The boy who loved mommy a little too hard…again?

This week’s book “Agostino” by Alberto Moravia was quite an interesting novel. I like this book quite a bit, one of my favs so far. It was extremely clear while not taking away from the imagery, as I felt like I was on a scenic beach the entire time. The two main things that stood out to me was, of course, his odd relationship with his mother, as well as the merciless boy group Agostino briefly became a part of. Also, as was reading Agostino I briefly thought of a couple books.

As i’m sure a lot of people will bring up, the way the book described the relationship between Agostino and his mother was worrisome –to say the least. While Agostino described his mother in intimate ways, he was also repulsed by this new found “womanness” he began to see in her. This signified a change in Agostino, or more so a sexual awakening (puberty?). While I do not think he sexually desires his mother, she was a guide to realizing he begins to seek love, affection, and provocativeness in other women. This reminded me of Proust’s Combray. While this character was younger, he still had a worrisome obsession with his mother’s goodnight kisses. You see this jealousy in Agostino when his mother begins hanging around a young man, however this is a boy who wants mommy’s attention to himself. Unlike Proust, we see a change. Agostino begins to outgrow the babying he’s so used to, and asks to be treated more like a man near the end of the book.

The group of boys Agostino befriends is nothing less than cruel to him, brutal even. While the boys bully Agostino beating him around, making fun of his rich life, and talking down his mother, the boys bring out an important fact. How sheltered and gullible Agostino is. He clearly has not been put in hard real life situations. As shown, he was so confused about sexuality, he didn’t really know what prostitution was. I believe that the boys acted as a metaphor for the shift between childhood and adolescence. It’s’ rough and confusing, just as the boys are with Agostino. They begin to show Agostino as you get older, the harder life is, and at times, it becomes hard to undertand changes occuring internally. While reading the scenes of the boys on the beach becomming physical, quickly turning on each other, it reminded me of Lord of the Flies. Though not nearly as intense of a story, it made me imagine how intense things could have gotten with the boys. For some reason, this desire for young boys to chose violence, break the rules, and rebel seems to be such an occuring theme intertwined with adolescence.

I have noticed a lack of a father figure in a few of the assigned readings now. Do you think Agostino having a father figure would make a difference in his journey of change?