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The first thing I want to recognize is something I said in a discussion group during my class last week. It was along the lines of whether these texts (that I’ve chosen) will all follow the theme of memories, past experience, or just past tense writing in general. This is the fourth book to do […] read full post >>

The novel “Agostino” by the Italian novelist Alberto Moravia in 1943 describes the transition of the 13 year old boy Agostino from adolescence to adulthood. The book focuses on Agostino’s adolescent struggle on two aspects: sexuality and class division. When reading the book, I find the ambiguous relationship between Agostino and his mother is particularly […] read full post >>

For this week’s reading I chose to read Nada by Carmen Laforet. This post war aroma is consistent throughout Andrea and her surroundings. While in the midst of longing to study in Barcelona, she has to simultaneously navigate her new family dynamic dealing with post-war hauntings.     The contrast of Andrea’s past and current state […] read full post >>

Pretty much every moment of Agostino made me very uneasy. The (possibly) Freudian undertones of Agostino’s feelings towards his mother were definitely somewhat disquieting to me; and the mother’s lack of focus on her son’s wellbeing may have been even more so. However, I think the part that stood out to me most was the […] read full post >>

Nada by Carmen Laforet is a thrilling, chaotic, and apocalyptic read. Andrea, an 18 year old young woman, guides us through her adventure to live with her terror-filled family in Barcelona while she attends university. The book begins with her first interactions and impressions of her deranged family members on Calle de Aribau, who all seem …

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To say that Carmen Laforet’s “Nada” is both incredibly gripping and deeply unsettling would be an understatement and in my opinion is an excellent study in reciprocal trauma, the weight of a toxic environment on one’s psyche, and the ways in which one’s environment can contort them in many ways. The backdrop of the Spanish […] read full post >>

Moravia’s short coming-of-age novel Agostino was a very interesting yet slightly bizarre read. I had previously read another one of Moravia’s novels, Gli Indifferenti, in high school. Although I read Gli Indifferenti in Italian, I found many similarities between the two … Continue reading → read full post >>

I think that Nada has been my favourite book of the term so far, providing an fascinating look into postwar trauma, mental health, and class inequality set in unsettling, broken Barcelona. There are quiet acknowledgements of the war’s atrocities, like the old houses turned to rubble that are merely the subject of Gerardo’s comments, that […] read full post >>

Overall this was not a favorite of mine compared to what we have read so far. Agostino is a story of adolescence and growth centered in early 20th century Italy (I think not entirely sure if the location is specifically … Continue reading → read full post >>

 Moravia's Agostino was definitely a unique read. The novella managed to pack a rich amount of detail and plot into a hundred pages, and I ever once felt that the writing was rushed. Honestly, it was quite difficult to read some portions of the book, especially when the narrator was discussing Agostino's newfound perspective of viewing his mother. According to the lecture, Moravia's work draws largely from realism. I found this evident in his descriptions of the town and the stereotypes associated with the social classes but was unsure how it applied to Agostino's view of his mother.

The transformation of Agostino's relationship with his mother throughout the book was jarring. It was unsettling to read how he, a thirteen-year-old boy, viewed his mother. It was quite similar to how a grown man would view his lover as his property, as an object that would invoke envy in other men. The depiction of women throughout the book is quite sketchy, and I am not sure how intentional that is. Throughout the book, women mainly serve as objects of desire and do not have any other layers to their identity as the boys do. This influences Agostino's view of his mother and her womanhood. His descriptions of his mother and her wardrobe and body felt highly intrusive and inappropriate, definitely alluding to the Freudian Oedipal complex theory. 

Moreover, we can see how this discomfort (initiated by the boys he meets) fuels his desire to break away from his mother to create his distinct identity from her. He is desperate to hide his naivety from the street-smart boys, but his pampered upbringing doesn't allow him to do so. He allowed them to take advantage of him just so that he could be included. When this starts happening, Moravia points out how "he found that he had lost his original identity without acquiring through his loss another." I found this quote to be quite poignant because of how it relates to the experiences of adolescents in their teen years. 

Overall, I found Agostino's character to be intriguing but unsettling. The realism in the book is definitely one of its winning points, as the descriptions did seem very realistic. The visual imagery made the settings easy to imagine. My question to the class would be: Do you think that the Oedipal complex factor added to the realism Moravia wanted to portray in the book? 

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