Agostino

Agostino is the case-study of an Oedipal conflict which manifests itself rather late by classical Freudian standards, but offers Moravia, in line with the whole tradition of the novel of adolescence in Europe, a richer, more complex subject matter to make use of than would otherwise be the case. -- The Southern Review Possibly the most stylistically brilliant of all Moravia's novels. --Ian Thompson, London Magazine A brilliant novella.... In the sober narrative of Agostino Moravia again dissected a mother-son relationship as the young protagonist of the novella made the joint discovery of sexuality (while his young, beautiful, sensuous mother became involved with a lover) and of class distinction, as the neglected boy took up with a band of working-class youth, whose sexual knowledge was far more advanced than his own. Their contempt for his innocence and their envy of his family's wealth run through the story in a typically Moravian juxtaposition. --William Weaver, The New York Review of Books [T]he Augustus Caesar of postwar Italian writers. -- The Washington Post What continues to haunt us is the nostalgia and melancholy of the novelette, Agostino, and even earlier short stories like 'A Sick Boy's Winter.' In these, we hear the authentic, the inward Moravian voice, which speaks always in the plaintive tones of a sickly, mother-obsessed bourgeois boy. If we love rather than respect [Moravia], it is for the sake of that boy, who remains alive some place deep within the successful author--despite his pathetic boasts of potency and his even more pathetic ironies at his own expense. One imagines that little Alberto Pincherle, not yet rebaptized 'Moravia, ' staring forever through the iron grille which separated his family from the street, and trying to imagine what life can really be like for all those inscrutable Poor People going about their business Out There. --Leslie Fielder, The New York Times