the time she lived here, every day she spent seemed painful and unbearable, and the family members seemed to be ghosts lacking the vitality of life under her description. As a bystander, she observes the family's disputes, the old grandmother, the terrible aunt, the grumpy uncle, and the aunt. She is entangled with her husband's brother. The constant torture of the family makes the house's atmosphere very depressing. Her campus life is not as good as imagined. However, she met a good friend, just the exchange on campus it difficult to dispel the loneliness in her heart. The relationship with a boy also ended without beginning because of his family conditions. Fortunately, In the end, Andrea had the opportunity to leave the city that had tormented her and embark on a new journey.

As I read this book, I also searched the context of the times. I can see that Bartholome was very depressed after the war. Most of the literary works advocated the existence of women in the family. The protagonist of Nada observes the flaws of this family model from the perspective of a bystander; she describes the involuntary nature of women living in such a family. This straightforward reality may awaken many women who have suffered in the family, making them aware of their situation. The protagonist's courage to embark on a new path to pursue their dreams also gave people the courage to pursue their true selves.

My question for this article is: Do you think the friendship between the protagonist and his popular college classmate is equal? It looked as if she was in a state of escort.

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This week I read Carmen Laforet's work Nada, and here are some of my post-reading feelings. 

Through this week's reading of Nada, I learned about the desolate landscape of post-war Barcelona. Through the subjective and objective perspective of the protagonist, the author takes the protagonist's family as the main object of description, creating a microcosm of the miserable post-war society at that time. The author's expression is very delicate. The article contains a lot of reports of the scenery, which highlights the eerie atmosphere of the family and shows the protagonist's rejection and fear of living here. The words of the article are straightforward, but the emotions revealed are meticulous and accurate. It's easier to understand how the author feels and how things have gone.

The protagonist comes to Barcelona to complete her studies and seeks refuge from her relatives. Still, when she lives here, she gradually gets to know everyone who lives in the family and the unusual relationships between relatives. During the time she lived here, every day she spent seemed painful and unbearable, and the family members seemed to be ghosts lacking the vitality of life under her description. As a bystander, she observes the family's disputes, the old grandmother, the terrible aunt, the grumpy uncle, and the aunt. She is entangled with her husband's brother. The constant torture of the family makes the house's atmosphere very depressing. Her campus life is not as good as imagined. However, she met a good friend, just the exchange on campus it difficult to dispel the loneliness in her heart. The relationship with a boy also ended without beginning because of his family conditions. Fortunately, In the end, Andrea had the opportunity to leave the city that had tormented her and embark on a new journey.

As I read this book, I also searched the context of the times. I can see that Bartholome was very depressed after the war. Most of the literary works advocated the existence of women in the family. The protagonist of Nada observes the flaws of this family model from the perspective of a bystander; she describes the involuntary nature of women living in such a family. This straightforward reality may awaken many women who have suffered in the family, making them aware of their situation. The protagonist's courage to embark on a new path to pursue their dreams also gave people the courage to pursue their true selves.

read full post >>