Alberto Moravia on the subject of L'Ennui

Pierre Dumayet

We'll begin with The Ennui by the great Italian novelist, Alberto Moravia. Mr. Moravia, who is this character that is bored?

Alberto Moravia

The character that is bored, is a 35 year old painter, an abstract painter.

Pierre Dumayet

Rich?

Alberto Moravia

And at the same time, a very rich upper class man who has turned his back on money because he's under the impression that money keeps him from working and makes him bored.

Pierre Dumayet

He's a bit melancholic?

Alberto Moravia

Melancholic.

Pierre Dumayet

Raging melancholic, you say.

Alberto Moravia

He's a furious melancholic, rather, yes.

Pierre Dumayet

A bit like the Beatniks, a bit more, a bit less.

Alberto Moravia

A bit like the Beatniks, yes, who wants to live like a bohemian while being very rich, driving in a very old car, while being able to buy a beautiful car all along.

Pierre Dumayet

He lives alone?

Alberto Moravia

He lives alone in a studio.

Pierre Dumayet

What's in the studio next door?

Alberto Moravia

In the studio next door, there's an old 65 year old painter, an erotomaniac who is constantly bringing women over and who, recently, is visited quite often by a young 17 year old girl that smiles in the hallway at the painter, the young painter.

Pierre Dumayet

And one day, the old painter dies.

Alberto Moravia

The old painter dies in the arms of the young girl. And right away, she goes to find the young painter in his studio.

Pierre Dumayet

This book is about the relationship between this 35 year old man and this young girl. It's a story about love and a story about boredom at the same time, isn't it?

Alberto Moravia

Yes. The book evolves on two levels: on an ideological level and on an erotic sentimental level. Meaning that on the ideological level, it's the relationship between man and reality, it's the problem of boredom. And its metaphor, its symbol, is the love story.

Pierre Dumayet

This young girl is called Cecilia. Cecilia bores this painter. Why?

Alberto Moravia

She bores the painter because he thinks he possesses her. So since he possesses her, she doesn't exist to him anymore.

Pierre Dumayet

And I must tell you why, at a certain time, she ceases to bore him.

Alberto Moravia

She stops boring him when she starts cheating on him.

Pierre Dumayet

She makes him suffer at that time.

Alberto Moravia

So he's under the impression that he doesn't possess her anymore since she's cheating on him. And at that time, he stops being bored and starts to suffer.

Pierre Dumayet

What does it mean... What does this suffering teach him?

Alberto Moravia

Suffering teaches him that you can't possess someone and that trying to possess someone is a vain search because the object of the possession continually shies away.

Pierre Dumayet

He isn't able to possess her, but what does he do to possess her?

Alberto Moravia

He does three things: he tries to possess her through the physical carnal act, then he tries to possess her by buying her, by giving her money, by drawing her towards money, and, finally, since he's not able to possess her with money, he tries to possess her socially, meaning he tries to turn her into his wife and to introduce her to the society which is his upper class society.

Pierre Dumayet

Why does she refuse?

Alberto Moravia

She doesn't even notice that he tries to possess her because those values through which she could be possessed don't interest her.

Pierre Dumayet

What is meant by the relationship between these two humans? The impossibility of possession?

Alberto Moravia

The impossibility of possession from the man's side, and in general, the incommunicability between two people.

Pierre Dumayet

You cited a phrase by Proust, earlier. You cited it approximately.

Alberto Moravia

Yes, I think that the phrase, it talks about possession and in parentheses, he adds: "In reality, we never possess anyone".

Pierre Dumayet

What, then, is boredom? It's the understanding that you can't possess someone?

Alberto Moravia

Boredom is the understanding that you can't possess someone through the typical means of possession.

Pierre Dumayet

As long as we consider the person as an object, for example?

Alberto Moravia

Yes, as long as we consider the person to be an object, meaning that, as long as we consider someone to be something that's not a goal but a means.

Pierre Dumayet

Why does the man ask... In your novel, why does the man ask his wife so many questions?

Alberto Moravia

Because he loves her. That is to say, he wants to possess her so he asks questions. Knowledge is also a form of possession.

Pierre Dumayet

Asking questions, that helps to possess?

Alberto Moravia

Yes, if you can block someone in something that they cannot escape through a moral judgement, an accusation, a reconstruction of an action, something that blocks the person.

Pierre Dumayet

You ask a lot of questions.

Alberto Moravia

Yes. Personally also, yes.

Pierre Dumayet

In real life also?

Alberto Moravia

Yes, in real life. Sometimes I've asked hundreds of questions to people that interested me.

Pierre Dumayet

Just to know?

Alberto Moravia

To know and for more than knowing, probably to be able to control them.

Pierre Dumayet

And why does the woman always avoid giving a direct answer, in the book of course?

Alberto Moravia

She doesn't give straight answers because, basically, yes, she's an animal, meaning she doesn't answer. She's an animal and at the same time a sort of robot.

Pierre Dumayet

But isn't there a solution to this apparently natural need to possess, according to you?

Alberto Moravia

Yes, there is a solution. It's written in the conclusion. The solution, is the renunc...

Pierre Dumayet

The renunciation.

Alberto Moravia

Of the object and contemplation.

Pierre Dumayet

Renunciation of the object?

Alberto Moravia

Yes. You must give up on the object, so you begin to truly love it and then you contemplate it.

Pierre Dumayet

To possess, you have to give up on possessing?

Alberto Moravia

Yes.

Pierre Dumayet

Does that seem like a truth to you, personally?

Alberto Moravia

Yes, basically, yes. It's a truth for which I have experience and which I think is valid for others as well.

Pierre Dumayet

Practically, what does it mean?

Alberto Moravia

It means respecting... admitting that someone exists outside of ourselves, something exists. Admitting the objective reality outside of ourselves, the person, the human person.

Pierre Dumayet

What type of freedom must one accept in this case to...

Alberto Moravia

You have to accept everything. You have to accept defects, faults, betrayal and even everything that you would disapprove of and then try to fix.

Pierre Dumayet

Is that your moral? Is that your conclusion?

Alberto Moravia

It's what experience has taught me.

Pierre Dumayet

This feeling of boredom, to get back to boredom, does it seem to especially be Italian to you?

Alberto Moravia

No, I think that it's a universal feeling. Boredom, as I said, as I depict it in the book, is being out of touch with reality or incommunicability. But instead it's the modern pain, I think, especially in a world that's industrialised, in the modern industrialised world. I found traces of this boredom, more than traces in America, for example, in the United States. According to my information, we can also find it elsewhere, even in Russia.

Pierre Dumayet

What makes you say that?

Alberto Moravia

Well, information.

Pierre Dumayet

Everywhere then?

Alberto Moravia

Everywhere, yes, anywhere there's industrialised civilisation and what we call technological alienation, meaning alienation due to the fact that man lives in the middle of machines, that he's no longer in contact with nature and he's employed as a means, he's not an end. But of course, it's also a specific case, meaning that you can only describe that which is specific. Art always applies itself to that which is specific. It goes from the specific to the universal.

Pierre Dumayet

It's a general novel. Thank you.