Contempt

Book in good condition

So satisfied

NYRB has done it to me again. Discovery of yet another writer, Alberto Moravia that I will no doubt need to read more from.What a strange and engrossing tale. So normal in appearance. A man starts out thinking he has a noble profession as a critic but poverty has limitations. How hard to admit selling out one for the other. Why not elevate the goal to a higher nobility. Surely I am doing this for my wife Emelia! A screenplay is only for pay so it must be done for Emelia.Ricccardo Molteni is a narcissist, delusional, selfish, probably a bit insane, obsessive and manic. He is intelligent and thoughtful and brutish, always a chauvinist and given to fits of depression and unnatural euphoria. He is dangerous even to the reader.As told in the first person it's a neat trick to keep us reading and believing in Molteni. His character gets under your skin. Brilliantly the writer lets this most unreliable narrator carry us through his life. Is he going to write that screenplay to bring Homer's Odyssey to the big screen? Why doesn't his wife love him? Is he dominating her or just being helpful with that menu? What is wrong with her? It must be her fault. If only she'd reveal the root of it so that he can carry on. Denial of his own culpability is everywhere and yet subtly woven into the contradictions between his seemingly sensitive and warm thoughts and his more acute actions out of need to defend his self esteem.And what about that screenplay? Is Ulysses avoiding his wife Penelope? Is that why it takes 10 long years to return home. Is the Director Reingold somehow mocking him by creating a Ulysses that's weak and fearful of his wife? Is there a similarity in his own life? Maybe but it's wickedly derivative."Contempt" is very unsettling and makes for wonderful reading. His thoughts on his own life and marriage are deeply psychological. He gets the reader thinking and doubting. Don't read this if you've just had a misunderstanding with your spouse or significant other.

Written in 1954, this novel by the esteemed Italian writer, Alberto Moravia, is a small gem and a showcase of fine writing. Written in the first person, the narrator describes the slow falling apart of his marriage. Stark, with a complex mood, the reader gets to hear his inner monologue. He is definitely neurotic and I found some of the complaining annoying, but he sure does set the tone. This man is obsessed with his wife and analyzes every excruciating detail of their lives. I was often exasperated at this and would have put the book down but it was a selection of my literary reading group, so I forced myself to continue.The narrator sees himself as an artistic writer who takes a job writing screenplays because he wants to satisfy his wife and create a home for her. This is after the first two years of their marriage when they truly loved each other. When they move into their new home, everything changes. The narrator can't understand why.We meet his boss, a typical movie type, who winds everyone around his fingers and wants to do a screenplay of The Odyssey. And then there is the director who he must work with, a German who is into psychology and wants the story to play out in a Freudian psychological way. The theme of marital discord runs throughout the book.The ending was surreal. I thought it was a copout. And yet, it worked. My feelings about this book are complex. I have no doubt that the author is a fine writer. But I wish I could have liked the characters. I felt like screaming "get a life" to all of them, especially the narrator.This is a worthwhile read if you can stand it. But I'm glad it's over.

To me, Contempt is the perfect response to everybody who insists that the patriarchy invariably benefits all men and hurts all women. The novel demonstrates that the patriarchal model rewards people of both genders who conform to the traditional gender roles and punishes those who depart from them.The novel's first-person narrator Riccardo Molteni is a deeply flawed human being. However, the kind of emotional abuse that his wife Emilia subjects him to is so unjustified and wrong that the novel is painful to read. Of course, we are dealing with an unreliable first-person narrator, but even so, the horrifying treatment by a deeply patriarchal woman of a man who is not as traditional as she'd like him to be is evident.Riccardo works hard to offer his wife a lifestyle she thinks she deserves. Emilia, however, doesn't work (even though before getting married she was a professional woman with a career of her own). She is so invested into her high-class aspirations that Riccardo even employs a live-in maid because Emilia cannot possibly be expected to clean a one-bedroom apartment on her own. She spends all day sulking about some vague grievances against her husband that she never verbalizes no matter how much he begs her to reveal what is wrong.All Emilia tells Riccardo is that she despises him because he is "not a real man." Soon we discover what a real man is like for Emilia. Riccardo finds out that Emilia is carrying on an affair with a rich, powerful and brutal Battista. Somehow, she blames her husband for the affair she is having and poor Riccardo is beside himself, trying to explain to Emilia that it is not his fault that she's cheating.Riccardo does not live up to the image of a "real man" Emilia holds dear. He doesn't make a lot of money, he is sensitive, artistic, and insecure. Riccardo also is very respectful of Emilia sexually. For him, sex with an unwilling woman is unconscionable. For the "real man" Battista, female bodies exist to be possessed whether women are willing to have sex with him or not.I'm very impressed with this novel and will now read many more books by this impressive writer.