[ book tip by Sonya Davda ] Boredom is something we've all experienced to varying degrees at some point in our lives. This novel explores the theme and takes us to the ultimate depths of what it's like to experience life without any sense of connection to the world or its present reality. Dino, our protagonist, is a failed painter taking us on a journey, searching for some meaning that will give him inspiration to paint again. Unfortunately he feels nothing. He is stuck; motionless in thought and action.  

Then his neighbour, the successful aging painter Balestrieri dies, and a chance meeting with his young model and lover Cecilia develops into an obsession. Initially drawn to her because of the connection to Balestrieri, someone he parallels with, her beauty and elusiveness entice him and drive him to distraction. It becomes his mission to possess her, at first sexually, which fails, then using money to exert his control.   Embroiled in this obsessive love affair, convinced of Cecilia’s infidelity he takes to stalking her. Driven by the desire to uncover and demystify her, Dino makes her into just another object with which he can become bored and therefore cease to be of interest.  

A struggle ensues as he tries to extricate and escape the fate dealt to Balestrieri. Moravia explores themes of money, sexual control, power and boredom with stylish precision. Descriptions of Dino's internal thought patterns can be lengthy at times but justified as his inner turmoil drives the story forward to its final conclusion; a moment worth waiting for.

[ Favourite quote ] 'Anyhow I do not remember ever having loved Cecilia with such violence as I did during the time when I was spying upon her and suspecting her that she was being unfaithful to me. I would throw myself upon her as if she were an enemy whom I wished to tear to pieces, a beloved enemy, however, who in an ambiguous way incited me to do this, and I was hardly ever satisfied with only one embrace. Significantly, the feeling that I had not truly possessed her generally used to assail me at the moment when, fully dressed and after saying good-bye to me, she walked toward the door in order to leave; it was as though her departure suddenly revealed to me, in an entirely physical manner, her unchanging power to withdraw herself from me, to elude me. Then I would pursue her, seize her by the hair and hurl her on the divan, disregarding her protests which in any case were not very energetic, and have her again, just as she was, fully dressed, with her shoes on her feet and her bag on her arm, still with the illusory idea that by having her I could nullify her independence, and her mystery. Immediately after the embrace I realized, of course, that I had not possessed her. But it was too late; Cecilia went away and I knew that the whole thing would begin again next day - the useless watching, the unattainable possession, the final disappointment.'

[ book info ] Moravia, Alberto: Boredom. (original language: English) The New York Review of Books, Italy, 1999 (1960). ISBN: 978 1 59017 121 9.