this round goes to Freud – Moravia

Song of the week: Mother – John Lennon

Ew! That’s what I thought before I had even finished the first page and also what I was thinking while reading the 100 pages that followed.

Surprisingly, this book was quite interesting despite all the weirdness. The fact that the main character, Agostino, is only thirteen years old is central to the messages and themes in this book. Agostino is in this transition period from late childhood to adolescence when a new discovery about his mother completely flips his world.

I think it’s interesting that the entire story takes place in just one summer. The timeline is very condensed and Agostino quickly goes from a clueless, innocent boy who adores his mother (a bit too much) to a puzzled teen who quickly learns about sexuality, both his own and his mother’s. The latter brings about many negative feelings in him. It is unclear when or how Agostino’s father passed away, but it is clear that because of this, Agostino formed a deep attachment to his mother that definitely crosses the boundary of a healthy maternal bond. Once he becomes aware that his mother is in fact a woman with romantic/sexual feelings and not solely a mother, everything changes for him. He is no longer the main focus of her life, and this negatively impacts his perceptions of her and of their relationship. One quote that in my opinion really emphasizes this change comes when Agostino decides to return to Vespucci beach after his initial brief visit. Even though he isn’t aware of it, Agostino is drawn to this beach and these rowdy boys because they unabashedly talk about his mother in the ways he was thinking about:

He could sense that his former affection was turning into an entirely different sentiment, both objective and cruel, and he felt he should seek out and cultivate the boys’ heavy-handed irony for the simple fact that it had hastened this change. He couldn’t say why we wanted so much to stop loving his mother, why he hated her love. Perhaps it was his resentment at being deceived and at having believed her to be so different from what she really was. (46)

In his eyes, she truly is a different person now that she is receptive to male attention. Also, the use of “what” and not “who” to describe Agostino’s mother really intrigued but also irked me. I have my own feelings about this but I am quickly approaching the word limit so I’ll let you all answer this: what do you think Agostino meant when he described his mother as “what she really was” instead of “who she really was”? What do you think the author was trying to get at, if anything, by using this particular wording? What do you believe Agostino’s mother really is?