Widely acknowledged as a major voice in contemporary Italian
literature, Alberto Moravia (1907-1990) published more than 30
books in his lifetime. A novelist, short story writer, and
essayist, Moravia is renowned for his exquisite portrayals of the
decadence, shallow values, and obsessions of the sex and money
driven Italian middle class. His first novel, The Time of
Indifference (1929), was an immediate sensation; its descendants,
among them The Conformist, The Empty Canvas, and The Lie,
positioned him firmly as a master of the narrative art, a moralist,
and a realist applauded for his humanism and his powers of
observation, deduction, and analysis. Moravia also explored
characters from the Italian working class in The Woman of Rome, Two
Women, and Roman Tales. Censored in the 1930s and 1940s by both
Mussolini's fascists and the Vatican, Moravia is credited with
developing an Italian literature of existentialism and with placing
Italian literature in a European context. With Alberto Moravia, the
teacher and scholar Thomas Erling Peterson contributes the first
study of the writer to be published since Moravia's death in 1990.
Arguing that Moravia was an intellectual and a craftsman faithful
to his interior life and inspiration while active as a public
figure in Italian society, Peterson presents an accessible,
carefully structured analysis of Moravia's major novels, short
fiction, and essays and his lesser known works of drama, criticism,
and journalism. Approaching his subject textually and contextually,
Peterson offers valuable insights into the times and processes that
motivated Moravia, emphasizing moral issues and defining themes
such as corruption in postwar Italian society, ambiguities of
sexual identity, dilemmas of the alienated artist, and the courage
of women in the Italian proletariat. In an introductory chapter,
Peterson offers helpful biographical information detailing, for
instance, the role of a lengthy childhood illness played in
Moravia's development as a writer and the role Moravia's
antinuclear views played in his decision to become a member of the
European Parliament in 1984. Next, exploring the process of
literary creation as it unfolds book by book, Peterson helps
readers appreciate Moravia's moral constancy and objectivity.
"Moravia (gave) us a diagnosis more than a prognosis," Peterson
states," . . . and provided a critical reference point for other
artists and intellectuals." With this lucid, historically balanced
study, both scholars and students of Italian language and
literature, as well as general readers, have an excellent tool for
approaching Moravia's work. Included are a Preface, a Chronology,
Notes and References, Selected Bibliography, and Index.
General
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