I went into this book expecting a picturesque Italian summer novel ya super cute and fun … I was wrong. Reading this book as a psych major was actually an insane experience, cause all I could think about was Freud, and I had to stop myself from psychoanalyzing Agostino every page. 

What I mainly want to focus on in this blog post is a thought I had while reading, “This is crazy to read after The Shrouded Woman’. When I finished the book I remembered how all the books we have read so far in the class somewhat connect. In this case, they all connect in the portrayals of women and how differently they do it. For example, Combray by Marcel Proust and Agostino follows a similar narrative: a young boy and his childhood, specifically moments with his mother. Proust recalls fond memories of his mother’s bedtime kisses after reading to him, Agostino fantasizes about his mother in ways that make me genuinely uncomfortable to read. Agostino’s descriptions greatly mirrored Andre Breton’s descriptions of Nadja, of women as objects of desire and muses rather than people. Adding The Shrouded Woman to the mix makes me upset cause I really liked that book, but I would love to know María Luisa Bombal’s impression of Agostino since The Shrouded Woman describes such messy and real female characters, and Agostino is almost using that to his advantage. 

I especially feel the relation to Nadja with the quote “She’s a woman, nothing more than a woman” on page 52. I feel like this could represent Agostino’s internal separation between his mother and his fantasy. On the other hand, I feel like the fact that his mother is “just a woman” almost gives him permission to have these thoughts about her, I relate this to Nadja specifically on the portrayal of a woman as parts of a person, rather than the whole. 

Another thing that stuck out to me was how short the novel was, for such an intense story, similar to Bombal. But Agostino didn’t leave me wanting to know more about the characters’ lives, it left me flipping the pages wondering ‘Is this the end of the book’. Because how are you gonna end a book like this with the quotes “You always treat me like a baby” and “But he wasn’t a man, and many unhappy days would pass before he became one”.  I did not like how that sat with me when I read it, cause whyyyyy are we writing this!!!??

My question for discussion would be “Why do you think Agostino’s mother remained nameless throughout the novel?” I feel like it could be that to him his mother is simply his mother, so since the book is from his view (kinda) he doesn’t feel the need to call her by her name. Another theory I had would be to maybe separate the object of his fantasy vs the actual person.