Agostino in the villetta

 Hello all, and welcome back to the cottage. 

I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I sighed during this week's read, and that's only for the beginning. But what an optimal time it was to read Agostino, considering that I recently learned a little more about Freud's ideas (what a silly, peculiar figure he was) and coincidentally was revisiting the rendition of Oedipus that I grew up on. 

It's this thread that I'd like to pull on this week--especially because it is relevant to the question presented in lecture (what kind of effect does the omission of certain details create?). I learned the story of Oedipus from a particular series of books on Greek mythology (no, it was not Percy Jackson) when I was very young, and the choice words that the narration used throughout the series to signify the occurrence of sex were 'married' and 'fell in love' or 'made love', which certainly seem like curious and inaccurate substitutes now. However, acknowledging this change in my perception led to more questions about the unreliability of narration and the almost deceptive nature of storytelling--in that the author or narrator can fashion the story to their biases and tastes without the audience realizing where their honesty begins and ends. 

Rather fearful thought, isn't it? 

Anyways, I say all this because the experience put me in what I felt was the 'correct' position to approach Agostino: questioning just how much of the narrator's claims are true, why they are telling us what they are telling us and nothing else. Thanks to this, however, I dragged myself through the beginning of the story with a stressful amount of suspicion--as well as frustrated questions, such as: 'Berto is around Agostino's age? Really? Is Agostino actually thirteen?' and 'Saro, what are you doing?' and what may be the most important one: 'do we really know what we know that we know?', which sums up how I felt about Agostino's age, among other things. 

The contents of the story itself has a peculiar feeling of vulnerability or nakedness, because it feels as though we as readers are not alone in perceiving Agostino. When the group of boys are talking about Agostino's mother, and he describes feeling 'horrified at how much they knew about his affairs' (Moravia, 19) while simultaneously experiencing 'pleasure, as if the boys had [...] avenged [...] [his] humiliations' (19), it is striking to have confirmed Agostino's earlier sense that 'all the bathers on the beach seemed to be watching, admiring...' (3) in such a way that it feels intrusive. 

I leave you with this week's question: do you think that the style of narration was appropriate for a shorter story such as Agostino? What effect(s) did it produce for your reading experience--were you frustrated by all the implications, or were you immersed in the story regardless?

Looking forward to discussions!

Your local woodland witch,

June