{"id":1654,"date":"2014-07-11T15:44:27","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T15:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primolevicenter.org\/printed-matter\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2014-07-11T19:02:57","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T19:02:57","slug":"moravias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/primolevicenter.org\/printed-matter\/moravias\/","title":{"rendered":"Agostino"},"content":{"rendered":"
Moravia\u2019s Bildungs<\/em>-novella Gets New Life<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\nAlessandro Cassin<\/a>\r\n\t \t\t
Alessandro Cassin was in Florence Italy. After studying philosophy at Columbia University, he became a cultural journalist, reporting for many Italian papers and magazine from the US. He is currently Deputy Director at Centro Primo Levi and Director of Publishing for\u00a0 CPL Editions.
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sometimes a new translation can unlock the hidden beauty of a work that had previously not gained its deserved attention.<\/p>\n

This is what happened with Alberto Moravia\u2019s\u00a0 short novel Agostino,<\/em> republished by NYRB\u00a0 Classics in \u00a0Michael\u2019s F. Moore\u2019s\u00a0richly textured\u00a0new translation.<\/p>\n

In its new English version, Publisher\u2019s Weekly selected it among its\u00a0 \u201cBest Summer Books 2014\u201d defining it\u00a0 \u201ca story told in only 100 perfect pages\u201d.<\/p>\n

Written in 1941, but not published because of the fascist\u00a0censorship until\u00a01944, Agostino<\/em> is among the Italian writer\u2019s very best works.<\/p>\n

During a summer on a Mediterranean beach, Agostino \u2014age thirteen\u2014 is vacationing with his recently widowed mother. The intimate, repetitive mother-son routine is suddenly interrupted by a young stranger\u2019s courtship of the mother. Agostino, deeply hurt, falls in with a gang of local boys, opening his eyes to the brutality of life and suddenly aware of his privileged condition.<\/p>\n

The raw experiences of that summer painfully reveal to him that \u201c he had bartered away his former innocence, not for the virile, serene condition he had aspired to, but rather for a confused hybrid state in which, without any form of recompense, the old repulsions were compounded by the new\u201d.<\/p>\n

Among the most appreciated Italian writers of the twentieth century in English translation,\u00a0Moravia was born Alberto Pincherle into a\u00a0\u00a0bourgeois Venetian-Roman Jewish family. His paternal aunt, Amelia Pincherle Rosselli, was the mother of the antifascist hero brothers\u00a0Carlo and Nello Rosselli. His sister, Adriana Pincherle, was a painter who had studied with Matisse and gained the praise of the critic Roberto Longhi.<\/p>\n

From a young age Alberto struggled with a rare form of bone tuberculosis, which kept him in bed for months at a time. \u00a0This allowed him plenty of time to read, achieving a vast literary culture. His first novel,\u00a0Gli Indifferenti<\/em>, 1929, established him as a major new voice in Italian literature, with a style that distanced itself from the D\u2019Annunzio inspired high prose of the time.<\/p>\n

In his perceptive translator\u2019s note, Michael F. Moore takes issue with the older perception that Moravia was \u201ctearing down the edifice of classical Italian literature[\u2026]” \u00a0“I would say instead that he is turning the literary tradition on his head, adopting the convention of courtly love poetry, but for earthly ends\u201d.<\/p>\n

Agostino <\/em>brought\u00a0Moravia his first literary prize and ushered in the themes and style of his mature novels. \u00a0Like many of his later works, Agostino,\u00a0<\/em>adapted for the screen by Mauro Bolognini, has an almost cinematic visual and psychological acuity\u00a0<\/em>that has inspired many film directors. Bernardo Bertolucci\u2019s The Conformist<\/em> is based on Moravia\u2019s novel by the same title; Jean-Luc Godard<\/a>\u2019s Le M\u00e9pris<\/em> comes from Il Disprezzo<\/em>; Vittorio De Sica\u2019s Two Women<\/em> is an adaptation of La Ciociara<\/em>, Damiano Damiani The Empty Canvas<\/em> is based on La noia,<\/em>\u00a0as is L\u2019Ennui by Cedric Kahn.<\/p>\n

The New York Review Books Classics’ effort to offer new translations of Moravia\u2019s work it to be commended.<\/p>\n

Following Boredom,<\/em> translated by William Weaver, 2004, and Contempt, <\/em>translated by Tim Parks, 2004, Michael F. Moore\u2019s Agostino<\/em>, is pitch perfect in capturing Moravia’s voice and linguistic maneuverings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moravia\u2019s Bildungs-novella Gets New Life Sometimes a new translation can unlock the hidden beauty of a work that had previously not gained its deserved attention. 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