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1934: A Novel

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Moravia's political fable about an Italian anti-Fascist and the frightened, suicide-seeking German girl he encounters on a boat to Capri--the setting of Moravia's Il disprezzo from 1954--was welcomed as one of his finest novels. Stephen Spender for The New York Review of Books commented: "One of the most brilliant strokes in this novel about relations in the Thirties between Italians and Germans is that Moravia never reveals whether his Italian narrator and hero is serious or not, and doubt about the seriousness lies in his being Italian. ... This is the truth of the book: that within the external situation of the Italian Fascist--German Nazi relationship it is impossible to accept as authentic virtually anything people do."

Moravia is not simply painting the portrait of an age but also coming to grips through his art with the great questions of all ages - the erotic, love, death, and the purpose of life. 1934 recapitulates the major themes of his art and at the same time takes us beyond them.

297 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

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About the author

Alberto Moravia

511 books1,194 followers
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle, was one of the leading Italian novelists of the twentieth century whose novels explore matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism. He was also a journalist, playwright, essayist and film critic.
Moravia was an atheist, his writing was marked by its factual, cold, precise style, often depicting the malaise of the bourgeoisie, underpinned by high social and cultural awareness. Moravia believed that writers must, if they were to represent reality, assume a moral position, a clearly conceived political, social, and philosophical attitude, but also that, ultimately, "A writer survives in spite of his beliefs".

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
Profile Image for Steven Godin.
2,778 reviews3,302 followers
August 11, 2022

Is it possible to live in despair and not wish for death?

That's the question the dispirited narrator of Moravia's erotic and psychological mystery ponders over at the start of the novel. Lucio, a twenty-seven-year-old Italian and anti-fascist, believes that despair should not inevitably lead to suicide but be part of the normal condition of man. He wants to make despair intelligent, regulate it like the temperature of a bath, stabilize it at a certain number of degrees, make it comfortable. Little is known of Lucio beforehand, only that he has come to the idyllic Island of Capri, and on the boat trip over he catches the eyes of an adolescent looking young woman with flame red hair, a German, who we know later as Beate Müller. He believes it's love at first sight. She is travelling with her older husband, who may or may not be a brute Nazi, and we would also learn that Beate has a morbid obsession with the suicide pact of the writer Heinrich von Kleist and his beloved Henriette Vogel.

Once settled in the hotel, Lucio simply can't keep away from her, and follows her around waiting for the moment she can free herself from the husband she despises, he even gets to play the voyeur as Beate like Botticelli's Venus walks from the ocean in her birthday suit, whilst Herr Müller passionately takes photographs on the shore. Lucio and Beate never get to share an intimate moment, and have to make do with making love with their eyes. Both feel despair, but for different reasons, they speak little, and leave each other messages within the pages of a Kleist book, and that's when a dark truth is laid bare.

Moravia up to this point really creates an intriguing story as we are never too sure of the motives behind each character, bizarrely he even throws in a side story from an older woman on the island about informers and murder plots during her involvement in the Russian Revolution, leaving the reader dumbfounded, and even more curious than before. What has this got to do with anything? But that's only the start of it, as he ups the complexity and mystery in the second half of the novel, as Beate informs Lucio she is returning to Germany with her husband, and that her twin sister Trude along with their mother will be taking their places. As he doesn't get to see both sisters at the same time (one leaves, the other arrives later) immediately Lucio smells a rat, and believes that Trude is in fact Beate, but soon dismisses this after she has completely the opposite mannerisms and is far more sexually promiscuous and outgoing than the despairing Beate, whom he really loves.

I'm not going to say anymore, only that there are two plot twists in the last third. One I could see coming, the other I couldn't. Although up front it's a sun, sea, sand, and sex conundrum, there is the deeper theme of Nazi Totalitarianism and fascism that that really cranked up the level of interest which led to a thoroughly captivating read. Moravia teases the reader, like how some of the characters tease each other, and like previous novels he isn't afraid to get erotic when need be, and loves to describe the delights of the female form. Ultimately 1934 was an often dazzling consideration of the inability to act and the inability to love in the face of adversity during the dark changes taking place over Europe prior to WW2. 4.5 stars
Profile Image for Melanie.
88 reviews109 followers
May 6, 2008
"She gave an affirmative signal with her eyes, as if to tell me, yes, I had to respond to the salute. Was it an order or a plea? I couldn't have said. Surely, at that moment, it would be an act of complicity at a level far deeper than that of political opportunism. But what most convinced me to act in a fashion so opposed to my convictions was the thought that she was asking me to do it 'for love of her.' Somehow, with that affirmative sign of her eyes and head, she was saying to me: Yes, only for a moment, to please me, become a Fascist."

A moody young man locks eyes with a beautiful young woman. He believes that she's possessed by the same despair that torments him, the despair that he longs to "stabilize" (by which he maybe means "write about it in his novel"). He falls in love instantly (as the moody young men so often do), but the woman is on holiday with her husband, and so the two embark upon a bizarre courtship consisting of glances, stares, and underlined passages of Nietzsche.

In general, I have little tolerance for the moody young men and their infatuations, and I tire quickly of the breathless descriptions of the stunning creatures that so captivate them. But this book is so much more than that--what begins as a coup de foudre evolves, through Moravia's steady, elegant (and even surprising) storytelling, into an exploration of psychology, desire, and politics in the darkening shadow of fascism. It's very twentieth-century and very modernist in a lot of ways, but it's still surprising and uncomfortably real.

Profile Image for Erik.
Author 6 books77 followers
August 30, 2007
This is not as well known as Moravia's other books, but it is a short elegant meditation on what else but the 20th century itself: a century of destruction driven by a madness no one understood, but which Moravia suggests may be the urge toward suicide. I adore the book. It manages to say so much more than many overbloated examples of so-called "great literature."
Profile Image for عصام.
Author 19 books302 followers
November 18, 2017
مورافيا وميلانكوليا الحياة


-في عام 1934 ثبت (هتلر) دعائم حكمه في ألمانيا النازية بعد صعوده للحكم بسنة، وأنشئت الإذاعة المصرية لأول مرة، وبدأالعالم الألماني (أوتو هان) أولى اكتشافات تصنيع أول قنبلة ذرية، وولد (يوري جاجارين) أول انسان يرى الأرض من الفضاء الخارجي، ودارت أحداث رواية الإيطالي (ألبيرتو مورافيا
Alberto Moravia)
هذه، والتي وضعها في أوائل الثمانينات من نفس القرن، وهذا الذي يعنينا بالتحديد في هذا الريفيو..
في مطلع الرواية يحدثنا الراوي وهو شاب على أعتاب الثلاثينات يخوض قصة حب على شاطئ (كابري) الإيطالية زمن الفاشية، عن تأثره بمعني لوحة (ميلانكوليا
Melencolia I)
العبقرية للرسام الألماني (دورر
Albrecht Dürer)

description

، ويعني اسمها الكآبة، ولكنه يحدثنا عن الظلال ونظرة الرجل المجنح والوطواط المقبض، ولا يشير لمربع الكآبة السحري فوق رأس الرجل، ذلك المربع الذي يشبه لعبة السودوكو اليابانية الذي يساوي حاصل جمع أضلاعه رقم ثابت، وكان هذا الرقم بعد بحثي رقم 34.. حسنًا ألا يوحي لكم الرقم بشئ يتعلق بعنوان وزمن الرواية؟
على أن الهدف الأكبر كان الكآبة ذاتها، إذ أن شخصية البطل (لوسيو) تعتبر التعايش مع اليأس حقيقة لا مفر منها، وأكثر أفضلية ممكنة هو أن تحيا مع اليأس دون انتحار، بل وأكبر من ذلك أسلوب (مورافيا) ذاته عبر جل أعماله، يعني ببحث فكرة اليأس والقنوط..
تبدأ الأحداث بشخصيات عجيبة ومتناقضة، لدينا (لوسيو) الروائي والمترجم اليائس ورغم ذلك الباحث عن الحب، و(موللر) الألماني الذي يغار على زوجته دون أن يعترض على تقرب (لوسيو) منها، والزوجة التي تبادل (لوسيو) النظرات اليائسة الحانية العميقة والواعدة بالإغراء والتقارب، دون أن تقدم على ما يدل بالفعل على أنها تنوي تحقيق الحب الكازانوفي لـ (لوسيو).. تمر أيام من الغموض يتخللها لقاء على الشاطئ، يصور فيه الزوج (بيت) عارية تماما، أمام أعين (لوسيو) دون أن ينهره.. بل يدعوه لمشاركتهما والتقاط صورة لـ (بيت) إعجابا بجمالها..!


هل يمكن أن يعيش الإنسان يائسًا دون أن يتمنى الموت؟

ليس هذا مجرد عنوان ثان للريفيو، بل أطروحة بطل الرواية الأساسية طوال الوقت، والتي لا يكف عن تكرارها بلا كلل أو ملل، حتى صارت مشروع خاص به..

رواية اليوم للروائي الإيطالي ألبيرتو مورافيا (اسمه الاصليّ:ألبيرتو بنكيرلي) وهو كما يعرف بعضكم كاتب إيطالي ولد في روما سنة 1907 م وتوفى في 26 سبتمبر سنة 1990 في مدينة روما التي عاش فيها جل حياته. يعتبر من أشهر كتاب إيطاليا في القرن العشرين, وهو يكتب بالإيطالية ويتكلم اللغتين الإنجليزية والفرنسية ولد في عائلة ثريّة من الطّبقة الوسطى. أبوه اليهوديّ كارلو كان رساما ومهندسا وامّه الكاثوليكيّة كانت تدعى تيريزا ليجيانا. لم ينه ألبيرتو دراسته لانّه اصيب بالسلّ الذي أقعده في
الفراش لخمس سنوات ممّا جعله يحب المطالعة. في سنة 1929 كتب مورافيا أوّل مؤلفاته Gli Indifferenti
ثمّ بدأ حياته المهنيّة ككاتب في مجلّة 900 حيث كتب أوّل قصصه القصيرة.

في هذه الرواية التي أنهيتها في أيام عدة مؤخرا بسبب بطء ايقاع الأحداث وليس الطول، بترجمة (محمد عبد المنعم جلال) عبر إصدار دار (الهلال) عدد يناير 1989.. نري قصة تدور في (إيطاليا) الفاشية زمن منتصف الثلاثينات، حيث اليأس الإنساني العميق الذي أعقب الحرب العالمية الأولى، وصعود النازية وتزايد حالات الإنتحار..

(التالي شرح لأحداث النص)

توفي (مورافيا) سنة 1990 في مدينة روما بعد حياة حافلة بالإبداع والإنجازات، وتحولت غالبية رواياته الى أفلام، لم أجد لهذه الرواية فيلم، وهذا ربما لأنها ليست أشهر من بقية أعماله المهمة مثل:

زمن اللامبالاة
(Time of Indifference)
: وهي روايته الأولى اللي كتبها ونشرت سنة 1929 م ويناول فيها الفلسفة الوجودية .
السأم: وهي رواية حازت على أكبر جائزة أدبية في إيطاليا (جائزة فيارجيو).
المرأتان: نشرت سنة 1947 م. تصور معاناة امرأة وابنتها في ظل الحرب.
وبالطبع درته "الاحتقار": رواية تصور حياة اجتماعية جرت وقائعها في إيطاليا بين زوجين تفاوتت ثقافتهما فأدت إلى تحطم حياتهما العاطفية.

رواية (1934) إيطالية بامتياز، حب ورومانسية وخداع وموت، وتقييمي لها جاء منخفضا بسبب انعدام المتعة تقريبا، وإن كان العمل نفسه شاهد حقيقي على العصر..
Profile Image for Guru Jad.
124 reviews14 followers
August 18, 2020
إنها حماقة أن يسيطر اليأس على الانسان، و في اعتقادي إن اليأس نفسه خطيئة، و لست واثقاً انني أفكر باليأس أو أؤمن به ، هناك في الحياة أفراد يعيشون للتفكير في اليأس، دعهم يفكروا فيه هم، أما أنت أايها العجوز فلقد خلقت لتكون صياداً عظيماً. (إرنست همنغواي)
لكننا نتكلم عن "الإنسان" – وهو مخلوق غير كامل.. معرّض للتيه والضلال والتعب وغلبة المشاعر والهموم.. – وهو مخلوق إجتماعي.. يتماهى مع مجريات عصره وظروف حالة مدينته وزمانه بما فيه من حروب وكوارث وأهوال وموت.. فهل يعيبهُ اليأس الذي لا فرار منه؟! وهل تجعله فكرة الإنتحار أقل إنسانية من غيره؟
يحتلّ اليأس في حياتنا مكانةً مشبوهة.. يزاورها المرء خفية وعلى إستيحاء.. فمن الناس من يعتبره عيباً لا يجب تأكيده .. ومنهم من يرونه حالة شيطانية تستحق التعوّذ.. ومنهم من يحرّمه عبر ربطه باليأس من الخالق .. فترى اليائس مثقلاً بهمّ فوق همّه من تبعيات مشاعره ومشاعر أقرانه ومجتمعه ودينه
ولكن لماذا هذا الرعب من اليأس والتهويل حوله؟ لماذا لا يُعتبر كمثله مثل غيره من المشاعر التي لا تتحقق سوى بوجود نقيضها في الحيّز الشعوري؟ فهل تعظيم الأمل والترغيب به يقوم على التقليل من فلسفة اليأس بالترهيب منه؟! إن التاريخ البشري عبر التاريخ لم يلغِ اليأس ليبثّ الأمل – بل نظرة عابرة لما سبق ونظرة شاملة إلى اليوم تُبدي أن الثاني قد يكون وليد الأول.. كم أُمّة سُحقت في التاريخ وكم من مدينةٍ هُدّمت على رؤوس قانطيها وكم من مجزرةٍ حصلت وكم من كارثة كونية زلزلت الأرض... ويعود الإنسان كما كان.. يبني ويعيد ويستمر ويكمل.. لأن هذا أمرٌ في تكوينه
رواية 1934 تتحدث عن اليأس ورغبة في الإنتحار.. وعن قصة حب وعلاقة جسدية.. وعن حيثيات رجل عاش كل هذا في جوٍ من الغرابة والغموض.. جوّ يتكشف له لاحقاً زيفه وباطنه الأصلي المخادع الذي جعل منه – برأيي – مغفلاً تاهاً في يأسه وبحثه عن اليائسين والحب المستحيل ووو
ويمكن القول أيضاً أن رواية 1934 لا تتكلم عن اليأس ورغبة في الإنتحار.. بل عن الأمل في البحث عن شيءٍ نُفرغُ فيه طاقاتنا وأحلامنا.. فمن يحب لا يعرف اليأس ومن يريد أن يموت مع حبيبته لا يكون مستشاره الكآبه.. هو فقط زمن خلا كثيراً من مفعلّات الحقائق فاختزل الناس أحوالهم أحلاماً .. ولا ريثما للأحلام أن تتبدل وتتغير وتتمحور وتصبح واقعاً مغايراً ومعاشاً

Profile Image for Bob.
101 reviews10 followers
July 30, 2008
A book in which there will be some trivial action, followed by the narrator/protagonist thinking: it could mean this, or it could mean that, or it could mean some other thing, and maybe I should do this, or maybe I should do that, or maybe I should do some other thing, and if I did that, it might result in this, or it might result in that... and so on until the next trivial action occurs. Which makes it sound more boring than it seemed in the beginning and less boring than it was toward the end.

The book is a love story, but you don't know between whom until the very end. Kinda reminded me of Pirandello, except, instead of the characters being in search of an author, the author seemed to be in search of his characters.

Moravia's style is one in which I think it's crucial to feel an identification with either one of the characters or the situation as a whole to not be oppressed by the amount of psychological surmising that goes on. In this case, the situation appears to be one of "love at first sight." There is also the issue of what is our true self vs. what is our persona. Right there is the first complication: when we fall in love at first sight, are we falling in love with the person, or with their persona? And are they attracted to who we really are or who we seem to be? If such questions interest you, then you may well enjoy this book. If not, then you may well find it excruciatingly tedious.
Profile Image for Dirgham lon.
87 reviews2 followers
April 7, 2020
#ريفيو_كتاب
#رواية_1934
#البرتو_مورافيا
#عدد_الصفحات_256
هل من الممكن ان تعيش في يأس و لا تتوق الى الموت؟
أفتتاحية الرواية تدل على يأس بطل الرواية
وهو كاتب و شاعر و مترجم روايات في نفس الوقت يذهب برحلة الى جزيرة كابري في أيطاليا
عن طريق البحر و في طريقه يلتقي بفتاة متزوجه
ولكن من نظراتها له يشعل فتيل الحب في قلب الكاتب ويتبادلون النظرات و ينزل في نفس البنسيون اللذي تسكن فيه مع زوجها و يحاول التشبث بأمل الحياة و طرد اليأس من حياته من خلال تعلقه بحبها .
من خلال يأسه و عذاباته يحاول كتابة رواية و أختزال عذاباته فيها لكن تجري عليه أحداث متشابكة من خلال شخصيات الرواية .
أجمل ما في الرواية تشابك الشخصيات و أختلاف القصص بها و البرتو من خلال ذكائه تلاعب بعقل القارئ للحظه أحسست بالملل من الرواية لكن بمتابعة الأحداث و تشوقت لمعرفة نهايتها رواية ممتعه
#أقتباسات
-أن تركت نفسك تتحرر، فأن كل شئ سوف يكون سهلاً
-أن الأمل في عالم أفضل هو مجردخداع او وهم
-ليس هناك اكثر اصالة من اليأس في أوقات الدكتاتورية المرعبة
-أن المشاكل تبداء مع الأمل و من يعيش على الأمل يموت يأساً
Profile Image for Ruby La Belva.
702 reviews155 followers
December 31, 2017
geniale sia la costruzione della storia incentrata sul triangolo amoroso ,i personaggi che sono pragmatici e hanno un ruolo ben definito o quasi ?
L ambientazione è meravigliosa : Capri il sole il mare ,descritte in modo eccelso.
Anche in questo romanzo è presente l aspetto erotico descritto magistralmente senza scadere nel volgare .
ve lo stra consiglio
Profile Image for Shahrazad.
Author 5 books2 followers
January 12, 2015
اذا في كاتب بنافس باولو كويلو بالانحطاط والسخافة فهو ألبيرتو مورافيا


قرات هاي الرواية زمان اليوم تذكرت اسمها
فما رح اوفيها حقها بالبهدلة
نسيت معظم الاحداث بس متذكرة قديش كانت سخيفة
Profile Image for Denis.
Author 5 books30 followers
August 15, 2017
I am very familiar with movies like The Conformist or Contempt, both adapted from novels by Alberto Moravia, and actually the name of Moravia has always been on my radar as one of Italy’s most famous writers of the last century (when he seems to be less celebrated here in the US), but I had never read his work until now. 1934 is one of his latest novels: it was published in 1982. Is it a good way to enter the world of the prolific author, who has written some other titles which are today considered as classics? I have no idea, but it certainly gave me the desire to read his other books, so it worked pretty well for me. 1934 – which, surprise, takes place in 1934 – is a beguiling, strange, and intricate fable that takes many faces as it develops, and that gets deeper and more complex at each turn. Julio is a young antifascist wannabe writer who wonders how to find a balance between his inner despair and his will to live. He meets, on the island of Capri, a mysterious, married German woman who oozes intense morbidity, and then later, he encounters, her twin sister, who couldn’t be more different. Slowly but surely, he is caught in a bizarre game of mirrors heated by mounting desires, where nothing is really ever what it seems to be. The erotic element that, from what I know, is present in most of Moravia’s books, definitely plays an essential role in the story, but I felt that it is, for the writer, mostly a pretext to explore subtle interrogations about the human psyche, interrogations that, under his gaze, hide within each other like Russian dolls. 1934 is a meditative, ironic, yet quite serious rumination on the ambiguous ties between love and death, love and politics in uncertain times, physical lust and psychological attraction. The more Julio is infatuated (and obsessed with his infatuation), the more he is assailed by questions and by doubts. Mysteries appear, which may be real or just creations of his ebullient imagination: they fabricate a vertiginous landscape of shifting emotions that finds their reflection in the gorgeous landscape of Capri in Summer. What is factual and true, what is imaginary and fake? Is love actually ever genuine, or is it a pure construction of the intellect? How can metaphysical despair coincide with the different aspects of love, and is death an inevitable consequence of absolute love? What roles do political choices – especially when those choices can be as dramatic as espousing fascism – play in the realm of desires? Moravia raises all those questions in an alluring, amused way, and if he never gives straight answers, he does investigate with cunning intelligence and intellectual agility all the various and possible replies that percolate through the narrator’s mind. Literary references (the iconic German writer Kleist, who met with a tragic fate, is one of the beating heart of the story) abound, and they add a rich layer of thoughtful and provocative speculation to the already rich content of the book. Yet, at the very same time, 1934 does read as a suspenseful, almost playful, novel of seduction. Obviously, Moravia was still at the top of his game at 75. Discovering 1934 now was a delight.
Profile Image for David Partikian.
314 reviews30 followers
March 19, 2023
After a very long moment, I thought: It’s all bad literature; and precisely because it’s bad literature, I, as a very bad man of letters that I am, cannot draw back. Farewell, life, farewell.
--Alberto Moravia 1934

To be blunt: 1934 is not one of Alberto Moravia’s better efforts. Laden with allusion and homage to Dostoyevsky’s The Double, 1934 is tedious, right down to the title; the book appears in English translation, 1983, about a year before the one alluded to in Orwell’s glimpse into a dystopian future.* 1934 is the year of the Night of Long Knives, when Hitler and the National Socialists cemented their power with a murderous rampage. So, what does all this have to do with Moravia’s nostalgic and acerbic look back on pre-World War II fascism and the bonds between Germans and Italians? It beats the hell out of me. The allusions are so numerous and convoluted that I was as confused as the poor, extremely unlikeable narrator.

Lucio, the young protagonist, is an idle man, funded by his father. Like most idle intellectuals, he is left way to much time to think and, inevitably, fancies himself “in despair.” Why exactly? The reader is never informed. Perhaps it’s because he can sense the tragic trajectory of his country under fascism, but perhaps it’s just because he has too much time to think and immerses himself in the literature of suicides like Kleist and miserable Übermenschen like Nietzsche. And, would the book be complete without a nod to Werther in the penultimate chapter? The reader could save him or herself nearly 200 pages of grief if only Lucio had accepted his own intellectual realization early in the novel: When someone is really in despair, he doesn’t write a novel about suicide; he kills himself. (pg. 75).

Instead of realizing the perspicacity of this epiphany, Lucio allows himself to be seduced by a German actress who, impersonating an identical twin sister, plays two diametrically opposing roles. The plot is preposterous. Even Lucio manages to acknowledge as much after realizing he has been duped.

It's only Moravia’s skill as a novelist that kept me from throwing 1934 down in disgust. Moravia, ever the anti-fascist, held my attention long enough to get through this work because the nostalgic idyllic scenes on Capri interspersed with the seemingly innocuous fascism of German tourists enabled me to glean something about an actual era and locale, despite the absurdity of the plot and a distaste for the protagonist.



*Of course, the original title of Orwell’s work was 1948 alluding to a future that was all too near when the book appeared in 1947. Orwell’s publisher made him change the title, so Orwell swapped the final to digits.
Profile Image for Francesca.
18 reviews5 followers
July 17, 2024
All'inizio della lettura, a questo libro non avrei dato più di tre stelle, perchè fino alla fine non riuscivo a capire dove voleva parare. La storia per la maggior parte del libro mi sembrava monotona e ripetitiva ma quando ho capito, nelle ultime cento pagine che tutto ciò che io e il protagonista stavamo vivendo era una gigantesca illusione, o come si dice nel libro 'uno scherzo', ho capito la maestosità e la complessità di questo libro.
La Storia, quella con la S maiuscola che terrorizza e appiattisce le masse entra nella narrazione e si fonde con il romanzesco attraverso il tema del suicidio, dell'amore platonico e l'emulazione dei classici e soprattutto con il tema della disperazione.
'Si può vivere nella disperazione senza sperare nella morte?' è la frase chiave di tutta la narrazione, che alla fine ci fa capire come questo sia il sentimento di quei pochi, che coscenti di cosa sia il terrore dittatoriale, hanno quella speranza tipicamente umana verso l'avvenire futuro.

Questo libro, comprato a caso una domenica d'autunno a un mercatino vintage è stato da me scelto solo per la bella copertina e per l'autore (lo ammetto), ma la forza con cui questo libro mi ha scelta è incredibile: in un momento in cui la mia fede per la letteratura stava sbiadendo e in cui la mia passione per la storia veniva da me ingiustamente dimenticata, questo libro mi ha inondata di entrambe, facendomi ricordare chi sono attraverso le due cose che più mi tengono in vita.
Profile Image for Marta Vila.
Author 8 books27 followers
January 29, 2018
¿Es posible sentir desesperación y no desear la muerte?
en 1934, Lucio, un joven escritor italiano, especialista en Kleist, llega a Capri con la idea de estabilizar la desesperación y así mantener intacto el deseo de vivir. En Anacapri se encuentra con Beate, una joven alemana, casada con un hombre mayor que ella y con la que Lucio siente una conexión inmediata. Sin hablarse y a través de miradas y mensajes en libros, Beate le propone llevar a cabo un suicidio a dos…
1934 no es uno de los libros más conocidos de Alberto Moravia y sin duda es muy interesante. Todo sucede en esos días de estancia en Capri, en 1934, en un contexto de desesperación y desesperanza moral. El fascismo y el nazismo con su vitalismo y exaltación histérico-fanáticas están bien presentes, encarnados en Trude, Alois y frente a estos el espiritualismo, introspección y por qué no, escepticismo nihilista de Lucio y Beate, seducidos por la idea del suicidio.
Si sumamos las reflexiones en torno al tema del doble, la ambigüedad moral, los estereotipos nacionales y la relación Alemania-Italia en esos años treinta… y las sorpresas hasta el final de la trama… es una lectura que, sin duda, vale mucho la pena.
Profile Image for Hadia der.
3 reviews
December 5, 2020
never thought of how tense the relations between Italians and germans mid 30s were this novel gave me a beautiful view of it through two overwhelmingly complicated characters Beate and Lucio, who happens to suffer both from the acknowledgement of despair and it’s impact on each nevertheless they shared different reasons that lead to the latter.
i wouldn’t call beate necessarily suicidal in fact she was scared of death and undeniably the one that sparked hope the most among the rest she just happened to be born in indifferent state that goes against her beliefs so the process of trying to fit in caused her everything and what’s easier than death to escape it all.
she couldn’t bare the change so she created a false reality of her own which came with a price.
however rushing events by the end after building such a tense curiosity in the readers mind made me feel like he didn’t really care about the reader’s feelings or maybe that’s how things are supposed to go either way i’m ready to go obsess over a new novel of his
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Ari.
560 reviews4 followers
February 8, 2023
This is obviously so called better literature. Which in this case meant "a bit boring".

Moravia is known as one of the many writers banned by the catholic church - based on his descriptions of sexuality.
But if you expect something arousing and stimulating, be ready to be disappointed. There is sex but it can't be rated even with a small x nowadays. Very tame and safe.

A story about an Italian intellectual who feels desperation without a valid reason or even knowing why. Goes back and forth with his thoughts of making a suicide or how to avoid it. Meeting a married woman with similar thoughts at Capri and ending with a peculiar affair with her and her "sister", who has a lesbian lover.
Very daring? Perhaps in Italy 1982 when this was published.

A lot of speculation and rumination, not so much action of any kind. A novel in slow motion.

1934
Tammi 1984
Profile Image for Tex-49.
730 reviews60 followers
September 1, 2021
Valutazione 3 stelle e mezzo.
Romanzo piuttosto pesante nella prima parte, che però migliora poi e avvince per il gioco degli specchi fra i vari personaggi, reali o meno; c'è qualcosa di pirandelliano nella trama. La disperazione del protagonista sembra un po' una posa, meno vera di altre disperazioni. Il finale è poco prevedibile.
29 reviews
January 8, 2025
Romanzo molto particolare, un voluto o non voluto richiamo del Romanticismo, mescolato e aggiornato con una trama da noir psicologico. Moravia a tratti gigioneggia, con la parola e con le situazioni. Lo stile è però d'altri tempi, stupefacente: dialoghi e narrazioni non hanno pecche e il periodare è sempre pulito. Impossibile trovarlo scadente.
Profile Image for عمر الحمادي.
Author 7 books702 followers
April 19, 2023
إنها الرواية الأولى التي أقرؤوها للمؤلف وبكل تأكيد لن تكون الأخيرة... لمست في الرواية سلاسة وتركيز مرتفع في تفاصيل الأحداث دون الحاجة إلى إغراق القصة بالشخصيات، نجح في الدخول إلى عالم اليأس والعدمية في ظل الصراعات السياسية في الحقبة الفاشية والنازية من خلال مشهد تمثيلي واحد.

تستحق القراءة
Profile Image for Reija Haapanen.
156 reviews
August 4, 2024
Kirjan kiinnttäminen vuoteen 1934 ja ohuet viittaukset fasismin ja natsismin etenevään voimistumiseen eivät riitä kompensoimaan tyhjänpäiväistä pikarakastumisessa vellomista kymmenien ja kymmenien sivujen pituudelta. Eivät myöskään päälleliimatut kirjalliset maininnat.
Profile Image for Harith Alrashid.
1,031 reviews80 followers
April 16, 2020
اظن ان هذه الرواية من اقل روايات مورافيا ومع ذلك فيها الكثير من المعاني المهمة بالاضافة الى السرد الجميل
Profile Image for Les Dangerfield.
254 reviews
March 22, 2021
Compelling, mysterious, somewhat bizarre.... and set against the dream-like tranquility of 1930s Capri.
6 reviews
July 19, 2021
One of Moravia's best novels. Set against the backdrop of Capri/Anacapri and the rise of the fascist
movement.
Profile Image for Peter Allum.
594 reviews12 followers
June 6, 2020
An Italian intellectual arrives in Capri to write a novel that ends in a suicide. The reason: he lives in despair and plans to avoid the logic of suicide by transferring it to a fictional setting. His life is complicated when, arriving by boat, he meets a mysterious, haunted-looking young German woman, Beate, and her husband. After he falls in love with Beate, questions arise about her real identity and nature.

A compelling read and mysterious. Does Beate exist at all, or is she a protagonist in the novel that the intellectual planned to write? A complex story with much to think about. At times, more an intellectual puzzle than a credible story of real individuals. One clear theme is the pressure for conformity under German fascism in the 1930s and the impact on independent thinkers seeking to resist this conformity.

This is my second Morante novel, after “Contempt”, and it has left me with a strong desire to read more.
Profile Image for Matteo Pazzano.
114 reviews1 follower
October 25, 2020
Amore,morte,guerra,disperazione...speranza
Questi i protagonisti del romanzo,che parte subito a mille con un un'incipit molto profondo e attraente,ma che si appiattisce un po andando avanti. Io lo inserisco comunque nella categoria di libri da leggere di Moravia.
Profile Image for ARoQ.
38 reviews
January 11, 2021
Is it possible for an author to have more than one Magnum Opus? Opei? Certainly I don’t think I can place any work above Moravia’s thoroughly devastating Contempt, but this late career novel left a similar deep impression. 1934 finds Moravia sharpening his many recurring obsessions and themes to a razor sharp point- from the alienated, despairing, indecisive bourgeois protagonist, to the total and complete cruelty and delusion of the fascist state. I found every twist and turn of the unfolding melodrama captivating and dreamlike, leading to a perfectly unthinkable ending that encapsulates all the horrors to come on the world stage. I’ve thought about this book every day since reading it.
Profile Image for Riley Haas.
514 reviews14 followers
January 4, 2017
I have written before about my love-hate relationship with Italian movies. But I can't say that I have had this same experience with Italian literature, at least until now. Until now, I have genuinely liked the few Italian novels and short stories I have gotten my hands on. It seemed to me that what I liked about Italy was the product of the artistic intelligentsia, as opposed to products of the artistic plebs. I may have changed my mind.
One of the unfortunate characteristics of artists with depression is that they assume that everyone is depressed. They write their beliefs large. So we get the protagonist of this novel trying to make a theory out of his own life experience despite the fact that this experience of "life as despair" is wholly subjective (his use of the word "logical" should offend most logicians). But at the same time, artists who suffer with depression do tend to perceive things in a unique and helpful way much of the time. And so some of the value in this novel is the interesting take on life that comes from such a depressive personality.
Unfortunately, Moravia's narrator is entirely too aware. Yes, these are reflections, but Moravia wants us to believe that his narrator initially acted as if he was in some D.H. Lawrence novel; as if he was aware of what he was thinking and doing - and why he was doing it - pretty much all the time. But people are just not that perceptive.
Yes, we could attribute this to the reflection of the narrator himself; we could claim that he added these reflections retroactively. However, Moravia gives us no reasons whatsoever to doubt the narrator's interpretation of his own personal feelings; we only doubt the things around him (as he does).
This is a huge and rather annoying flaw that is only exacerbated by the clunky dialogue that dominates the "Beate" portion of the book. Do people actually talk like this? Maybe it's the translation. The reveal in no way convinces me that the bad dialogue was somehow justified by the real intentions behind the behaviour.
There is a lot to like here: some of Moravia's observations are quite interesting and / or affecting; I am always interested in interpretations of Nietzsche (even if they are romantic ones); and you can't go wrong with using the novel form to show what's wrong with fascism. However, Moravia beats us over the head with both his political points and his plot devices and he apparently does not understand people at some basic level.
Profile Image for Dario Vitale.
38 reviews1 follower
March 10, 2023
Un libro meraviglioso con una scrittura magistrale. Sesso e politica, trattati nella maniera più intrigante e disinvolta, così Moravia ci fa addentrare nella mente e avventura psicologica di Lucio, personaggio impossibile da non amare. Che cos’è la disperazione? Fa parte da sempre della natura dell’essere umano, e non potrà mai essere scacciato. "È possibile vivere nella disperazione e non desiderare la morte?"
Questa è la frase iniziale del romanzo, che viene presentata al lettore senza preamboli né introduzioni. L’obiettivo del giovane intellettuale Lucio è quello non già di superare la sua disperazione esistenziale, cosa che ritiene di non poter fare, ma quello di scrivere un romanzo nel quale il protagonista si suicida, trasferendo le sue sensazioni in un suo alter ego cartaceo. Il romanzo è ambientato nell’anno in cui il potere di Hitler organizza la "Notte dei lunghi coltelli", ossia l’uccisione di tutti gli oppositori del regime. Lucio, intellettuale antifascista, durante una delle sue riflessioni pensa che forse i regimi dittatoriali esistenti in Italia e in Germania siano la vera causa della sua disperazione. Moravia, in questo romanzo, tratta il tema della doppiezza dell’animo umano. Il doppio è rappresentato attraverso le figure di Beate e della sorella gemella Trude; la prima una donna colta e travagliata, che non riesce ad adattarsi alla realtà circostante fatta di violenza e terrore, e che per questo propone a Lucio il suicidio a due, come fecero Kleist ed Enrichetta. L’altra, Trude, è invece conformista, volgare, non colta. La vicenda del romanzo si dipana nell’incertezza: "Chi è Trude?", "Chi è Beate?", interrogativi a cui l’autore non dà una ferma risposta. A volte le due donne si alternano, altre si confondono. Si potrebbe affermare che l’essere umano non potrà mai scacciare da sé la parte grezza e ferina, rappresentata da Trude, neanche quelli che, come Lucio, basano la propria vita sulla cultura. E allora non ci rimane che accettarci come siamo: grezzi e concupiscenti, spirituali ed ascetici nello stesso tempo
Profile Image for محمد العرڨوبي.
98 reviews71 followers
October 5, 2021
حب، موت، حرب، يأس وأمل.
هؤلاء هم أبطال الرواية التي تبدأ بجاذبية وعمق فائقين.

"هل يمكن للمرء أن يعيش في اليأس من غير أن يتمنّى الموت؟"

هذا هو السؤال الذي يثيره الرّاوي المحبط عن مغريات مورافيا النّفسية في بداية الرواية ..
يعتقد "لوشو" الإيطالي، المناهض للفاشيّة أن اليأس لا ينبغي أن يؤدّي حتما إلى الانتحار بل يمكن أن يكون جزءًا من الحالة الطبيعية للإنسان .. إنه يريد أن يجعل من اليأس شيئا ذكيّا، وبالإمكان تنظيمه مثل درجة حرارة المكيّف وتثبيته في إحدى الدرجات، وجعله ملائما..

1934 هو عملية اجترار للأفكار، تأمّل ساخر لكنه جاد للغاية حول الروابط الغامضة بين الحب والموت، والحب والسياسة في أوقات عدم اليقين، والشهوة الجسديّة والانجذاب النّفسي .. كلما كان بطلنا مفتونا، زاد تعرّضه لهجوم الأسئلة والشكوك .. تظهر الألغاز، التي قد تكون حقيقية أو مجرد إبداعات من خياله المفعم بالحيوية: فهي تختلق مشهدا مروّعا من المشاعر المتغيّرة التي تجد انعكاسها في المناظر الطبيعيّة الرائعة لكابري في الصيف .. ما هو الواقعي والحقيقي، ما هو الوهمي والمزيف؟ هل الحب حقيقي على الإطلاق، أم أنه بناء نقي للعقل؟ كيف يمكن لليأس الميتافيزيقي أن يتزامن مع الجوانب المختلفة للحب، وهل الموت نتيجة حتميّة للحب المطلق؟ ما هي الأدوار التي تلعبها الخيارات السياسيّة، خاصة عندما تكون هذه الاختيارات دراماتيكية مثل تبنّي الفاشية في عالم الرغبات؟ يطرح مورافيا كل هذه الأسئلة بطريقة مغرية ومسلية، ولئن لم يقدم إجابات صريحة أبدا، فإنه قد حقق بذكاء ماكر وخفة حركة فكرية في جميع الردود المتنوعة والمحتملة التي تتسرّب إلى عقل الراوي ..

يقدّم الكتاب فكرة أعمق عن الاستبداد النّازي والفاشية وهذا تماما ما رفع مستوى الاهتمام الذي جعل منها قراءة آسرة تماما .. يضايق مورافيا القارئ، مثلما تضايق بعض الشخصيات بعضها البعض، ومثل الروايات السّابقة، لا يخشى مورافيا من إبراز الجانب الإيروتيكي عند الحاجة في أعماله، ولا يتورّع عن الإسهاب في وصف مفاتن الجسد الأنثوي، لكنّ وصفه كالمعتاد، موسوم بالبراعة دون الوقوع في الابتذال .. في نهاية المطاف، كان عام 1934 بمثابة دراسة مبهرة في كثير من الأحيان لعدم القدرة على التصرّف وعدم القدرة على الحب في مواجهة الشدائد في ظلّ التغيّرات التي عصفت بأوروبا قبل الحرب العالمية الثانية ..
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