Agostino is a coming-of-age novel that follows the very short timeline of the main character, a young boy Agostino’s loss of innocence. In the novel, Agostino (13) and his widowed mother are on a vacation in which his mother sparks a new romance with a younger local, Renzo. Agostino feels a lot of emotions toward this romance and is very curious and confused. He tries to create some space between him and his mother when he finds a group of local boys around his age. Although they are young, to Agostino they seem more mature and knowledgeable. The boys don’t treat Agostino well and in reality, spend most of their time tormenting him. The novel, in my opinion, really accentuates the lack of social skills and experience that Agostino has with other people and peers. Moravia shows this by using his lack of knowledge in understanding things about the world.
I personally found multiple parts of this story to be a little disturbing. Although Moravia got the point across of coming to age in an unorthodox way, I think there were several parts that came as a bit of a shock. For starters, the part where Agostino was taken to a brothel and taught about prostitutes when he was just a 13-year-old boy. As well, the whole idea of Agostino being sexually intrigued by his mother, although not a concept far off of reality still was rather weird to read about.
Another noteworthy theme in the novel is the speak about the difference in class. It seemed like a pretty big theme amongst the group of boys, they seemed to always be asking Agostino about how much money he had and different aspects of his life in a monetary sense. I think this also plays into the lack of social skills and experience in society that he has. In my opinion, Moravia uses Agostino as the one character that is wealthier than the others and that this in a sense almost represents being sheltered from the outside world, and that’s where this wall of innocence comes from.
I think that its interesting that they view the gang of boys as mature; I definitely think that they know more than him about women, smoking, and it may be too broad for me to say “the real world”, but I feel like there are things that Agostino knows that the boys don’t. In todays discussion of the novel, I said that Agostino was in a sense ‘sheltered’, and some people found it bold that I said it; I think its fitting to describe him because not only does he learn a lot from the boys about what life is like outside of his own reality, but he has a dire need to be accepted by the people that he values (a key example of this is his mother). I, too, found it slightly strange that about the whole ‘sexually intriguing and his mother’ theme a bit off-putting. I recognize that that might be something that happens in real life, but I don’t really love the idea of reading it in a book. Oh well! I still thought it was a pretty interesting book; sometimes a bit strange, but decent overall.
Thank you for sharing your insight. It’s really interesting that you viewed Agostino as a child who “lacks social skills and experience in society”; this wasn’t something I realized while reading the book. Reading your blog, I understand and also agree that Agostino “lacks social skills”. One reason, obviously, would be because he is still only thirteen. Another reason, as you’ve wonderfully mentioned, seems like because he was “sheltered” from the “outside world” (whatever this outside world could be) thanks to his wealth. I also think his lack of a “Father figure” could have contributed to this. All in all, it’s so interesting that you’ve brought this up.
– Daniel C