Uncomfortable would be one way to describe how this book made me feel. Right off the bat, the taboo sexual undertones were impossible to ignore. Why do all roads lead to Freud??? The relationship between Agostino and his mother was especially confusing. One moment it felt like maternal concern, and the next I was questioning […]
Posted in Blogs, Moravia | Tagged with Agostino, Class division, Freud, Mommy Issues, RMST 202, teenagers are scary
Reading Agostino felt worse than Proust for me. Besides the fact that it is uncomfortable in a way that seems very intentional, it lost my attention at many parts of the book. The way it is written felt repetitive or bland, yet there are some interesting parts in this story. “She wasn’t naked, as he […]
I enjoyed reading Agostino, but it’s also a very uncomfortable experience for the reader. My impression that I got while reading: the novel is stopping before anything truly happens in a deliberately unsatisfying way while hinting towards repulsive content. Despite the novella having so many scenes alluding to sexual encounters, I don’t think the word […]
Posted in Blogs, Moravia | Tagged with childhood, desire, love, relationships, sexuality
The opening scene of “Agostino” sets the tone of the text: toxic male jealousy. As a 13-year-0ld boy, Agostino loves the attention of his mother. Whether or not this was incestious, it demonstrates how important his mother is to him, and when she gives attention to other men, Agostino gets marvelously jealous. This “jealousy” fades […]
Posted in Blogs, Moravia | Tagged with boyhood, broken family, jealousy, Mommy Issues, sexuality
While reading Agostino, I kept having this strong feeling that the novel is full of GAZES. It never explicitly talks about “looking” or “being seen,” yet almost every uncomfortable moment in the story seems to come back to it. Even the setting already hints at this. The story took place on a beach, which may […]
Posted in Blogs, Moravia | Tagged with Agostino, family, Gaze, relationships, Uncategorized
Honestly, reading this book makes me really uncomfortable. Especially with the relationship dynamic that Agostino has with his mother and how that relationship is convoluted and morphed into an eroticized figure. At some points in the book, I couldn’t …
Honestly, reading this book makes me really uncomfortable. Especially with the relationship dynamic that Agostino has with his mother and how that relationship is convoluted and morphed into an eroticized figure. At some points in the book, I couldn’t …
After finishing this book, all I can say is that it made me so uncomfortable. The weird incestual undertones were so strange. The Oedipus complex truly was strong with this one, and also why would the mom do all that with her son there…I had a big is…
Posted in Blogs, Moravia | Tagged with adulthood, Agostino, alienation
After finishing this book, all I can say is that it made me so uncomfortable. The weird incestual undertones were so strange. The Oedipus complex truly was strong with this one, and also why would the mom do all that with her son there…I had a big is…
Posted in Blogs, Moravia | Tagged with adulthood, Agostino, alienation
I won’t lie, this book was a little strange. Starting it, I thought (naively) that this would be a book about a boy who loved his mother dearly and wanted to tell the world all about her. Ending it, I’m seeing that this is a boy who loved his mother, yes, but loved her in […]
