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Contempt. Just imagining being the object of this emotion – rolling eyes, an unilateral lip curl on a beloved face, an unilateral lip curl, a sneering or bitter tone in the voice, I shiver at the thought of the chilly grasp on the heart, the sharp pangs of powerlessness and hurt accompanying it. Picture sharing your life space with a person of who you thought he or she was loving you, suddenly experiencing the change of heart, like a cold win
The less one notices happiness, the greater it is.Contempt. Just imagining being the object of this emotion – rolling eyes, an unilateral lip curl on a beloved face, an unilateral lip curl, a sneering or bitter tone in the voice, I shiver at the thought of the chilly grasp on the heart, the sharp pangs of powerlessness and hurt accompanying it. Picture sharing your life space with a person of who you thought he or she was loving you, suddenly experiencing the change of heart, like a cold wind blowing in your neck…
In Alberto Moravia's 1954 novel 'Contempt' the dissection of that emotion turns into the obsession of the narrator. Riccardo Molteni is a writer day-dreaming of more creative freedom, instead spending all his time writing film scripts on demand to pay the bills and afford the kind of housing he presumes his wife Emilia needs and longs for. After two years of being married, he realises Emilia's feelings for him have changed, and he goes astray in his unyielding quest to understand why he lost her love and respect.
Riccardo, initially taking the love of his spouse as self-evident as the air he breathes, gradually seems to end up in a hallucinatory mist of self-deceit and longing blinding him, making his observations and musings unreliable and diffuse, a mental stumbling in the dark. Is he by his exhaustive questioning and analysis of every gesture and expression of his wife unconsciously pushing away Emilia (and even driving her into the arms of a another man)? Does she only reflect the self-loathing he is projecting on her behalf ? When his producer asks him to turn the Odyssey into a film script together with Rheingold, a German director, his beliefs on the meaning of Homer's epic and on his own marriage are challenged by Rheingold's view on Odysseus as a man initially leaving Ithaca to flee his unhappy marriage, the ten years wandering it takes to return after the Trojan war not attributable to the wrath of the gods but Odysseus own unconscious stopping him over and over in his reluctance to return to Penelope. Love and loyalty aren't synonyms: "Loyalty, Signor Molteni, not love. Penelope is loyal to Ulysses but we do not know how far she loved him...and as you know people can sometimes be absolutely loyal without loving. In certain cases, in fact, loyalty is form of vengeance, of black-mail, of recovering one's self-respect. Loyalty, not love."
Averse to Rheingold's toying with psycho-analytic interpretations of the Odyssey, rather than sinking into self-scrutiny, Riccardo analyses Emilia's distancing from him in socio-economic terms, the class struggle emerging in the microcosm of the marriage (Riccardo from a bourgeois background posing as an intellectual, Emilia from a more modest descent). The thoughts and psyche of Emilia stay elusive, like Riccardo the reader only discerns vague contours of her personality and motifs. As she is speaking little, like Riccardo the reader has to rely on the few glimpses of her, on her appearance and her passive-aggressive body language, apparently expressing her anger and annoyance – quite unsettlingly evocated when her husband attempts to kill the distance between them sexually (in which a certain machismo seems to obfuscate Riccardo's mind). Moravia depicts his protagonist as a somewhat silly, clumsy man, a tragi-comical person who has little insight into himself and seems to have no grip on events, in contrasting irony with his profession, giving shape to the life of others in his writing of scenario's.
The novel made me ruminate on how an originally loving relationship can degenerate into its opposite and what triggers such radical change (the projection of one's own dreams or wishes on the future on the partner, economic and class differences within a couple, loyalty conflicts) – and how painful it is to witness let alone endure that process and the evaporation of once cherished feelings. Is contempt worse than indifference? Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.
Moravia's prose is elegant, precise and exciting. Capri - the island of the sirens, of the Roman emperors, of artists and bohemians, where Moravia used to live with his first wife, Italian writer Elsa Morante between 1936 and 1943 - makes a fantastic setting and the descriptions of Moravia of it are stunning.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible, William Blake wrote in his Proverbs of Hell. Like David Foster Wallace's young fish don't realize they are in the water (This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life), contempt cannot be truly grasped by the one who is the object of it without initiating an existential crisis. And such is the tragedy which hits Moravia's protagonist, understanding the reasons why Emilia's feelings changed would make no difference; like a bird that could escape its cage will not return, love lost cannot be regained. L'amour est un oiseau rebelle…
Finally watching Jean-Luc Godard's gorgeous film adaptation (La Méprise) a year after reading the novel was in every respect a feast to the senses (and fun).
(Photos by Umberto d'Aniello)
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A Ghost At Noon, is an Italian existential novel by Alberto Moravia that came out in 1954. It was the basis for the 1963 film Contempt by Jean-Luc Godard.
Young Riccardo Molteni, who sees himself as an intellectual writer, does work he despises preparing scripts for distasteful film productions. All this to support his new wife Emilia, the new flat he has taken, the new car he has bought, the maid who cooks and cleans for
Il Disprezzo = Le Mepris = Contempt = A Ghost At Noon, Alberto MoraviaA Ghost At Noon, is an Italian existential novel by Alberto Moravia that came out in 1954. It was the basis for the 1963 film Contempt by Jean-Luc Godard.
Young Riccardo Molteni, who sees himself as an intellectual writer, does work he despises preparing scripts for distasteful film productions. All this to support his new wife Emilia, the new flat he has taken, the new car he has bought, the maid who cooks and cleans for them and the secretary who comes in to type for him.
He believes, even if his work is menial and his income shaky, that he is secure in his wife's love. While he is well educated, able to recite Dante at length, her impoverished family could not afford to educate her and she had to work as a typist. ...
عنوانها: «امیلی و پنهلوپه (انزجار)»؛ «انزجار»؛ نویسنده: آلبرتو موراویا؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و یکم ماه جولای سال 2005میلادی
عنوان: امیلی و پنهلوپه (انزجار)؛ نویسنده: آلبرتو موراویا؛ مترجم: پرویز شهدی؛ تهران، نشر دشتستان، 1383، در 245ص؛ ترجمه از متن فرانسوی با عنوان بالا؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایتالیائی سده 20م
عنوان: انزجار؛ نویسنده: آلبرتو موراویا؛ مترجم: پرویز شهدی؛ تهران، انتشارات مجید، 1393، در 240ص؛ شابک 9786009394012؛ ترجمه از متن فرانسوی با عنوان بالا؛
برداشت تازه ای از ماجرای «اودیسه»، اثر جاودانی «هومر» شاعر و حماسه سرای «یونان باستان» دارد، و تعبیر و تفسیری از آن را از دریچه فلسفه ی بدبینانه خود، در زندگی قهرمانانش پیاده میکند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 22/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
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Told with a profound sense of melancholy, the narrative possesses both an unpleasant behind-closed-doors feel, mixed with tragedy and farce. Very early on we realize that love is dead in the water so to speak Born out of his own relationship problems with wife Elsa Morante, Moravia's Contempt is a rich but turbulent story of a marriage in decline, where Rome screenwriter Molteni is told by his beautiful wife Emilia that she not only doesn't love him anymore, but finds him deplorable to be around.
Told with a profound sense of melancholy, the narrative possesses both an unpleasant behind-closed-doors feel, mixed with tragedy and farce. Very early on we realize that love is dead in the water so to speak, or at least from Emilia's perspective, the sensitive Ricarrdo (also known as Molteni) on the other hand is left reeling with a sense of what have I done wrong? relentlessly questioning his wife as to the reasons why she feels this way. Along with the troubled couple, the novel only features two other characters, film producer Battista, an arrogant and overbearing individual who has eyes for Emilia, and German Director Rheinhold who wants to make a film version of Homers's Odyssey.
The couple are invited to Battista'a villa on the idyllic island of Capri in the Bay of Naples, helping Molteni to start writing a script, with it's rugged coastline and sparkling blue/green waters, it seems the perfect place to get away and clear the air, but this would only lead to a growing tension that doesn't let up. Emilia becomes more distant, looking at her husband as a mere ghost, while Molteni is struggling with two idea's for the film, Battista wants a spectacular Odyssey, but Rheinhold's vision is a philosophical one. Stuck in the middle with his mind only on one thing, Molteni's agitation fueled by the blistering heat leads him to question his own nature and deepest fears.
The most striking aspect of Contempt is the cool calculated way he looks at love, or lack of it. For all it's painful predicaments, there is a great substance in his writing, sometimes you want to turn away from the intimate conflict and intensity, but he still compels the reader to keep turning the pages to the bitter end.
Reading of a marital crisis was never going to be easy, and with an equally tragic finale it's not going to particularly make you feel that great, but I loved it.
And having seen numerous times Jean Luc Godard's 1963 adaptation, staring a pouting Brigitte Bardot, apart from a few differences it reads similar to the film. but never spoiled proceedings.
4.5/5 for the book, but an extra half star given with it being linked to Godard, my movie God.
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Ayn Rand's writing is probably the only thing that I have read and found more annoying than Contempt. Moravia's idea had such great potential. An existential, psychological drama, doesn't it sound promising? In fact, Moravia did succeed in portraying the obsessive, supremely self-centered and over-analytic narrator, Riccardo Molteni, pretty well. He lets the reader discover the unreliability of the narrator and see through his wrong judgements slowly during the course of the novel. But being ins
Ayn Rand's writing is probably the only thing that I have read and found more annoying than Contempt. Moravia's idea had such great potential. An existential, psychological drama, doesn't it sound promising? In fact, Moravia did succeed in portraying the obsessive, supremely self-centered and over-analytic narrator, Riccardo Molteni, pretty well. He lets the reader discover the unreliability of the narrator and see through his wrong judgements slowly during the course of the novel. But being inside the head of this obsessive narrator gets irritating very soon...like fingernails scraping a chalkboard. He is so full of negativity. I have nothing against a negative character being the lead, but he/she should be somewhat interesting. On the contrary, Molteni's narration is excruciatingly painful to read and insufferably repetitive.
"Emilia doesn't love me."
"I am too good to be writing film-scripts."
"Emilia, why do you despise me?"
"Emilia, do you love me?"
Keep repeating these thoughts in a mixed fashion, throw in the words repugnance, despise, have an explanation with as often as possible and you have the first 150 pages written.
Now bring in a director who incessantly analyzes Ulysses from Odyssey, repeat the phrases from the previous part whenever the director shuts up and that's another 70-80 pages.
The narrator sometimes gets stuck at one thought and writes an entire page saying the same thing several times. At times he thinks way too slowly. He devotes one full page to Emilia discussing the dinner menu with the maid, and another page analyzing that scene. Not just that the thoughts are repeated, they are expressed in the same manner, using the same words over and over again. May be it is the translator's fault, but I do not want to read the same phrase four times in a single paragraph.
This still could have been tolerable if the prose weren't so lifeless and dry. All I felt while reading Contempt was FRUSTRATION! It is not touching, it is no fun to read, it is not informative or thought-provoking, why read it?
Riccardo Molteni, STOP THINKING or JUST DIE!
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This is all about wives and husbands.
What I mean is that I came to the husband through his wives or companions.
I first discovered Dacia Maraini, whose writing I greatly enjoyed. Then, more recently to Elsa Morante, whose "Isola" is unforgettable. So now I finally came to him. I had known he was 'there' but his literary presence became more imminent once I had met his women.
Alberto Moravia met Elsa Morante in 1936 and they got married in 1941. They lived in Capri soon after but during the war t
This is all about wives and husbands.
What I mean is that I came to the husband through his wives or companions.
I first discovered Dacia Maraini, whose writing I greatly enjoyed. Then, more recently to Elsa Morante, whose "Isola" is unforgettable. So now I finally came to him. I had known he was 'there' but his literary presence became more imminent once I had met his women.
Alberto Moravia met Elsa Morante in 1936 and they got married in 1941. They lived in Capri soon after but during the war they had to hide a bit more in the Neapolitan bay. They took refuge in a fortress, well not really, just in a town where there is a beautiful fortress, in Forti which lies between Rome and Naples. They separated in 1962 when Moravia got together with Maraini with whom he stayed until 1978. Alberto and Dacia worked together for the theatre, although I have only read their novels.
Moravia and Morante in Capri.
This novel is about husband and wife too. It was published in 1954 and is set between Rome and Capri. It is inevitable that the reader will try to sniff autobiographical elements, particularly with the Capri setting, the profession of the main character, a writer who has to work writing film scripts to earn a living and may be some elements in the strained relationship in the couple: Riccardo Molteni and Emilia.
Moravia was very close to the cinema – not only did he write scripts for several films but was also a respected film critic. He moved in the orbit of Pasolini (with whom he and Maraini traveled extensively throughout the East) and other film makers and the latter corresponded by bringing to the main screen several of his novels. This one was taken up by Godard in 1963 with Brigitte Bardot as Emilia.
In this novel we see how an emotional virus, the feeling of contempt or 'disprezzo' grows and separates the couple. With a crystal-clear language, Morante makes this feeling take over the main two characters in his work. Very slowly, so slowly that at times the reader can grow irritated with the narrator, Riccardo, as much as his wife. And so clearly that the characters often repeat themselves, with an accompanying 'as I have already said'.
But there is a lot of light in this novel, in particular when the plot takes the reader to Capri. The Mediterranean setting then takes on a singular meaning. For if Homer's story of the Odyssey could provide a key or a clue or the destiny that this story is to follow--in particular the relationship between the husband Ulysses and the wife Penelope--, the interpretation drawn from the classical story cannot be any variation; it has to be subjected to the forces of the Middle Sea. So, for example, the narrator dismisses Joyce's version because the blazing and scorching sun is not present in the Northern replay.
And this sun and the water and its changing blue colours distort destinies and dominate the mind of the characters, melting them into hallucinations (view spoiler)[I see that one of the translations into English has chosen title of "A Ghost at Noon") (hide spoiler)]. It is also the passages dealing with the sunlight and the rich blues that provide the reader unforgettably beautiful evocations of that fantastic Neapolitan coast.
An yet, even if the sun and the sea are present, there is no return.
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He is a character in an intellectual quest for the reasons for his wife's discontent and contempt, whom Moravia has a monologue against the backdrop of the Odyssey and summary psychoanalysis. This detailed, depressing and captivating introspection results from incredibly effective writing that does not lack a few notes of poetry and forces (or facilitates) i I did not see the time pass. I did well to read Contempt today and not when I was twenty. To appreciate it, you have to have lived, I think.
He is a character in an intellectual quest for the reasons for his wife's discontent and contempt, whom Moravia has a monologue against the backdrop of the Odyssey and summary psychoanalysis. This detailed, depressing and captivating introspection results from incredibly effective writing that does not lack a few notes of poetry and forces (or facilitates) identification with both man and woman. Of course, relationships between men and women are somewhat outdated - not more than half a century has passed since the release of this novel without changing our societies - but it does not matter.
It emerges in particular that love can do without fidelity while fidelity without love is nothing, if not suffering. ...more
This is the anti-Homeric tale of the anti-Ulysses. The backdrop is a writer who takes on the dubious task of writing a script adaptation of Ulysses. Told in the first person by this screenwriter who clearly sees himself as an intellectual (referencing not only Homer but Dante and Joyce as well - woo hoo!) and sees himself as a man with integrity (no sea monsters in his script!) and yet he has a complete and utter lack
This is my third Moravia and damn if he hasn't become one of my favorites now!This is the anti-Homeric tale of the anti-Ulysses. The backdrop is a writer who takes on the dubious task of writing a script adaptation of Ulysses. Told in the first person by this screenwriter who clearly sees himself as an intellectual (referencing not only Homer but Dante and Joyce as well - woo hoo!) and sees himself as a man with integrity (no sea monsters in his script!) and yet he has a complete and utter lack of self-awareness. He believes his wife has fallen out of love with him and in his analysis of all the minutiae in his life he still fails to see THE POINT! And inevitably and immediately he creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of destruction and gloom for all of those around him. If Thomas Bernhard hadn't already written a book called "The Loser" I would suggest that it would make for an excellent alternate title for this particular book.
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That being: Beauty. That's what in this book everyone is trying to possess and understand. The woman possesses beauty but doesn't own it. The writer understands it but doesn't own or possess it. And th
I'm not even sure the author gets what is going on in this narrative. I've seen the movie and then read the book. The movie's distance really captures what is going on, the comment on consumer society: as merely because you own something doesn't mean you'll ever possess it, let alone understand it.That being: Beauty. That's what in this book everyone is trying to possess and understand. The woman possesses beauty but doesn't own it. The writer understands it but doesn't own or possess it. And the producer owns it but doesn't understand or possess it.
All of them fail to understand the nature of Beauty. If you understand it you understand it can't be owned or possessed. It's a time, like a wave one night cresting that you see for the first time on the beach that you've walked on for years and the moon shows you a light on the water mixed with feeling of sand in your toes that only lasts a heartbeat, and a second breath. That's what they hold in contempt, seemingly. Beauty. But they do so because they don't understand its nature, and thus it becomes destructive, something to be wary of, even not want, or even sadly… hold in contempt.
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The less one notices happiness, the greater it is.
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I wondered how it came about that she, who loved me so much, failed to guess at the cruel anxieties that oppresse Or perhaps I saw her defects and she saw mine, but, through some mysterious transformation produced by the feeling of love, such defects appeared to us both not merely forgivable but even lovable, as though instead of defects they had been positive qualities, if of a rather special kind. Anyhow, we did not judge: we loved each other.
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The less one notices happiness, the greater it is.
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I wondered how it came about that she, who loved me so much, failed to guess at the cruel anxieties that oppressed me;
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I felt that the metal of my spirit, like a bar of iron that is softened and bent by a persistent flame, was being gradually softened and bent by the troubles that oppressed it.
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And I, like a person who suddenly realizes he is hanging over an abyss, felt a kind of painful nausea at the thought that our intimacy had turned, for no reason at all, into estrangement, absence, separation.
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But now, it seemed to me, [...] she had now become a semblance in a mirage, with a haze of impossibility, of nostalgia, about her, and infinitely remote, as though she were not only a few paces away from me but in some far-off region, outside reality and outside my personal feelings.
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Each day, from the time when I got up in the morning, seemed like an arid desert, with no oasis of meditation or leisure, dominated by the merciless sun of forced cinema inspiration.
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I deluded myself into believing that time would take it upon itself to solve my problems, without any effort on my part. Time, in fact, did solve them, but not in the way I should have wished. And so the days passed, in a dull, dim atmosphere of expectancy, with Emilia denying herself to me and myself denying myself to my work.
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We too should be of a pure blue within our hearts, from which the clear calm of our sojourn by the sea would gradually wash away the sooty blackness of gloomy town thoughts—blue and with a blue light within us, like the lizards, like the sea, like the sky, like everything that is bright and gay and pure. ...more
But alas it's too late. And here lies a story about a man who is blinded by his indifference to the world. A very romantic story of sorts that is not romantic.
A litle side note:
Jean-Luc Godard made th
One of the greats among the greats. "Contempt" is a story about a screenwriter who loses his beautiful wife to his producer. Slowly the reader can see what's happening, and you just want to yell out at the page 'hey stupid, you are going to lose your beautiful wife to that awful man the producer!"But alas it's too late. And here lies a story about a man who is blinded by his indifference to the world. A very romantic story of sorts that is not romantic.
A litle side note:
Jean-Luc Godard made this into an incredible film with Brigitte Bardot and Jack Palance. One of my all-time favorite films and book. One day on the bus I saw this beautiful girl reading not only "Contempt" but even better - a movie tie in mass market version of this novel. Vintage 1965. With Bardot on the cover, plus Godard's name as big as the author's (Alberto Moravia) name on the cover!
I was biting my lip till it bleed not to talk to this young beauty. Luckily she got off the bus. A week later I see her with another book: Andrew Loog Oldham's "Stoned." That is another favorite book of mine! And like "Contempt" very rare!
Now a normal person would think "oh we share the same taste in rare books." But instead I became totally paranoid thinking she was trying to trap me. She even smiled at me once our eyes met. I looked away! And I never saw her again. If you pretty girl are on goodreads, look me up.
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During the first two years of our married life my relations with my wife were, I can now assert, perfect. By which I mean to say that, in those two years, a complete, profound harmony of the senses was accompanied by a kind of numbness—or should I say silence?—of the mind which, in such circumstances, causes an entire suspension of judgment and looks only to love for any estimate of the beloved person. Emilia, in fact, seemed to me wholly without defects, and so also,
Contempt by Roberto MoraviaDuring the first two years of our married life my relations with my wife were, I can now assert, perfect. By which I mean to say that, in those two years, a complete, profound harmony of the senses was accompanied by a kind of numbness—or should I say silence?—of the mind which, in such circumstances, causes an entire suspension of judgment and looks only to love for any estimate of the beloved person. Emilia, in fact, seemed to me wholly without defects, and so also, I believe, I appeared to her. Or perhaps I saw her defects and she saw mine, but, through some mysterious transformation produced by the feeling of love, such defects appeared to us both not merely forgivable but even lovable, as though instead of defects they had been positive qualities, if of a rather special kind. Anyhow, we did not judge: we loved each other. This story sets out to relate how, while I continued to love her and not to judge her, Emilia, on the other hand, discovered, or thought she discovered, certain defects in me, and judged me and in consequence ceased to love me.
Contempt was written in 1954 by the Italian Roberto Moravia. It is a short novel at 250 pages. It caught my attention as one of Le Monde's 100 books of the 20th century.
*** Mild Spoiler ***
In Contempt we follow our protagonist, Riccardo. There are only three substantial characters and we are shown the story completely from Ricardo's point of view. We see his fragile ego and how his outlook spirals downward as the story progresses. His problems are purely marital ones. Emilia, his wife, comes to despise Riccardo. Most of the book moves along these lines. What struck me is how plausible the story seems and in spite of everything why they remain married.
Riccardo is a screenwriter working on a script for a modern adaptation of Ulysses. Bautista is the director of the project and he needs Ricardo at an on-location setting, a beautiful town on the Mediterranean. While discussing the script, Bautista gets frustrated that Riccardo is projecting his own problems and turning Ulysses' story into one about marriage. Emilia has also come on the trip with Riccardo although they are barely speaking at this point.
The kicker is that Riccardo soon finds out that Bautista and Emilia are intent on committing adultery. This sets him into a fury and he quits the project. His subsequent responses and especially the ending are realistic but not what I expected.
*** End of mild spoiler ***
A tale as old as time — marital dissatisfaction — told entirely from one character's point of view. The story reminded me a little of Revolutionary Road. The imagery of the Italian locations in the story were also memorable.
While this novel is recognized as a literary classic there is definitely a je ne sais quoi to it that both pleased and perplexed me.
5 stars
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4th page, second paragraph in and I'm already getting tight. Wait a minute…what
It doesn't happen often that I catch myself yelling aloud at the characters in a book. Some people scream at TVs (you know who you are), whereas I, when thoroughly provoked by a character, will go beyond the eyes-to-the-sky, heavy sighing, rapid paper cut inducing turning of pages and just let loose on a narrator. And If an author has me so engaged that I'm picking fights with paper? Well, then they've done their job.4th page, second paragraph in and I'm already getting tight. Wait a minute…what??? I go back and read from the beginning. That's what I thought. This guy is talking in circles and either takes me for an idiot or else he truly believes in what he's saying and is therefore delusional. Doesn't matter because I'm hooked-- a totally unreliable character who bends the truth like a worn out Gumby doll is my absolute favorite.
Poor Riccardo. Literary genius that he is (all you have to do is look at him) --
"I saw myself as a young man whose thinness, short sight, nervousness, pallor and carelessness in dress all bore witness, in anticipation, of the literary glory for which I was destined."
-- forced to forgo his true calling as "…a man of culture, a writer for the theater--the 'art' theater.." and instead, accept work as a menial scriptwriter in order to please his wife's insatiable need for more money and higher living standards. Selfless martyr.
But is she happy? NO!!! Emilia is NEVER happy despite all that he does. Obviously, she doesn't love him anymore, thinks lowly of his profession and in all probability, has taken on a lover. But is any of this true? Why of course it is and in 251 pages of the most mind spinning prose, Riccardo Molteni sets out to prove it to you.
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This is best read at one sitting (if you have the time) or in two sittings, if possible. With this, break the continuity as little as possible. Think while you read and don't ponder it b
Moravia has quietly (over several years) became one of my favorite authors to read. The way he forms sentences makes it a pleasure not only to read, but to think about while reading. The introspection within is a treasure, but the main act is the dialogue, which frankly plays more of a minor role, but hits hard.This is best read at one sitting (if you have the time) or in two sittings, if possible. With this, break the continuity as little as possible. Think while you read and don't ponder it between sessions. It is a joy, indeed.
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Riccardo and Emilia are happily married for two years in post-war Rome. While Riccardo, the intelligent and likeable, though slightly narcissistic and delusional narrator, works as a journalist writing film critics to make a living, his dream is to become a serious writer and novelist. His beautiful wife Emilia, coming from an impoverished family, dreams on the other hand of living in their own house and of creating a comfortable nest for them, something much
http://www.mytwostotinki.com/?p=3285Riccardo and Emilia are happily married for two years in post-war Rome. While Riccardo, the intelligent and likeable, though slightly narcissistic and delusional narrator, works as a journalist writing film critics to make a living, his dream is to become a serious writer and novelist. His beautiful wife Emilia, coming from an impoverished family, dreams on the other hand of living in their own house and of creating a comfortable nest for them, something much better than the rented room in which the financially struggling couple lives. When Riccardo is offered work as a screenwriter by the film producer Battista, he decides to accept this work despite serious reservations. He considers this kind of work as a waste of time and talent, but since it is comparatively well paid, he can fulfil his wife's dream and buy a small flat; at a later stage, also a car, another sign of his growing success in the eyes of society. But on his way upward in the social hierarchy, something happens to the relationship between Emilia and Riccardo: Emilia becomes reserved and grows cold toward her husband, love turns into indifference and even into hatred and contempt. Contempt is also the title of the novel by Alberto Moravia that I am reviewing here.
Moravia has been praised for his elegant prose, and I can see why, even when I read the book in German translation. The prose is flowing effortlessly, the dialogues of the tormented Riccardo who wants to find out the reason for the growing estrangement between him and his wife, and Emilia sound very real and convincing. Another thing I admire especially in this book is his talent to keep the reader's interest in a seemingly rather trivial story of alienation between husband and wife by adding some other interesting aspects.
One of the issues that play a major role in the novel, is the relationship between success and money, and the real needs and wishes of people; the characters are forced to do things that are in contrast with what they really want in order to make a living, or to satisfy the (vain) dreams of their partners, or to be perceived as successful and dynamic in a capitalist society. That's not only true for Riccardo and Emilia, but also for the other two major characters of the novel, Battista and Rheingold, a German film director who is commissioned by Battista to make a monumental movie adaptation of The Odyssey. (In Jean-Luc Godard's film based on the novel, this character is played by Fritz Lang!)
Battista and Rheingold have strongly opposing approaches to the movie and Homer's epic. While Battista wants to produce a monumental adventure movie, Rheingold on the other hand is only interested in the psychological conflict that he sees as the reason for Odysseus (Ulysses) participation in the War of Troy, and his delayed return to Penelope. According to his Freudian reading, Odysseus participates in the war because he wants to escape an unhappy relationship: he feels not loved by his wife. For the same reason, it takes him many years to come home. While Riccardo rejects Rheingold's in his eyes simplistic psychoanalytic approach to Homer's work, he understands reluctantly that what Rheingold says for the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope is like a mirror regarding his own and Emilia's relationship and the reason for the obvious alienation between the partners may be a very similar one.
While Moravia is showing us a rather bleak picture of the modern Western world, where money, success, and sex serve as substitutes for a more meaningful existence, his reference to Homer seems to say that it has in principle been always like this. Emilio's (and Moravia's) membership in the Communist Party may be more inspired by a vague Utopian hope of a better future than by a real wish for a social revolution or dictatorship of the proletariat. In the meantime, it is best to acknowledge the mechanisms of the inherent contradictions of capitalist society. If Riccardo would have had more time to resolve the basic conflict and predicament of his life with Emilia, it would have been best to divorce and focus his future life on what he really aspires to be, a novelist and serious author. A sudden blow of fate spares him from actively taking this decision on his own.
Moravia knew the film business well; he worked also as a script writer and met probably people very similar as those described in his novel. Contempt describes an at that time thriving film industry in Italy as he experienced it, and the picture he is painting is not a particularly flattering one. Moravia had also a house on Capri similar as the one owned by Battista in the novel, where the final crisis takes place (the Godard movie was shot partly at the Casa Malaparte, another rather famous villa on Capri). And it is also known that at the time he published Contempt, his own marriage with novelist Elsa Morante was in a crisis that ended in divorce a few years later. So, while the novel is not a strictly autobiographic one, Moravia knew about what he was writing and was able to transform this into a rather short, fascinating novel. While some other so-called "existentialist" novels have not aged very well, Contempt was a surprisingly fresh book to me, and I guess I will soon read more by this author.
A word about the movie Le Mépris by Godard, which I have mentioned above: overall a good movie in my opinion, and the fact that Godard made a few major changes compared to the novel doesn't distract from the quality of the film. The setting, particularly the scenes at the Casa Malaparte, is next to perfect for this movie. However, I had the impression that Brigitte Bardot and Jack Palance were not really the right choices for two of the major roles (while Michel Piccoli is brilliant); therefore, it is for me a good movie, but not the masterpiece it could have been with a more adequate cast of characters.
Contempt was also published in English as A Ghost at Noon.
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These are the questions that Alberto Moravia seeks to answer in the sublime "Contempt", a close-up at the dissolution of a marriage and a journey back to try and learn how things got that way.
"Contempt" is a superior entry in the canon of post-WWII European literature and was itself adapted by Jean-Luc Godard into one
What first causes a relationship to unravel? Is the initial step down the path of separation as simple as a misplaced gesture? A thoughtless word? A careless deed or failed action?These are the questions that Alberto Moravia seeks to answer in the sublime "Contempt", a close-up at the dissolution of a marriage and a journey back to try and learn how things got that way.
"Contempt" is a superior entry in the canon of post-WWII European literature and was itself adapted by Jean-Luc Godard into one of the classic works of French cinema. But the movie I found myself thinking about when reading "Contempt" was "Force Majeure", a 2014 film by the Swedish director Ruben Östlund, in which a single solitary act has lasting repurcussions for a family on a ski holiday.
As to the Godard film, I haven't yet seen it so I can't make a judgement as to whether or not it does the book justice. What is undeniable is that, 65 years later, Moravia's "Contempt" still holds up.
What surprised me most about this book is how compulsively readable it is. In another author's hands, a relationship study like this one could easily feel dry, brittle, and exhaustingly academic, but Moravia is a master of psychoanalysis, of the reasons why we do the things we do, and his "Contempt" is a page-turner from start to finish.
This is a book that clearly has to be felt in order to be carried off so well, so it's not a surprise that Moravia's failed relationship with the Italian novelist Elsa Morante is reported to be its inspiration. While celebrating the end of someone's relationship feels a bit gauche — indeed, even using the word "gauche" feels a bit gauche — Moravia has done humanity a favor by channeling the disappointment and frustration of that failed union into something that truly does stand up two-thirds of a century later.
One of the other mighty compelling things about "Contempt" is its analysis of The Odyssey, particularly the relationship between Penelope and Odysseus. "The Odyssey" is, of course, a favorite, but never had I examined the relationship of Penelope and Odysseus the way Moravia does via the character of Rheingold, the German director who plans to adapt Homer's classic with the help of our troubled protagonist, Molteni. That is one adaptation I would definitely get in line to see.
Another thing most worth mentioning is the expert way in which Moravia foreshadows various events here. An ox-cart that nearly causes Molteni and Rheingold to swerve off the road, for example, causes you to weep with admiration when it appears later, and what seems like other, at the time rather innocuous objects and events, are called back to later brilliantly.
One slight note of annoyance: "Contempt" was initially translated into English as "A Ghost at Noon". I find this to be a terrible title, not only because it all but gives away the ending but because "Contempt" is so obviously better and a truer translation of the Italian.
I loved "Contempt", as much for its perspective — from the point of view of a not-quite reliable narrator — as its story. But the thing that really makes it stand the test of time is Moravia's fabulous writing.
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At first I was irritated by the narrator Ricardo, I doubted his regard for his wife and found it difficult to identify or sympathize with his total self involvement and lack of awareness, no matter how he tried to justify his position.
It is a thought provoking novel, I'll give it that with the second half being more intense and driven then the first. It's difficult because while I
A telling novel of a marriage gone horribly wrong, of lines of communication closed and the inability to reconnect.At first I was irritated by the narrator Ricardo, I doubted his regard for his wife and found it difficult to identify or sympathize with his total self involvement and lack of awareness, no matter how he tried to justify his position.
It is a thought provoking novel, I'll give it that with the second half being more intense and driven then the first. It's difficult because while I can appreciate the skill of the writer, I couldn't, in all honesty say that I liked or identified with the characters.
I did come away feeling that it is in some ways a timeless novel of another tortured soul. Loved the enigmatic ending.
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Why did she not want to come out with me, why is she suddenly comfortable with spending time by her self, why does she sleep on the sofa, why didn't she make up after our last fight, are her confidences genuine? Is her
This brilliant book, amongst other things, is a good example of how intellectualism can mess up your life. The perpetual questioning of things that seem alright, questioning of the slightest inflection and intonation, questioning of an inconsequential moody denial. Questions about:Why did she not want to come out with me, why is she suddenly comfortable with spending time by her self, why does she sleep on the sofa, why didn't she make up after our last fight, are her confidences genuine? Is her love dying?
An insistent urge to analyze every tiny bit, every deviation from consistency or every possible deviation from consistency. An insatiable desire to discuss these doubts with her and clear every question. To that point where she begins to question it herself -
Yes, there must be something wrong. Have I stopped loving him. Yes, that's right, I must have if he feels it so. Why did I stop?
- and then finding a reason somewhere.
This is what a modern-day scriptwriter does to his relationship. Continuously analyzing, agonizing, speculating reasons for what he thinks is a contemptuous attitude from his wife. He meets a producer who is his promise to a better future, but when the producer begins to make subtle and and then overt advances towards his wife, he is caught in doubt about how he must react.
The agonizing has a lot to do with his intellectualism. But the agony indirectly also raises questions on how a modern man is supposed to balance his id and superego, (or rather) the expectations from his id and superego. When another man tries to court his wife within social confines, is he expected to play the game and ignore the attempts, or like the provincial man challenge him to a duel of honor. As he worries in indecision, his id rebukes him, he begins to experience contempt for his inaction, and believes that his wife must hate him for it. A feeling that soon becomes contagious and spreads to the wife and rest of his social circle.
In a brilliant parallel, Moravia draws Ulysses into the story - the film-makers begin to make a modern-day adaptation of Odyssey (not the 'debasement' that Joyce did, by making great heroes into morose losers. as a character proclaims), but an adaptation which showed the Odyssey as Ulysess' attempts to stay away from his wife and her contempt. I am not sure if Moravia is cracking a joke on the psychoanalysts or is he too far gone to actually start analyzing every tale with a parameter of human consciousness. In either case, it lends an interesting touch to the book, especially by placing a parallel between a great hero and his regular protagonist.
Moravia's writing is excellent - in it there is much thought and consciousness, which though destructive in real life, is engaging. He seems to get into even the woman's head - without ever narrating the story from her perspective. As he describes her actions, they seem to carry an acute awareness of her thoughts and sentiments.
Was this supposed to be a modern take on The Odyssey? If you removed the repeated discussions about Ulysses and Penelope, the book would have been all of 150 pages.
I think I could rewrite this story in a few sentences...
We were married for 2 years when my wife stopped loving me. I don't understand why. Oh! I kno
Thank goodness this book wasn't more than 272 pages. If you cut out all the times the author repeated, "Why don't you love me anymore, Emilia?", the book would have been all of 200 pages.Was this supposed to be a modern take on The Odyssey? If you removed the repeated discussions about Ulysses and Penelope, the book would have been all of 150 pages.
I think I could rewrite this story in a few sentences...
We were married for 2 years when my wife stopped loving me. I don't understand why. Oh! I know why. She is the Penelope to my Ulysses. She despised me because she thought that I was wanting her to have an affair with my boss to further my career all because he made an advance on her!
I don't get why there are so many 4 and 5 star ratings on this novel. Does anyone have an aspirin? I have a headache.
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I enjoyed this book- the wretched Molteni, his ego-centric inability to see himself, able, of course to criticize and psychologize those around him so easily and swiftly. Emilia remains mysterious, veiled by the narrators obsession and mourning. I'm glad I read this quickly though- I think if I had read it in bits and pieces, slowly, a foul taste for Molteni and his plight would have developed in my mouth, one of those unbrushable tastes, the kind you can't floss or tongue scrape away. Having drank the book in a few quick gulps I was able to conjure some pity and at times, perhaps those spent directly in the sun, even sympathy for the wretched Molteni. ...more
Be sure also to the Jean-Luc G
This is a well done story about a marriage break-up in the movie industry. Our hero, Ricardo, is a script-writer hired to write the scenario for the Odyssey. Ricardo wants to tell the story within pure classical lines. The producer wants a glitzy, extravaganza while the German director wants to write a Freudian, psychological drama. Our hero is unable to impose his will with either. His wife throws up her hands in contempt and runs off with the millionaire producer.Be sure also to the Jean-Luc Godard adaption for the cinema starring Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang.
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This book is the first Moravia novel I have read. I will definitely be reading more Moravia novels.
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There is a Rashomon-like theme; a new film he is hired for about Ulysses and Homer's Odyssey, is viewed differently by the writer, director and producer. At the same time the writer struggles with his doubts of whether his wife loves or despises him. His interior dialogues become twisted and prophetic.
In great detail,
A cautionary tale about a self-obsessed writer. Married, on the cusp of success as a film screenwriter, conflicted between selling out versus his passion for wring for the theater.There is a Rashomon-like theme; a new film he is hired for about Ulysses and Homer's Odyssey, is viewed differently by the writer, director and producer. At the same time the writer struggles with his doubts of whether his wife loves or despises him. His interior dialogues become twisted and prophetic.
In great detail, Moravia's story is a Freudian case study of neurotic obsession and self doubt. Ultimately the main character destroys the very relationship he so cherishes.
The first book I have read by Alberto Moravia which has left me with a curiosity to explore more of his work.
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He is at once intelligent and thoughtful; entirely narcissistic, brutish and definitely manic.
It's wild how there's seemingly no limits in terms of how far the mind is willing to go—should we allow it—when it comes to self-delusion—what we're willing to let ourselves believe. The way we fabricate narratives in order for them to adhere to truths we're unwilling (or unable) to let go o
A man so wickedly unnerved & consumed by obsession upon realizing that the love of his life no longer loves him.He is at once intelligent and thoughtful; entirely narcissistic, brutish and definitely manic.
It's wild how there's seemingly no limits in terms of how far the mind is willing to go—should we allow it—when it comes to self-delusion—what we're willing to let ourselves believe. The way we fabricate narratives in order for them to adhere to truths we're unwilling (or unable) to let go of, irregardless of the reality of the situation. Or how easy it is to deny our own culpability when we could simply project that onto our partner, which, in this case, lent itself as a dizzying slew of contradictions that arguably self-fulfilled into the demise of our narrator's marriage.
The existential dread and anxiety was a little *too* palpable….but I couldn't get enough!!! Technically a ~4.5/5~ imo only bc I didn't have any Odyssey foreknowledge, which was heavily referenced, but I'm willing to round up bc of how brilliant this was. Instant fave. Not for the over-analytical (especially in the relationship setting) or if you just had a misunderstanding with your significant other lol.
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Molteni always wanted to write scripts for drama and ended up a movie scriptwriter just to please his wife and her material needs. But just at the moment when everything seems to turn right for him, she announces him that she doesn't love him anymore. Worse than that she despises him and refuses to tell him why. The mental torture begins.
Throughtout t
This novel could be compared to a long monologue of the narrator who tries to explain the circumstances that brought his wife to break up with him.Molteni always wanted to write scripts for drama and ended up a movie scriptwriter just to please his wife and her material needs. But just at the moment when everything seems to turn right for him, she announces him that she doesn't love him anymore. Worse than that she despises him and refuses to tell him why. The mental torture begins.
Throughtout the story Molteni tries to understand. Is it about him intrinsically? Is it a misunderstanding?
All the questioning made me feel very weird. It made me feel sympathy for the narrator just as much as I felt like he was pathetic and I was living in the same nightmare as he was. I felt uncomfortable because the mood was diabolical. He loves her, she doesn't. And the end didn't really help shake the feeling...
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An interesting read, a compelling experience, yet very hard to come into terms with. Sometimes disturbing, yet enlightening, full of psychoanalysis, y The truth has a striking power, a lightning effect, an imposing character and no soul can rest until the truth is discovered, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Contempt is a journey of one man, an Odyssey towards the truth, however dim and dark, and cave-like, the truth is still the absolute destination that every human being thrives for.
An interesting read, a compelling experience, yet very hard to come into terms with. Sometimes disturbing, yet enlightening, full of psychoanalysis, yet a critique of it.
One aspect that is very insightful is the lengthy discussions on modernity, and being "civilized".
Looking forward to see the film, and maybe later, another novel by Moravia. ...more
Moravia was an atheist, his writing was marked by its factual, cold, precise style, often depicting the malaise of the bourgeoisie, underpin
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle, was one of the leading Italian novelists of the twentieth century whose novels explore matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism. He was also a journalist, playwright, essayist and film critic.Moravia was an atheist, his writing was marked by its factual, cold, precise style, often depicting the malaise of the bourgeoisie, underpinned by high social and cultural awareness. Moravia believed that writers must, if they were to represent reality, assume a moral position, a clearly conceived political, social, and philosophical attitude, but also that, ultimately, "A writer survives in spite of his beliefs".
Between 1959 and 1962 Moravia was president of PEN International, the worldwide association of writers.
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