Contempt is a brilliant and unsettling work by one of the revolutionary masters of modern European literature. All the qualities for which Alberto Moravia is justly famous ~~ his cool clarity of expression, his exacting attention to psychological complexity and social pretension, his still-striking openness about sex—are evident in this story of a failing marriage. Contempt (which was to inspire Jean-Luc Godard’s no-less-celebrated film) is an unflinching examination of desperation and self-deception in the emotional vacuum of modern consumer society.
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While I must acknowledge that this novel is well written, I hated the narrator from very early on and couldn’t get over that. Riccardo Molteni is a self-righteous, pathological overthinker; he is thus, in my eyes, both an unreliable and unlikable narrator.
A lot of this novel is a discussion of the relationship between Odysseus (Ulysses, because—don’t forget—this is an Italian book) and Penelope, and specifically a discussion of modern adaptations of Greek myths. Should one stick to the pure, Homeric form of the myths? Opt for a spectacular, Hollywood retelling? Or is it permissible to explore the psychological side of mythic figures that is not explicitly stated in the source text?
So that part is really fun and interesting!
Also, the plot twist in the last three pages had me SHOOK.
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