Book 4: Gaps in Understanding in “Agostino”

I enjoyed reading Agostino, but it’s also a very uncomfortable experience for the reader. My impression that I got while reading: the novel is stopping before anything truly happens in a deliberately unsatisfying way while hinting towards repulsive content.

Despite the novella having so many scenes alluding to sexual encounters, I don’t think the word “sex” is used at all. For example, when Sandro educates Agostino on what sex is, it’s described as with “gestures that were effective but not considered vulgar”, and then “less sober descriptions” (31). A similar scene happens after his boat ride with Saro: Sandro gives him “the explanation [Agostino] had intimated without fully understanding (59). As adult readers, we should know what’s happening on the boat rides between the mother and the sailor. We also should know how Saro is coded as a predatory “father” figure and what is implied that he has done in the past. All the other boys know, too, or at least have their own formed image of what happened. Only Agostino is left out in understanding and mocked for it. And by not using the word sex, we are placed in the same position as Agostino: We have a feeling we know, but we onnly understand the implied meaning understood through the boys’ whispers and gestures.

And Agostino is always kept at a distance, one step behind sex actually happening. Agostino never actually gets to see or even fully understand what sex is besides what he has been told through those approximations. The closest he gets to a sexual scene is when he walks in on his mother kissing the sailor (88), and even that is unbearable for him; he doesn’t stay to peek, he interrupts it. And in one of the last scenes of the novel, when Agostino peeks into the brothel, it’s through the window. While he sees the woman in full view, of the man he can only see his feet (100). He doesn’t even see any “action”, just body parts and a hint to what is about to occur, as the woman disappears behind the curtain (100).

Overall, reading Agostino to me is that terrifying experience of a glimpse into an unknown world for a juvenile protagonist. He’s kept to the outside, without anything being under his control. He learns about the adult world of sex, but unwillingly, and only ever filtered through other mediums – the hearsay of others, or a peeking window. As readers, we are also caught in this gap. You could liken it to uncomfortable edging for Agostino and the reader, wondering when we will ever get confirmation of his mother having sex, or him fully grasping his feelings. But in the end, Agostino and the story never get to properly climax. He stays as a child and “many unhappy days would pass before he became [a man]” (102).

Question: What is the significance that Agostino’s unrealized relationships are all taboo in some way (Mother-son incestual relationship with his mother, homosexual pedophilic relationship with Saro), as opposed to “regular” teenage love?

Addendum: I first enjoyed picking themed music for the first few weeks, but I began to feel that it’s not really furthering my understanding or interpretation of the book. Though I’ll still enjoy listening to it.