I realise this may be a somewhat unconventional way to start a blog post that is meant to be part of the course content however, my reading of Agostino was made of up of confusion and feeling unnerved.

Whenever I open a new book to read, whatever the reason may be, my first thought is to go into it completely unbiased however, with each page I turned and the more I learned of the story the further on I read, it grew exceedingly harder to keep myself from just shutting the book and walking away. The relationship between the protagonist, Agostino and his mother is complicated at best (for the lack of a better or appropriate word to describe the situation). There is a constantly expanding and contracting whirlpool of emotions within the boy with regard to the bond, I suppose one would call it, he shares with his mother and the overwhelming sense of isolation mingling with desires the reader finds it hard to make sense of. I am unsure of whether there is simply a sense of hero worship wound into Agostino’s rather glowing view of his mother or whether his love for her runs deeper than simply seeing her as an attractive woman.

Another aspect of the story that seems, at least upon the first read, to make no sense is Agostino’s mother’s lack of any sort of motherly love for her son. She frequently slaps him and leaves him for the man on the beach, completely neglecting the child that loves her so intensely.. There is also Agostino’s need to become more mature and manly which coincides with his growing discomfort around his mother which adds to the reader’s confusion as the emotions the protagonist embodies are hard to understand in context.

Thirdly, it is hard not to feel sorry for Agostino after reading about the growing hurt he experiences at the hands of the other boys, especially Berto when he first meets him. There is  a constant and growing stream of bullying and brutality that is both ruthless and deliberate and it is heartbreaking to watch Agostino forced to undergo that as well as the neglect of his mother for her ‘lover.’

My question for this week would be how, if it is possible, would one go about defining Augustino’s relationship with his mother?