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Title: The Time of Indifference by Alberto Moravia, Tami Calliope ISBN: 1-58642-005-4 Publisher: Steerforth Press Pub. Date: 30 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: ...
Comment: I am a big fan of Moravia, but I consider this to be one of his worst novels. There are only 5 characters and the novel is 300+ pages long, which makes reading it sort of a bore. Not a complete failure, worthy of one star, but seems to be far inferior to everything else written by the author.
Rating: 5
Summary: Existentialist angst
Comment: A couple of excerpts:
"Dirty tricks, little acts of baseness, little falsities - who was there who did not collect such things in every corner of his existence, as though in the corners of some big empty house?"
"The pavements were crowded, the streets crammed with vehicles, for it was the busiest moment of the afternoon. With no umbrella against the rain, Michele walked slowly along as though it were a day of sunshine, looking idly at the shop windows, at the women, at the electric signs hanging in the darkness. But however hard he tried he could not manage to take any interest in the well-known spectacle of the street; the anguish that had taken possession of him, for no particular reason, as he walked away through the empty reception-rooms of the hotel, did not leave him; the image of himself as he really was and as he could not forget that he was, pursued him. He seemed to have a clear vision of himself - alone, wretched, indifferent."
Some people find this style of writing out-dated. But if you have ever felt this way yourself then Alberto Moravia, and this novel in particular, will come as a revelation. For me Michele is one of the great characters in fiction; bored, indifferent, unable to act, yet immensely sympathetic; a man desperate to believe in something, but trapped in a society where graft and corruption, and the money culture that inspires it, makes belief impossible. A lot like our own contemporary moment in fact.
Rating: 4
Summary: Early Work of a Great Writer
Comment: Five people of the Roman middle class interact in this novel. Mariagrazia Ardengo, the mother, will not give up her pretensions though financially ruined and without hope for the future. She has two children, both in their twenties. Carla, who is bored with her present life, wants to change it drastically and overnight. Michele, who shows the indifference of the book's title, cannot get aroused by anything or anybody. Lisa, the mother's friend, has sunk to the level of a fat, penniless tramp, searches desperately for somebody to love her - or to at least pretend it. And then there is Leo. Leo used to be the lover of Lisa, until Mariagrazia took him away from her. Leo is the source of their financial ruin. Leo has money. Leo wants something fresher, younger, unspoiled. Leo goes after Carla. And he succeeds. After Mariagrazia and Lisa spend their time fighting over Leo, they are now left out in the cold. Michele cannot be touched by any of this but hopes that, one of these days, he can get a real life.
Moravia started on this book when he was eighteen and it was published in 1929 when he was twenty-one. He did not have the life experience he so stunningly shows in his later work. I get the impression that he studied too much of the French literature of those times and tried to follow it. That makes this novel less than perfect and somewhat outdated.
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Title: Boredom by Alberto Moravia, Angus Davidson ISBN: 0940322285 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Two Women by Alberto Moravia, Angus Davidson, Ann McGarrell ISBN: 1586420208 Publisher: Steerforth Press Pub. Date: July, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Contempt by Alberto Moravia, Angus Davidson, Tim Parks ISBN: 0940322277 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Life of Moravia by Alberto Moravia, Alain Elkann, William Weaver ISBN: 1883642507 Publisher: Steerforth Press Pub. Date: 30 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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