This is a novel by Alberto Moravia, one of Italy's most acclaimed writers (judging by the number of prizes and mentions of his name).
Set in Rome during the Mussolini era, it's the story of a man desperate to conform to what he considers the "normal" world — in this case, Fascist Italy. He works in one of Mussolini's ministries. He marries a normal woman. He buys a normal house. He relentlessly pursues the normal, only to learn that normal is a thin facade hiding a mountain of "abnormal." No one is normal; everyone is pretending. Conforming.
The book is described as anti-Fascist — Moravia, half Jewish, had to go into hiding during the Mussolini years — but it doesn't feel peculiar to that era or those politics to me. Il Duce is mentioned a few times and there's a significant air raid at the end (one of two big surprises in the book), but it's really a psychological drama that one can imagine being played out in a variety of settings.
Moravia is apparently noted for writing frankly about sexuality, and the sexuality in "The Conformist" is certainly interesting. I suppose it's fairly graphic by 1950s standards, though nothing in it would make a modern reader bat an eyelash. In fact, the saga of a defrocked priest — shot by the lead character, Marcello, during a molestation attempt — is uncannily familiar (80 years after it occurs in the book).
A bizarre take on lesbianism — but maybe ahead of its time — occurs on Marcello's honeymoon in Paris, where a woman he's aggressively trying to seduce is even more aggressively trying to seduce his wife.
This involves a scene at a Parisian nightclub where the all-female staff sports men's suits and monocles. The movie poster for the 1970 Bernardo Bertolucci film based on the book really markets this scene — and plays up the sexiness rather than, as the book does, the strange sadness.Something else that stood out to me with this book is its exploration, through the incident of the defrocked priest, of how a person's interpretation of an event from childhood can influence the person's whole life — how our understanding and emotions as children are so profoundly different from what we experience in adulthood and how memory is seldom a reliable bridge between those two worlds. And how guilt can fester where guilt shouldn't have existed at all. But that's the book's second big surprise!
This sounds fascinating! Molestation, big surprises, women in monocles! Did you like the writing? Is Moravia all he's cracked up to be?
ReplyDeleteI did like the writing. Some sections were absolutely captivating — the scenes with the priest and the boy, the scenes with the main character visiting his kooky, rich, slatternly mother, the honeymoon in Paris (complete with the bride's explanation of why she wasn't the virgin her new husband assumed her to be!) — but there were other sections where I didn't exactly follow what the main character was going through (this strange quest for normalcy), and maybe it's because he's just a tad deranged, but those parts were somewhat slow-going. This is one book where I wondered how much the translation played a role — if some works are just more translatable to English than others. I don't know. I definitely plan to read more by him, though (I ordered his "Woman of Rome") because overall I really enjoyed this. And two of his wives/girlfriends were highly esteemed Italian writers, too: Elsa Morante and Dacia Maraini.
ReplyDeleteFunny note: My copy of "the Conformist" was used. It was supposed to be in "very good" condition, but it had a lot of highlighting and notes in it from someone who obviously had read it for a class. At one point a character in the book says, "You should, above all, get to know the French people. They're a very likeable people." And the person scribbled in the margin: "not completely." Hehe
I have seen the film for this. I remember it as both decadent and disturbing. Did you see the film? The plotline between the women seemed kind of -- I don't know, sauced up? Something to market the film? But of course without reading the book I couldn't judge its importance.
ReplyDeleteThe final scene with the woman running through the woods -- horrifying. You know the protagonist veered between human and inhuman (to my memory) and so the ending seemed shocking. (I hope I'm thinking of the right film.)
Christy, that's the film for sure! I haven't seen it yet, but the grisly scene in the woods is definitely from the book. And, yeah, the narrator veers between human and inhuman,as you say, compounding the horror of what goes on.
ReplyDeleteThe plot line between the women was definitely sauced up for the film, judging by the film's promotional materials. The book is not about the women, really, but they appear on movie posters, etc. Kind of a distortion. Also, in the book, the scenes between them aren't titillating or anything because one of the women is only mildly interested for about five minutes as a lark while the other is oppressively interested. More sad and disturbing than sexy.
Still, I need to see the movie!