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A review by screen_memory
Boredom by Alberto Moravia
4.0
The major theme of Moravia's Boredom should need no introduction. The former artist, Dino, defines his boredom as a lack of relation to external things. He claims to have grown bored of his mother and the almost unconditional funds she offers him. He's grown bored of painting, bored of his studio, of his expensive sports car, and he grows immediately bored of his love interest, Cecilia, the former muse of a recently deceased artist whose nude portraiture consisted solely of portraits of Cecilia.
The irony of Dino's boredom, or perhaps the paradox of it all, is that Dino, despite his apparent loss of relation to and interest in certain things, pursues certain of them obsessively. Embarking from the initial delusion of discovering whether or not Cecilia truly loves him, he pursues her as a lover only so that he might grow bored of her after being assured of her love. Further delusions follow from then on: Dino relentlessly stalks Cecilia to confirm whether or not his suspicions of her infidelity are true; he funnels all of the money he receives from his mother into Cecilia's hands after their lovemaking to see if she is as venal as he suspects; he seeks her hand in marriage so that, with the ultimate symbolic affirmation of their love finally won, he might finally grow bored of her.
Dino's boredom is a nauseating sickness characterized by a seemingly fevered desire to regain his relation to external things. He interrogates his mother and Cecilia on separate occasions, seeking a greater understanding of their interior emotional world. Dino's boredom is perhaps nothing like a lack of relation to external things, but rather an obsessive fascination with them, a fascination that cannot be satisfied, moving him to recognize .
It is Cecilia who is truly bored and fails to recognize her total boredom precisely because of her boredom.
She is the muse of all men who she is or has been involved with, all of whom have spent fortunes on her, fortunes she gives away to other lovers, fortunes that might have aided her disabled father and her poor mother in moving out of their austere flat. She has no apparent interest in anything, and she responds to each of Dino's questions with her essentialist tautology: this is this, that is that - "What kind of room?" Dino might ask. "A room with a table, chairs, those sorts of things," she might say. She sees no importance in anything, nor does she see the importance of remembering anything.
She loves Dino for reasons she both cannot describe and doesn't care to describe. She recollects episodes of her past life with no details, no reference to anything, and is only forced to account for her past in her own peculiar way - informed by little to no relation to or recollection of anything - during Dino's recurrent interrogations. Cecilia is bored with her life to the utmost limits of boredom, while Dino fails to realize that he is nauseatingly bound to the things he claims to have resigned from. For fans of more psychological literature.
The irony of Dino's boredom, or perhaps the paradox of it all, is that Dino, despite his apparent loss of relation to and interest in certain things, pursues certain of them obsessively. Embarking from the initial delusion of discovering whether or not Cecilia truly loves him, he pursues her as a lover only so that he might grow bored of her after being assured of her love. Further delusions follow from then on: Dino relentlessly stalks Cecilia to confirm whether or not his suspicions of her infidelity are true; he funnels all of the money he receives from his mother into Cecilia's hands after their lovemaking to see if she is as venal as he suspects; he seeks her hand in marriage so that, with the ultimate symbolic affirmation of their love finally won, he might finally grow bored of her.
Dino's boredom is a nauseating sickness characterized by a seemingly fevered desire to regain his relation to external things. He interrogates his mother and Cecilia on separate occasions, seeking a greater understanding of their interior emotional world. Dino's boredom is perhaps nothing like a lack of relation to external things, but rather an obsessive fascination with them, a fascination that cannot be satisfied, moving him to recognize .
It is Cecilia who is truly bored and fails to recognize her total boredom precisely because of her boredom.
She is the muse of all men who she is or has been involved with, all of whom have spent fortunes on her, fortunes she gives away to other lovers, fortunes that might have aided her disabled father and her poor mother in moving out of their austere flat. She has no apparent interest in anything, and she responds to each of Dino's questions with her essentialist tautology: this is this, that is that - "What kind of room?" Dino might ask. "A room with a table, chairs, those sorts of things," she might say. She sees no importance in anything, nor does she see the importance of remembering anything.
She loves Dino for reasons she both cannot describe and doesn't care to describe. She recollects episodes of her past life with no details, no reference to anything, and is only forced to account for her past in her own peculiar way - informed by little to no relation to or recollection of anything - during Dino's recurrent interrogations. Cecilia is bored with her life to the utmost limits of boredom, while Dino fails to realize that he is nauseatingly bound to the things he claims to have resigned from. For fans of more psychological literature.