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More Roman Tales
The ribald masterpiece by one of the world's great novelists -- an unflinching view of private lives in Roman of mid-20th century.
190 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
About the author
Alberto Moravia
438 books1,124 followersAlberto 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".
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".
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September 24, 2020
Nuovi Racconti Romani = More Roman Tales, Alberto Moravia
31 stories, all told in the first person by people of the Roman working classes.
Below is a list of the names of the short stories that comprise the Racconti Romani.
Fanatico (The Fanatic)
Arrivederci
Pioggia di maggio (Rain in May)
Non approfondire (Don't Delve Too Deeply . . .)
La bella serata
Scherzi del caldo (Hot Weather Jokes)
La controfigura
Il pagliaccio (The Clown)
Il biglietto falso
Il camionista (The Lorry-Driver)
Il pensatore
Scorfani
Il mediatore (The Go-Between)
Il pupo (The Baby)
Il delitto perfetto (The Perfect Crime)
Il picche nicche
La voglia di vino
Prepotente per forza
Sciupone
La giornata nera
I gioielli (Jewellery)
Tabù (Taboo)
Io non dico di no (I Don't say no . . .)
L'inconsciente
Il provino
Il pignolo
La ciociara (The Girl from Ciociaria)
Impataccato
Scherzi di ferragosto
Il terrore di Roma (The Terror of Rome)
L'amicizia (Friendship)
La rovina dell'umanità (The Ruin of Humanity)
Perdipiede
Vecchio stupido (Silly Old Fool)
Caterina
La parola mamma
Gli occhiali (A Pair of Spectacles)
Il cane cinese
Mario (Mario)
Gli amici senza soldi
Bu bu bu
Ladri in chiesa
Precisamente a te
Faccia di mascalzone
Un uomo sfortunato
Tirato a sorte
Pigliati un brodo
La vita in campagna
Le sue giornate
La gita
La rivincita di Tarzan
Romolo e Remo (Romulus and Remus)
Faccia da norcino
L'appetito (Appetite)
L'infermiera (The Nurse)
Il tesoro (The Treasure)
La concorrenza
Bassetto
Il guardiano (The Caretaker)
Il naso (The Nose)
Il godipoco
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دهم ماه نوامبر سال 2010میلادی
عنوان: همه کاره و هیچ کاره؛ نویسنده: آلبرتو موراویا؛ مترجم: زهره بهرامی؛ تهران، نشر چشمه، 1388، چاپ سوم 1395؛ در 179ص؛ فروست داستانهای رمی نو؛ شابک 9789643625191؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایتالیائی - سده 20م
برگردان فارسی این مجموعه، شامل نوزده داستان کوتاه از این نویسنده ی تواناست، که هر کدام به نوعی قصه ای از زندگی ساکنان شهر «رم»، را بازمی‌گویند؛ «همه کاره و هیچ کاره»، داستان کسانی ست، که به گفته ی دیگران، تخصصی ندارند؛ به دلیل نبود امکانات آموزشی، هر کاری را در حدی که مقدور بوده، فراگرفته اند، تا بتوانند روزگار خویش بگذرانند؛ «آلبرتو موراویا»، در این داستانها، به بررسی همین تخصص گرایی کاذب می‌پردازند، و اینکه در شهر «رم»، تخصص اساساً چیست؟ و به چه کار می‌آید؟ ایشان افراد متخصصی را، که از نظر نویسنده، یک مشت کلاهبردار حرفه ای هستند، با افراد بی تخصص مقایسه می‌کند، افرادی که چون به درستی نمیتوانند دیگران را سرکیسه کنند، بیچاره و فقیر مانده اند
داستانهای «خوش‌شانسی»، «حرف زدن بلد نیستند»، «بهار»، «زندگی آسوده»، «همه کاره و هیچ‌کاره»، «طبیعیه» و «جبران»؛ نام برخی از داستانهای «موراویا» در این کتاب هستند
نقل نمونه متن: (چه کارهایی که نکردم؛ از پایان جنگ تا به امروز دست‌کم دوبار در سال شغل عوض کردم؛ ولی شغل که چه عرض کنم، خودش یک‌جور بی‌کاری بود؛ برادر شیری من، که مهندس الکترونیک، و آدم دقیق و متعصبی‌ست، همان کسی که گاهی پیشش می‌رفتم تا نصیحتم کند، یک روز صریح و پوست‌کنده به من گفت: «تو سرافینو، نمی‌فهمی امروزِ روز برای اینکه کار پیدا کنی باید تخصص داشته باشی.»؛ و من: «تخصص؟ یعنی چی؟» و او: «تخصص داشتن یعنی اینکه بلد باشی فقط یک کارو انجام بدی اما خُب...؛ در عوض تو همه کاری بلدی بکنی، و هیچ کاری بلد نیستی بکنی...، فقط بَروبازو داری، مثل بقیه، با این بازوها حاضر می‌شی و می‌گی: به من کار بدین، حالا دیگه سی سال رو پشت‌سر گذاشتی؛ ممکنه توی این مدت هیچ‌وقت فکر تخصص داشتن به سرت نزده باشه؟» جواب دادم: «بدشانسی بوده که نگذاشته متخصص بشم»؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 02/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
31 stories, all told in the first person by people of the Roman working classes.
Below is a list of the names of the short stories that comprise the Racconti Romani.
Fanatico (The Fanatic)
Arrivederci
Pioggia di maggio (Rain in May)
Non approfondire (Don't Delve Too Deeply . . .)
La bella serata
Scherzi del caldo (Hot Weather Jokes)
La controfigura
Il pagliaccio (The Clown)
Il biglietto falso
Il camionista (The Lorry-Driver)
Il pensatore
Scorfani
Il mediatore (The Go-Between)
Il pupo (The Baby)
Il delitto perfetto (The Perfect Crime)
Il picche nicche
La voglia di vino
Prepotente per forza
Sciupone
La giornata nera
I gioielli (Jewellery)
Tabù (Taboo)
Io non dico di no (I Don't say no . . .)
L'inconsciente
Il provino
Il pignolo
La ciociara (The Girl from Ciociaria)
Impataccato
Scherzi di ferragosto
Il terrore di Roma (The Terror of Rome)
L'amicizia (Friendship)
La rovina dell'umanità (The Ruin of Humanity)
Perdipiede
Vecchio stupido (Silly Old Fool)
Caterina
La parola mamma
Gli occhiali (A Pair of Spectacles)
Il cane cinese
Mario (Mario)
Gli amici senza soldi
Bu bu bu
Ladri in chiesa
Precisamente a te
Faccia di mascalzone
Un uomo sfortunato
Tirato a sorte
Pigliati un brodo
La vita in campagna
Le sue giornate
La gita
La rivincita di Tarzan
Romolo e Remo (Romulus and Remus)
Faccia da norcino
L'appetito (Appetite)
L'infermiera (The Nurse)
Il tesoro (The Treasure)
La concorrenza
Bassetto
Il guardiano (The Caretaker)
Il naso (The Nose)
Il godipoco
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دهم ماه نوامبر سال 2010میلادی
عنوان: همه کاره و هیچ کاره؛ نویسنده: آلبرتو موراویا؛ مترجم: زهره بهرامی؛ تهران، نشر چشمه، 1388، چاپ سوم 1395؛ در 179ص؛ فروست داستانهای رمی نو؛ شابک 9789643625191؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایتالیائی - سده 20م
برگردان فارسی این مجموعه، شامل نوزده داستان کوتاه از این نویسنده ی تواناست، که هر کدام به نوعی قصه ای از زندگی ساکنان شهر «رم»، را بازمی‌گویند؛ «همه کاره و هیچ کاره»، داستان کسانی ست، که به گفته ی دیگران، تخصصی ندارند؛ به دلیل نبود امکانات آموزشی، هر کاری را در حدی که مقدور بوده، فراگرفته اند، تا بتوانند روزگار خویش بگذرانند؛ «آلبرتو موراویا»، در این داستانها، به بررسی همین تخصص گرایی کاذب می‌پردازند، و اینکه در شهر «رم»، تخصص اساساً چیست؟ و به چه کار می‌آید؟ ایشان افراد متخصصی را، که از نظر نویسنده، یک مشت کلاهبردار حرفه ای هستند، با افراد بی تخصص مقایسه می‌کند، افرادی که چون به درستی نمیتوانند دیگران را سرکیسه کنند، بیچاره و فقیر مانده اند
داستانهای «خوش‌شانسی»، «حرف زدن بلد نیستند»، «بهار»، «زندگی آسوده»، «همه کاره و هیچ‌کاره»، «طبیعیه» و «جبران»؛ نام برخی از داستانهای «موراویا» در این کتاب هستند
نقل نمونه متن: (چه کارهایی که نکردم؛ از پایان جنگ تا به امروز دست‌کم دوبار در سال شغل عوض کردم؛ ولی شغل که چه عرض کنم، خودش یک‌جور بی‌کاری بود؛ برادر شیری من، که مهندس الکترونیک، و آدم دقیق و متعصبی‌ست، همان کسی که گاهی پیشش می‌رفتم تا نصیحتم کند، یک روز صریح و پوست‌کنده به من گفت: «تو سرافینو، نمی‌فهمی امروزِ روز برای اینکه کار پیدا کنی باید تخصص داشته باشی.»؛ و من: «تخصص؟ یعنی چی؟» و او: «تخصص داشتن یعنی اینکه بلد باشی فقط یک کارو انجام بدی اما خُب...؛ در عوض تو همه کاری بلدی بکنی، و هیچ کاری بلد نیستی بکنی...، فقط بَروبازو داری، مثل بقیه، با این بازوها حاضر می‌شی و می‌گی: به من کار بدین، حالا دیگه سی سال رو پشت‌سر گذاشتی؛ ممکنه توی این مدت هیچ‌وقت فکر تخصص داشتن به سرت نزده باشه؟» جواب دادم: «بدشانسی بوده که نگذاشته متخصص بشم»؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 02/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
November 29, 2021
Alberto Moravia was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Thank you, Wikipedia, for providing that handy summary. The entry on this author continues by saying that Moravia has a "factual, cold, precise style"... uh, you got that one quite wrong, my good friend. The style displayed in this book is breezy, chatty, casual. Stories are told by very human and often relatable voices, despite the multiplicity of perspectives on display. Those perspectives come from lower and working class youth, mainly boys, predators and prey and often both. The book is deceptively fun and easy going down, specifically due to its semi-comic and rather bright tone, despite the many degradations and predations on display. It is that merry tone that I blame for encouraging me to read over 100 pages of this well-written but mainly nihilistic bullshit.
I cannot stand misery porn! Especially when written by such a condescending author. My buddy Wikipedia also notes that the author came from a wealthy, middle-class family, and oh boy that shows up in spades. This is the kind of book that looks at all human beings from a certain class as bugs living in a gutter. No joy, no love, certainly no satisfaction, life is all a big nothing, nada, a void that is looked into and that looks back, laughing at your so-called dreams. It is intended to illustrate something "important" about the proletariat and about the itinerant but all it illustrates is Moravia's complete inability to recognize that happiness and kindness can exist in even the most diminished of lives and his refusal to illustrate that such human lives have more dimensions than his basic two. If you are a middle-class sort who wants to study the world of human insects so that you can feel good about feeling sorry for their pathetic so-called lives, then this is your book. Enjoy!
I cannot stand misery porn! Especially when written by such a condescending author. My buddy Wikipedia also notes that the author came from a wealthy, middle-class family, and oh boy that shows up in spades. This is the kind of book that looks at all human beings from a certain class as bugs living in a gutter. No joy, no love, certainly no satisfaction, life is all a big nothing, nada, a void that is looked into and that looks back, laughing at your so-called dreams. It is intended to illustrate something "important" about the proletariat and about the itinerant but all it illustrates is Moravia's complete inability to recognize that happiness and kindness can exist in even the most diminished of lives and his refusal to illustrate that such human lives have more dimensions than his basic two. If you are a middle-class sort who wants to study the world of human insects so that you can feel good about feeling sorry for their pathetic so-called lives, then this is your book. Enjoy!
February 10, 2018
داستانهای ایتالیایی، و مشخصن این کتاب، ساده‌اند و لذت‌بخش. قصه، چیز خیلی خاصی نمی‌گوید، پیچیدگی خودش را دارد، اما آن را به شکل ساده و جمع‌وجوری برایت بازگو می‌کند که با خودت از روراستی و بی‌شیله‌پیلگی شخصیت‌ها متعجب می‌شوی. توصیفات دقیق‌اند و زیبا. جزئیات مورد توجه نویسنده‌اند. حالات روانی را خوب بلد اند با حالات فیزیکی مربوط کنند. نحوه غروب را توصیف می‌کنند، سپس همان را به چهره یکی از شخصیت‌ها مربوط می‌کنند.
ماجراها گاهی خیلی جالب می‌شوند، کمی کمیک می‌شوند یا غیرواقعی، اما احساسات خیلی واقعی و بی‌رودربایستی‌اند. بی‌هیج خجالت، شخصیت حرف‌هایش را می‌زند، بی هیچ خودسانسوری و همین صمیمیت‌است که این داستانها را اینقدر زیبا می‌کند.
ماجراها گاهی خیلی جالب می‌شوند، کمی کمیک می‌شوند یا غیرواقعی، اما احساسات خیلی واقعی و بی‌رودربایستی‌اند. بی‌هیج خجالت، شخصیت حرف‌هایش را می‌زند، بی هیچ خودسانسوری و همین صمیمیت‌است که این داستانها را اینقدر زیبا می‌کند.
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August 11, 2022В сборника " Нови Римски разкази " открих един различен Алберто Моравия. Описвайки крайните квартали на Рим, той ни среща с всякакви образи. Всеки си е изградил представа за достолепието на Вечния град , за красотата на италианските жени / особено тези, живеещите в столицата/ , за атмосферата на малките кокетни улички и широки пиаци. И изведнъж Моравия обърква всичко с други картини. С всеки разказ. Оказваме се в различни райони на Рим с техните жилищни блокове, сякаш с безброй входове. Момичетата там са лишени от чара на италианките и са зашеметяващо грозни, безпардонни и нахакани. Младежите - и те от същия дол дренки. За професии - всеки работи, където и каквото намери. Средствата ги има , когато ги има и ги няма през повечето време.
И сред целия този чаровен хаос от съществуване се зараждат забавни, конфузни и отрезвяващи ситуации. Младостта оставя своя неглижиращ и ведър отпечатък там , където Зрелостта би приела всичко като покушение над опита и самочувствието си.
" Нови Римски разкази " на Алберто Моравия са глътка свеж въздух и доза ведро настроение във всеки мой ден. Усмивката е гарантирана. А мисълта, която често преминава е , че това ни е добре познато ....
И сред целия този чаровен хаос от съществуване се зараждат забавни, конфузни и отрезвяващи ситуации. Младостта оставя своя неглижиращ и ведър отпечатък там , където Зрелостта би приела всичко като покушение над опита и самочувствието си.
" Нови Римски разкази " на Алберто Моравия са глътка свеж въздух и доза ведро настроение във всеки мой ден. Усмивката е гарантирана. А мисълта, която често преминава е , че това ни е добре познато ....
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May 4, 2022نصفه رهاش کردم.
یه دلیلی داشته که توی این 13 سال نخونده بودمش دیگه
یه دلیلی داشته که توی این 13 سال نخونده بودمش دیگه
March 20, 2022
Una ciliegia tira l'altra
Questi bei racconti di Moravia si sono rivelati,per me che non amo i racconti,una bella sorpresa.E davvero,come le ciliege uno tira l'altro!Tutte storie brevi brevi,narrate in prima persona da personaggi che provengono dal sottoproletariato e dalla piccola borghesia romana,che vivono un po' tutti di espedienti e si arrangiano come possono in modi spesso poco leciti.Ma Moravia ce li descrive,fa in modo che essi ci si presentino,sempre con sincerità,coi loro pregi e i loro difetti,senza esprimere giudizi sui loro comportamenti e lasciando a noi lettori tale compito.
Questo libro mi ha riportato a Pasolini,ai suoi "Ragazzi di vita",anche se in Moravia l'uso del dialetto romanesco è molto relativo e limitato al "modo di dire",e il popolo delle borgate appare un po' più ripulito rispetto a quello crudo e feroce descritto da Pasolini.Un consiglio?Se vi piace l'uno,provate a leggere l'altro.
Questi bei racconti di Moravia si sono rivelati,per me che non amo i racconti,una bella sorpresa.E davvero,come le ciliege uno tira l'altro!Tutte storie brevi brevi,narrate in prima persona da personaggi che provengono dal sottoproletariato e dalla piccola borghesia romana,che vivono un po' tutti di espedienti e si arrangiano come possono in modi spesso poco leciti.Ma Moravia ce li descrive,fa in modo che essi ci si presentino,sempre con sincerità,coi loro pregi e i loro difetti,senza esprimere giudizi sui loro comportamenti e lasciando a noi lettori tale compito.
Questo libro mi ha riportato a Pasolini,ai suoi "Ragazzi di vita",anche se in Moravia l'uso del dialetto romanesco è molto relativo e limitato al "modo di dire",e il popolo delle borgate appare un po' più ripulito rispetto a quello crudo e feroce descritto da Pasolini.Un consiglio?Se vi piace l'uno,provate a leggere l'altro.
December 1, 2015
Прекрасен миг отдалечаване по буквите от познатите ми географски ширини. Завръщане в една сериозна, мъдра, но все така луда Италия.
„Нови римски разкази“ заслужават внимание. Не само заради есенната корица, дело на Дамян Дамянов, но и заради изящното си и прикрито иронично съдържание
http://www.knijno.blogspot.bg/2015/12...
„Нови римски разкази“ заслужават внимание. Не само заради есенната корица, дело на Дамян Дамянов, но и заради изящното си и прикрито иронично съдържание
http://www.knijno.blogspot.bg/2015/12...
November 3, 2019
مجموعه‌ای از نوزده داستان کوتاه ایتالیایی، سرخوش و رها، بی اعتنا به سختی وقایعی که در حال روی‌دادنند، مصداق آنکه راحت بگیر تا راحت بگذرد، انگار که برشی از زندگی واقعی ایتالیایی‌هاست،
پ.ن: نام ویراستار کتاب ذکر نشده بو��، اما من اگر به جای متولیان نشر چشمه بودم ویراستاری را که چندین بار در این کتاب اشتباه فاحش ه-کسره داشته اخراج میکردم، باشد که از ابتدا الفبای ویراستاری را یاد بگیرد.
پ.ن: نام ویراستار کتاب ذکر نشده بو��، اما من اگر به جای متولیان نشر چشمه بودم ویراستاری را که چندین بار در این کتاب اشتباه فاحش ه-کسره داشته اخراج میکردم، باشد که از ابتدا الفبای ویراستاری را یاد بگیرد.
February 17, 2020
Много добър разказвач е Моравия.Истории от живота на обикновените хора,истински и неподправени, интересно поднесени.
June 14, 2020
Alberto Moravia has no descendants but himself
By Leslie Fiedler April 30, 1972 New York Times
To write about Alberto Moravia is especially difficult for me since for the past decade I have had a sense of him as a figure no longer interesting or even available to anyone committed to the future possibilities of the novel rather than its past achievements. Moravia is the kind of writer who belonged to the history of the novel from the moment his first book appeared; and on the Italian scene, he has always been contrasted in this regard with Cesare Pavese, who from the start represented everything still to come. Another way of saying this is that Moravia's fiction is indebted to everything represented in the Italian imagination by “Europe,” or more specifically, France; while Pavese's work draws upon all that resonates in the Italian mind when it dreams “America.”
For Moravia, Pavese seemed therefore a “decadent” writer. For us, however, he appears an experimental one; and his subsequent history has verified our view rather than his fellow Italians'. Whatever his present status, Pavese lives on in the work of his followers, like Natalia Ginsberg or Italo Calvino and Giose Rimmanelli. But Moravia has no descendants except himself—only innumerable ancestors, ranging from Flaubert and Turgenev, whom he would be glad to claim, to Maupassant and D'Annunzio, whom he probably would be embarrassed to acknowledge.
Yet even if he does not beget, he survives. My God, how he survives! Simply to add up the number of words he has written during his career leaves one dazzled and begrudgingly impressed: novels, short stories, literary essays, political manifestoes, movie reviews, etc., etc. One imagines him doing a daily stint of a couple of thousand words and wearing out a typewriter every five or six years, as he grimly pursues the elusive Nobel Prize — growing older perhaps but no less vigorous and garrulous.
His would be an extraordinary feat any place; but is especially astonishing in Italy, where writers seem sometimes to do everything but write—caught between the temptations of cafe conversation and a retreat to silence whose final form is suicide. Moravia, however, has been publishing since 1929 and shows no signs of slowing down. Even in English translation his books have been appearing for 40 years, their titles generally travestied in English all the way from “Le Ambizioni Sbagliate,” published here in 1937 as “The Wheel of Fortune,” to his latest novel, “Io e Lui,” renamed for obscure reasons “Two.”
Yet when he was first introduced into the United States, Moravia was hardly noticed—his reputation eclipsed by that of Ignazio Silone, whose anti‐Fascist stand obscured the weakness of his prose; then later, it was Pavese who put Moravia in the shadow. But Silone's reputation has gone down and down, while Pavese has been removed as well as sanctified by death. And Moravia is still at it, having by this time convinced both himself and many of his readers that he was always a valiant anti‐Fascist—though, in fact, he managed to do fairly well under Mussolini, until Nazi pressures made his life as a member of a Jewish family absolutely impossible.
Yet even at this moment, we are more likely to think of Calvino than of Moravia if we think of the Italian novel at all. But toward the close of the forties, “The Woman of Rome” achieved a spectacular success, and many critics were persuaded that he stood somehow at the centre of the Italian scene. Not very long after that moment, I myself decided that I would have to come to terms with him, or at least with the problem of his reputation, even though I remained deeply ambivalent about his worth as a writer. But when I discussed my project with an Italian friend, an eminent professor and critic who shall remain nameless here for fear of the evil eye, I was disconcerted by the initial response. “Good,” said my friend and presumably Moravia's. “Tear him to pieces. His wife will love it.” At which point, we both seemed on the verge of becoming characters in a Moravia story.
And how could I go on with my project, once aware that getting close enough to deal with Moravia's novels meant running that comic risk. Yet I kept reading the fiction even after I had decided I would not write about him. Or at least I thought of myself as continuing to read it. But when recently I opened “Two,” I became aware that I had not really read any major effort of his for nearly a decade.
It seems hardly to matter, however; for here he is 10 years later dealing in his new “phallic” novel with the basic themes which have obsessed him since “Conjugal Love” at least: Art and Sex, Sublimation and Desublirnation, Male and Female. He is so exclusively concerned in his fiction with sex, Moravia has assured us, because only in their sex‐lives do super urban men still inhabit “nature,” and only in “nature” are we all one. This, surely, is the essential clue to what motivates Moravia as a writer.
“Two” deals with the rather inconsequential adventures, and the over subtle reflections on those adventures, of a second‐rate screenwriter who finds himself bound to an aging and unattractive wife and a less and less rewarding career. He feels he has been condemned to both by his recalcitrant and unruly flesh, and that if he could only “sublimate” his sexual drives he would become one of the rulers and heroes of the world rather than the schlemiel and victim he is. He hopes that once “sublimated,” he will be able to direct as well as write a revolutionary film, financed by a group of wealthy and supercilious young Maoists; but in the end, he is shamed and humiliated by them, overwhelmed by his indomitable phallus with which he conducts a dialogue throughout. At the book's close, he returns to his despised but somehow still desired wife. “She looked at me, looked down, saw ‘him’ and then, without saying a word, put out her hand to take hold of ‘him,’ as one might take hold of a donkey's halter to make it move. Then she turned her back to me, pulling ‘him’ in behind her, and, with ‘him,’ me. She went into the flat; ‘he’ went behind her; I followed them both.”
Moravia has remained a half-hearted (and until the present book fundamentally genteel) pornographer because he wants to be a popular writer without ceasing to be a sophisticated city dweller. But sex, as he understands it, is too abstract to be mythological; and his venture is therefore doomed. Yet it is hard not to admire the dogged way in which he has kept trying to make his essentially abstract concerns seem actual flesh and blood. In “Two,” however, he finally abandons even the pretence that what intrigues him is dialogue between human beings; since his scenario writer—obsessed with the notion that only “desublimated” men succeed in the world, but forever the slave of his swollen super phallus—can talk to no one who does not share his distended skin. And with him, the secret is out: what has always concerned Moravia is the dialogue within the single self between Mind and Body, Spirit and Flesh, Ego and Id, or, as he puts this time around, between a Man and his Penis.
Moravia's latest novel thus seems rather more technically innovative than his earlier works, for he feels obliged to make his “phallic” antagonist at least as articulate and witty as the failed artist who is his protagonist. But, of course, a similar device was employed in a similar way long before. Moravia invents nothing ever, only recapitulates; and here he turns out to be doing variations on the theme somewhat more ingeniously, though less pretentiously, handled some 200 years ago by Diderot in “Les Bijoux Indiscrets.”
Finally, however, what remains in the mind out of Moravia's books are not his attempts at translating art and politics downward in sexual metaphors, as he has done in “Two,” “Conjugal Love” and that especially disheartening travesty of anti‐Fascists in exile, “The Conformist.” Nor is it even his pose of rendering “realistically” the surfaces of popular life, as in “The Woman of Rome.” What continues to haunt us is the nostalgia and melancholy of the fiction in which he renders frankly the dialogue within — as in “The Woman of Rome.” What continues to haunt us is the nostalgia and melancholy of the novelette, “Agostino,” and even earlier short stories like “A Sick Boy's Winter.” In these, we hear the authentic, the inward Moravian voice, which speaks always in the plaintive tones of a sickly, mother‐obsessed bourgeois boy. If we love rather than respect him, it is for the sake of that boy, who remains alive some place deep within the successful author—despite his pathetic boasts of potency and his even more pathetic ironies at his own expense. One imagines that little Alberto Pincherle, not yet rebaptized “Moravia,” staring forever through the iron grille which separated his family garden from the street, and trying to imagine what life can really be like for all those inscrutable Poor People going about their business Out There.
Moravia may have introduced no new techniques into Italian narrative, and he may remain somehow bafflingly provincial. But whenever he evokes the shame and terror of the European bourgeois looking for Real Life, i.e., his own Unconscious, in an encounter with a prostitute or the seduction of innocence next door, he makes a real contribution to the fiction of our dying century, unforgettable in its own minor way. This is especially true at the start of his career. But even in “Two” what most moves the reader is the humiliation of the failed bourgeois artist at the hands of certain self-styled young Revolutionaries, who may themselves be equally bourgeois yet have at least the advantage of confidence and youth and are possessed by the image of growing up to be Mao Tse‐tung rather than the man with the world's largest penis.
By Leslie Fiedler April 30, 1972 New York Times
To write about Alberto Moravia is especially difficult for me since for the past decade I have had a sense of him as a figure no longer interesting or even available to anyone committed to the future possibilities of the novel rather than its past achievements. Moravia is the kind of writer who belonged to the history of the novel from the moment his first book appeared; and on the Italian scene, he has always been contrasted in this regard with Cesare Pavese, who from the start represented everything still to come. Another way of saying this is that Moravia's fiction is indebted to everything represented in the Italian imagination by “Europe,” or more specifically, France; while Pavese's work draws upon all that resonates in the Italian mind when it dreams “America.”
For Moravia, Pavese seemed therefore a “decadent” writer. For us, however, he appears an experimental one; and his subsequent history has verified our view rather than his fellow Italians'. Whatever his present status, Pavese lives on in the work of his followers, like Natalia Ginsberg or Italo Calvino and Giose Rimmanelli. But Moravia has no descendants except himself—only innumerable ancestors, ranging from Flaubert and Turgenev, whom he would be glad to claim, to Maupassant and D'Annunzio, whom he probably would be embarrassed to acknowledge.
Yet even if he does not beget, he survives. My God, how he survives! Simply to add up the number of words he has written during his career leaves one dazzled and begrudgingly impressed: novels, short stories, literary essays, political manifestoes, movie reviews, etc., etc. One imagines him doing a daily stint of a couple of thousand words and wearing out a typewriter every five or six years, as he grimly pursues the elusive Nobel Prize — growing older perhaps but no less vigorous and garrulous.
His would be an extraordinary feat any place; but is especially astonishing in Italy, where writers seem sometimes to do everything but write—caught between the temptations of cafe conversation and a retreat to silence whose final form is suicide. Moravia, however, has been publishing since 1929 and shows no signs of slowing down. Even in English translation his books have been appearing for 40 years, their titles generally travestied in English all the way from “Le Ambizioni Sbagliate,” published here in 1937 as “The Wheel of Fortune,” to his latest novel, “Io e Lui,” renamed for obscure reasons “Two.”
Yet when he was first introduced into the United States, Moravia was hardly noticed—his reputation eclipsed by that of Ignazio Silone, whose anti‐Fascist stand obscured the weakness of his prose; then later, it was Pavese who put Moravia in the shadow. But Silone's reputation has gone down and down, while Pavese has been removed as well as sanctified by death. And Moravia is still at it, having by this time convinced both himself and many of his readers that he was always a valiant anti‐Fascist—though, in fact, he managed to do fairly well under Mussolini, until Nazi pressures made his life as a member of a Jewish family absolutely impossible.
Yet even at this moment, we are more likely to think of Calvino than of Moravia if we think of the Italian novel at all. But toward the close of the forties, “The Woman of Rome” achieved a spectacular success, and many critics were persuaded that he stood somehow at the centre of the Italian scene. Not very long after that moment, I myself decided that I would have to come to terms with him, or at least with the problem of his reputation, even though I remained deeply ambivalent about his worth as a writer. But when I discussed my project with an Italian friend, an eminent professor and critic who shall remain nameless here for fear of the evil eye, I was disconcerted by the initial response. “Good,” said my friend and presumably Moravia's. “Tear him to pieces. His wife will love it.” At which point, we both seemed on the verge of becoming characters in a Moravia story.
And how could I go on with my project, once aware that getting close enough to deal with Moravia's novels meant running that comic risk. Yet I kept reading the fiction even after I had decided I would not write about him. Or at least I thought of myself as continuing to read it. But when recently I opened “Two,” I became aware that I had not really read any major effort of his for nearly a decade.
It seems hardly to matter, however; for here he is 10 years later dealing in his new “phallic” novel with the basic themes which have obsessed him since “Conjugal Love” at least: Art and Sex, Sublimation and Desublirnation, Male and Female. He is so exclusively concerned in his fiction with sex, Moravia has assured us, because only in their sex‐lives do super urban men still inhabit “nature,” and only in “nature” are we all one. This, surely, is the essential clue to what motivates Moravia as a writer.
“Two” deals with the rather inconsequential adventures, and the over subtle reflections on those adventures, of a second‐rate screenwriter who finds himself bound to an aging and unattractive wife and a less and less rewarding career. He feels he has been condemned to both by his recalcitrant and unruly flesh, and that if he could only “sublimate” his sexual drives he would become one of the rulers and heroes of the world rather than the schlemiel and victim he is. He hopes that once “sublimated,” he will be able to direct as well as write a revolutionary film, financed by a group of wealthy and supercilious young Maoists; but in the end, he is shamed and humiliated by them, overwhelmed by his indomitable phallus with which he conducts a dialogue throughout. At the book's close, he returns to his despised but somehow still desired wife. “She looked at me, looked down, saw ‘him’ and then, without saying a word, put out her hand to take hold of ‘him,’ as one might take hold of a donkey's halter to make it move. Then she turned her back to me, pulling ‘him’ in behind her, and, with ‘him,’ me. She went into the flat; ‘he’ went behind her; I followed them both.”
Moravia has remained a half-hearted (and until the present book fundamentally genteel) pornographer because he wants to be a popular writer without ceasing to be a sophisticated city dweller. But sex, as he understands it, is too abstract to be mythological; and his venture is therefore doomed. Yet it is hard not to admire the dogged way in which he has kept trying to make his essentially abstract concerns seem actual flesh and blood. In “Two,” however, he finally abandons even the pretence that what intrigues him is dialogue between human beings; since his scenario writer—obsessed with the notion that only “desublimated” men succeed in the world, but forever the slave of his swollen super phallus—can talk to no one who does not share his distended skin. And with him, the secret is out: what has always concerned Moravia is the dialogue within the single self between Mind and Body, Spirit and Flesh, Ego and Id, or, as he puts this time around, between a Man and his Penis.
Moravia's latest novel thus seems rather more technically innovative than his earlier works, for he feels obliged to make his “phallic” antagonist at least as articulate and witty as the failed artist who is his protagonist. But, of course, a similar device was employed in a similar way long before. Moravia invents nothing ever, only recapitulates; and here he turns out to be doing variations on the theme somewhat more ingeniously, though less pretentiously, handled some 200 years ago by Diderot in “Les Bijoux Indiscrets.”
Finally, however, what remains in the mind out of Moravia's books are not his attempts at translating art and politics downward in sexual metaphors, as he has done in “Two,” “Conjugal Love” and that especially disheartening travesty of anti‐Fascists in exile, “The Conformist.” Nor is it even his pose of rendering “realistically” the surfaces of popular life, as in “The Woman of Rome.” What continues to haunt us is the nostalgia and melancholy of the fiction in which he renders frankly the dialogue within — as in “The Woman of Rome.” What continues to haunt us is the nostalgia and melancholy of the novelette, “Agostino,” and even earlier short stories like “A Sick Boy's Winter.” In these, we hear the authentic, the inward Moravian voice, which speaks always in the plaintive tones of a sickly, mother‐obsessed bourgeois boy. If we love rather than respect him, it is for the sake of that boy, who remains alive some place deep within the successful author—despite his pathetic boasts of potency and his even more pathetic ironies at his own expense. One imagines that little Alberto Pincherle, not yet rebaptized “Moravia,” staring forever through the iron grille which separated his family garden from the street, and trying to imagine what life can really be like for all those inscrutable Poor People going about their business Out There.
Moravia may have introduced no new techniques into Italian narrative, and he may remain somehow bafflingly provincial. But whenever he evokes the shame and terror of the European bourgeois looking for Real Life, i.e., his own Unconscious, in an encounter with a prostitute or the seduction of innocence next door, he makes a real contribution to the fiction of our dying century, unforgettable in its own minor way. This is especially true at the start of his career. But even in “Two” what most moves the reader is the humiliation of the failed bourgeois artist at the hands of certain self-styled young Revolutionaries, who may themselves be equally bourgeois yet have at least the advantage of confidence and youth and are possessed by the image of growing up to be Mao Tse‐tung rather than the man with the world's largest penis.
April 20, 2020
چقد خوش گذشت خوندنش،صمیمی و بی‌قید. خوشحالم این نویسنده رو کشف کردم و یه عالمه کتاب دیگه ازش هست که بخونم.
May 27, 2021
Lepe i jednostavne priče.
January 24, 2020
Alberto Moravia è passato di moda (a differenza della moglie Elsa Morante che attraversa un periodo di gloriosa riscoperta) e mi dispiace. La letteratura difatti va soggetta alle mode, ahimé, come tutto il resto. Peccato soprattutto per le sue prime e più famose opere (in vecchiaia si era un poco rimbambito, diventando un erotomane, come capita a non pochi uomini), tra le quali i Racconti Romani. Due volumi, un centinaio abbondante di racconti; tra questi, spiccano alcuni gioielli (Addio alla borgata, Romolo e Remo, Un uomo sfortunato, Scherzi del caldo, Tutto per la famiglia, Perdipiede), altri sono invece molto semplici o addirittura mediocri, ma tutti insieme costituiscono un affresco memorabile: non so quale altro scrittore sia riuscito tanto bene a descrivere una città e i suoi abitanti; soprattutto tenendo conto che questi mille personaggi sono tutti proletari o delinquenti al contrario di Moravia che era un borghese molto benestante, dunque in questa umanità ritratta non c’è nulla di autobiografico e c’è invece tutta la maestria del vero scrittore che sa osservare e sa mettersi nei panni dell’uomo più lontano e diverso da sé per raccontarcelo poi con autenticità, umorismo, vivacità e saggezza insieme, e con uno stile inimitabile che non annoia mai.
December 23, 2016
Come "Racconti Romani", anche questo è un classico obbligatorio (nel suo seguito) della narrativa italiana. Dei racconti che coinvolgono la classe proletaria di Roma del dopoguerra. La più parte trascorsi attorno alle borgate. Un umore molto fine, col giudizio di ognuno dei racconti lasciato al lettore.Moravia riesce a trasportare il lettore in Italia in quel periodo dove l'Europa, devastata dalla guerra si stava ancora riprendendo, e dove parecchia gente viveva di espedienti. Eccellente.
November 21, 2021
Bella serie di racconti che presentano brevi ritratti romani. Ho, come sempre, apprezzato la scrittura di Moravia, anche se alla lunga molte delle situazioni e dei personaggi presentati tendono a diventare ripetitivi. Sebbene ciò renda a volte pesante la lettura consecutiva di molti racconti, credo che la raccolta si presti molto bene ad una lettura più "casuale" (ad esempio aprendo il libro a caso e leggendo il primo racconto che si trova).
February 13, 2013
dico solo che ho letto questo libro almeno una decina di volte, scoprendo sempre qualcosa di nuovo.
May 11, 2022
Tutto ciò che c'era di buono in Roman Tales è mostrato anche qui in questa seconda raccolta.
September 6, 2013
Moravia would never stop exposing us as the human beings we are and should be glad to be.
April 9, 2022
تا قبل از خوندن سه داستان آخر، یک امتیاز مدنظرم بود. اما سه داستان آخر کتاب واسم جبران کل کتاب شد.
داستانهای این کتاب خیلی کوتاه، بسیار ساده و عموما بدون غافلگیری‌ان. گاهی شخصیت داستان دست به کار غیرمعمول میزنه و در ادامه‌ی روایت، این کار و شرایط غیرمعمول که از دید شخصیت اول معمولیه روایت میشه، اما همچنان نتونست من رو جذب کنه. همه‌ی داستانها از زبان اول شخص روایت میشن و همگی در شهر رم می‌گذرن.
متوجه شدم که موراویا نویسنده مورد علاقه من نیست و فکر نمیکنم دیگه بهش برگردم.
داستانهای این کتاب خیلی کوتاه، بسیار ساده و عموما بدون غافلگیری‌ان. گاهی شخصیت داستان دست به کار غیرمعمول میزنه و در ادامه‌ی روایت، این کار و شرایط غیرمعمول که از دید شخصیت اول معمولیه روایت میشه، اما همچنان نتونست من رو جذب کنه. همه‌ی داستانها از زبان اول شخص روایت میشن و همگی در شهر رم می‌گذرن.
متوجه شدم که موراویا نویسنده مورد علاقه من نیست و فکر نمیکنم دیگه بهش برگردم.
April 9, 2021
More Roman Tales than I need, but Less Roman Tales than I want!!! There is no decline in quality of the tales from the first volume to this- both are chock full of delicious little stories, some of the most effortlessly compelling writing in Moravia’s oeuvre.
July 5, 2024
I loved to read this and the first Roman Tales before bed every night. I liked the first one better because this set was a little more depressing but still fun and weird little stories reads more like an interesting conversation. Wish there was another volume!
August 7, 2019
和前辑相比“轻”了很多，有时有点像早年的契诃夫
May 17, 2020
Moraviu mám rád, ale toto je nejaké nedopečené. Pripadá mi to ako kniha pre "násťročných".
May 22, 2020
Като цяло много ми харесват, но има едно повторение, което в последните 100 страници вече взе да ми идва в повече. Но има много интересно завъртяни в края истории :)
September 5, 2020
Can’t wait to read more from this author
October 2, 2007
Stories about Romans (usually the common class in post WWII Italy) Brutally honest and funny, tragic comedies, and clever little scenarios. His character development is so fantastic that I'm beginning to think it's not fiction at all. I've never read a Moravia short story and felt let down. Bizarre tales (and some are a bit morbid or risque for the time) whether it's tale about the guy who was hired to spy on his friend's wife, or the star-crossed lovers who plan to drive over the girl's cruel aunt, or the guy who tries to have his co-worker killed only to be saved himself by a dirty street hooker. I love it.
February 4, 2016
Не четете книгата на един дъх. Залъгвайте се с по няколко разказа от време на време, за да не ви задуши едбообразието.
Рим е бедняшки град - и винаги ще остане такъв. Тази книга може да ви помогне да разберете защо. Всичко се крие в хората - съдбите, драмите, далаверите.
Рим е бедняшки град - и винаги ще остане такъв. Тази книга може да ви помогне да разберете защо. Всичко се крие в хората - съдбите, драмите, далаверите.
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July 5, 2016Rýchle, oddychové, ľahké čítanie... Nič otrepané, taká klasika pre nenáročných :)
August 17, 2016
Lower than average.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews