Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Gli Indifferenti – Alberto Moravia



Much like the title suggests, this book has left me completely indifferent. The novel reads like a bad (very bad) soap opera: characters despise each other, pathetically fail to kill each other, pretend (very poorly) to love each other etc. For once, a book set in Fascist Italy that I didn’t like. Actually, not just that: a book whose point (assuming there was one) I completely missed.

Somehow Gli Indifferenti is considered one of the great classics of Italian 20th century literature. Why? I don’t know. If it is, like many critics claim, an acute portrayal of the hypocrisies and problems of the Italian society of the time, I missed it because I was bored to death… Luckily, this is a book that is frequently taught in Italian high-schools, I suspect they are just trying to make sure that those few students who actually enjoy reading end up having any sort of passion for literature beaten out of them at an early age.

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