Week Five: Alberto Moravia, Agostino

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?


Comments

  1. DaisyFebruary 7, 2022 at 9:23 PM

    Hi Lisa I really enjoyed your post and think you pose a super interesting question. If I were to provide advice, I think that I would tell Agostino that he needs to distance himslf from his mother (in a healthy way). Whether that be for school or work, juts something that allows him to experince the world outside of his relationship with his mother. Allow him to develop healthy relationships with women, or at least try..

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