Alberto Moravia on the subject of L'Ennui

18 octobre 1961
07m 39s
Ref. 00017

Information

Summary :

Conversation with Alberto Moravia regarding his latest novel L'Ennui. The author discusses the subject of his book, the impossibility of owning a human being and the incommunicability between two people.

Media type :
Broadcast date :
18 octobre 1961
Source :
Themes :

Context

The childhood of Alberto Pincherle (1907-1990), known as Alberto Moravia (borrowed from his paternal grandmother's name), is marked by tuberculosis of the bones and eight years of sanatorium, which he takes advantage of to discover literature and to write Time of Indifference (1929), which critics considered to be one of Europe's first existentialist novels, and which brought him success, but also hostility from the fascist regime.

At first, he preferred to get away from Italy for a while to travel with his first wife, writer Elsa Morante. He came back after having published Le Ambizioni Sbagliate (1935), a censored work that led to him being considered as subversive by the authorities, and he hid in the Romanian countryside where his novels take a more social turn, while his political conscience forms and his relationship with the Communist Party intensifies, since he became their European deputy (Agostino, 1944).

After the war and his blacklisting by the church in 1952, Moravia's work became more psychological, and he revelled in dissecting the morals of Romania's upper class society (The Roman Stories, 1954), love between couples (Conjugal Love and Other Stories (1954), made into a film by Godard) and also the frustration of modern day man in an industrial society governed by money and materialism (Boredom, 1960).

Aurélia Caton

Transcription

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.
(Music)