Hi Romance Studiers,

Throughout my reading of Alberto Moravia’s Agostino, I could not decide whether I enjoyed the text or not. On one hand, I thought it was a cool exploration of how socio-economic class affects the socialization agents that develop a child’s outlook on the world, as well as how the different boys view masculinity and how they strive to achieve hegemonic masculine ideals. On the other hand, the story followed a boy who learned about sex through his new found friends, sexualized his mom, became jealous of her new boyfriend, then tried to get into a brothel at the age of 13, which was a plot point the made me uncomfortable while reading. The overall storyline I found kind of silly, not bad or good but just silly goofy.

The main character Agostino came from a very wealthy family and adored his mom as she was his only care taker. As she started spending more time with her boyfriend, he began searching for something else to fulfill the revengeful emotions he was feeling against his mom. He ended up befriended a gang of boys on a neighbouring beach, and he learned about the lives of those who did not grow up with same privileges as he did. This wealth disparity led to a conversation with them where he almost found joy in gloating about the special services he received as a child born into wealth. Such as telling them about his waiters and the balls that his mother throws in their mansion, encapsulating the mind of his new friends as they make jokes about what they would do if they were invited to such an event. In order to fit in, Agostino began trying to actively pursue the lifestyle that the other boys were living. The scene that I felt exemplified this the most was when he pretended to be a rower, and gave a father and his son a paid boat ride on Saro’s boat. During the sequence he pretended to be someone who grew up with nothing, both guilting the little boy which was just like him for being too selfish and receiving praise from the father for being so hardworking. The way he described his emotions after was so humorous when remembering the wealth disparity between who he really was and who he pretended to be. \ I’m happy Agostino recognized this when he reflected, thinking “he found that he had lost his original identity without acquiring through his loss another” (Moravia, 78). Agostino could no longer go back to the carefree life he was living before due to his knowledge about the lives of less-privileged others, but he also could not simply pretend he was one of them due to him actually having those privileges.

The term LARP stands for Live Action Role Playing, and certain fantasy communities enjoy partaking in the activity as it is basically playing make believe. I like to use this term in context with the book because that was what Agostino was doing. Agostino did not want to be poor, he enjoyed his amenities which were provided to him due to his status. What he wanted was the brotherhood aspect of growing up poor with others without actually facing the hardship. Thus he was rich boy LARPing as a poor boy.

My question for the class is, what were your thoughts on Agostino’s view of his relationship between him and his mom? Initially when drafting the title of this post, I was going to make a joke about Sigmund Freud but I ended up not writing about it in the actual post.

Let me know in the comments what your thoughts were on Agostino and I’m excited to hear all of your wonderful ideas in class 🙂