Advantages: A good read, well written and intriguing Disadvantages: Complex themes
...AlbertoMoravia is one of the most important Italian authors of the 20th century. He was a journalist, short story writer and poet as well as a novelist. Later in life he involved himself directly in politics after a life of being a left wing thinker. He suffered from tuberculosis in early life and spent much of his childhood in sanatoriums being deprived or a formal education, which make his literary achievements all the more praiseworthy. His books mainly deal with an exploration of sexuality and the alienation of man in modern society form a left wing perspective. This soon led to many of his books being banned and he himself had to flee from the Fascist authorities.
'The Conformist' is an attempt by Moravia to explain how an extreme ideology can utterly corrupt an ordinary man to become an unthinking unfeeling tool who exists...
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...and average that his situation may prompt some form of self-examination in the reader. At least in this one it did: I found myself looking for—and finding—parallels between Clerici's thoughts and my own, for isn't acceptance at a some level by society something we all crave?
AlbertoMoravia (pseudonym of Alberto Pincherle, 1907-1990), the author of this work, lets us to see the world through Clerici's eyes. Moravia was a remarkably astute and perceptive novelist who could write about a character's innermost thoughts with astonishing clarity and depth. Here he has turned Clerici's mind inside out, and through amazing sleight-of-hand renders you one with the character, and yet able stand apart from him, observing his thoughts and actions with both sympathy and objectivity. The novel presents an utterly simple and straightforward lesson about...
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22.04.2004
28.03.2003
