This novel definitely had some interesting characters, however, it made me so unbelievably angry at men. Agostino is a young boy, despite having the privilege to attend school, he doesn’t know much about life. When he meets the group of boys, he starts to discover things about a part of the world he isn’t part of. Agostino is rich whereas all of his “friends” are from poverty. When they tell him what his mother and Renzo were really doing on the boat, Agostino seemed to be burdened by that knowledge. It’s as though, now that he knows what sex is, he can only view his mother in a sexual manner. Him reciting this mantra in his head: “She’s a woman, nothing more than a woman: (44) was so irritating to me.  Like, what do you mean “just a woman”? Then he would blame his mother for his attraction by saying that she was provoking him: “Agostino felt as if she were provoking and pursuing him with her maternal immodesty” (69). It was all very misogynistic. It was clear the Agostino was feeling an emotional turmoil between being disgusted by his mother and yet attracted to her simultaneously. But, I still thought that it was repulsive the way in which he viewed women.

I’m sure while reading this novel we all thought of Freud and the Oedipus complex. Agostino being jealous of other men who have his mother’s attention is an obvious factor of this theory. I guess this plays into Agostino growing up and becoming a man. According to Freud, once you rid yourself of the Oedipus complex, you can go to the next stage of your psychosexual development. At the end of the novel, Agostino says: “But he wasn’t a man, and many unhappy days would pass before he became one”, indicating that he is not close to the resolution of this complex, and has a long way to go before he is a man.

What may be the most disturbing part of the novel, in my opinion anyways, is Saro’s character. Why is an old man hanging around a bunch of kids? Agostino says that he is somewhat of a father figure but the scene where he’s alone with him on the boat creeped me out. And when Saro wasn’t addressing the rumours about what happened between them on the boat was so weird, He made me very uncomfortable.

Lastly, another thing about this novel was that since its main character is a 13 year old boy, we know more than the narrator does. For example, the rumours about what happened on that boat between Saro and Agostino, we know what they talking about but Agostino doesn’t. I think that it’s interesting that we get to read the novel through this lens of youthful innocence.

This weeks question:

“He couldn’t say why he wanted so much to stop loving his mother, why he hated her love” (46). This quote reminded my of when we talked about the fine line between love and hate in class. My question to you is why do you think love and hate are so similar despite being such opposite emotions?