Bought and sold

by Alberto Moravia

English, Italian (translation)

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

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".

Reviews

[Rosanna]

Da tanto non leggevo Moravia. Il mio primo autore da bambina, quello che ancora oggi preferisco ai vari Volo-Gramellini-e chissà chi altri, bravi a dirti cose come 'quando una donna non ti sorride più vuol dire che non sei più in contatto con la sua anima' (non so se questo scrivono i suddetti ma ci siamo capiti): la banalità del cuore, i bei pensieri esasperati fino a fare proseliti.
Avevo dimenticato la maestria con cui Moravia prende il mio posto di donna, pure a volte strana, parlando per me. La sua capacità di entrare in quest'anima e viversela dal di dentro, senza aver bisogno di osservarla al microscopio parlando con l'amica del cuore. E ne aveva tante di amiche lui, non solo del cuore, a tutte ha carpito non i segreti ma la piccola essenza, attraverso i corpi e gli umori di questi.
34 piccoli racconti al femminile. Figure di donne al limite, ai limiti della e nella loro quotidianità. Belle. Persino belle. Anche belle.

[Encar]

neurosis bien

[Μιχάλης Παπαχατζάκης · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ο Μοράβια περιγράφει μια παρηκμασμένη κοινωνία, παρηκμασμένη και στην κορυφή της, όσον αφορά τα ήθη της. Και πραγματοποιεί κατά μέτωπο επίθεση, μέσω των διηγημάτων και των γυναικείων χαρακτήρων που επέλεξε για να απομυθοποιήσει τελικά αυτήν την φαινομενική σε μας τους πιο κάτω ευδαιμονία. Ίσως κάποιος με καλές γνώσεις ψυχανάλυσης να εκτιμήσει πολύ το βιβλίο αυτό και να εξετάσει την κάθε περίπτωση ξεχωριστά. Στο σύνολό του όμως, κυριαρχεί η αρνητική διάθεση στον αναγνώστη: Καταλαβαίνει ότι υπάρχει πρόβλημα, αλλά δεν βλέπει (όπως και οι γυναίκες των πρωτοπρόσωπων διηγημάτων) κάποια καλή λύση.

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erotic Tales by Alberto Moravia, the outstanding author of the chef d’oeuvre Contempt aka Disprezzo, translated as Ghost at Noon, which sits at 48 on Le Monde’s Top 100 books of The Century, it is also one of the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, The Greatest Books of All Time’s algorithm has it lower than I even deign to put here…nevertheless, it is one of my Top 100 Favorites – you have thousands of reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned and other sites on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... and YouTube channel, where my macaws are of more interest


8 out of 10

Contempt https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... is a magnum opus, and if we are to compare that with Erotic Tales, then the latter would be dismissed, indeed, it is conceivably wrong to come to it with too high expectations, because one would be disappointed, and then there is

Daniel Kahneman, the marvelous Nobel Prize Winner, the only psychologist to have won it, for Economics though, there is no such prize for psychology: he explained Regression to the mean: ‘This phenomenon occurs due to natural variation or chance. For instance, if a student scores exceptionally high or low on a test due to luck, their score is likely to be closer to the average on a retest’ or else, rara avis does not come to sight often
Thinking Fast and Slow is a classic of psychology, and you have this passage in there, along with so much more https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... - Erotic Tales are entertaining, if not on the level of Contempt or Time of Indifference, another masterpiece of Alberto Moravia

It is interesting, if perhaps counterintuitive for me, to find quite a few erotic books rated very highly, included among the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, on The Greatest Books of All Time and other lists – take Anais Nin and her Erotic Tales, which are even more explicit than Alberto Moravia’s https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... I wish I had them as a teenager
Indeed, some of the stories included in this compilation do not even have a sexual connotation, like the one called There’s a Neutron Bomb for Ants Too, in which the narrator is upset because ants eat his honey (or was it jam) and then he sets a newspaper on fire and burns many of them, wondering if they suffer, scream…

The spouse tells him about the chemical solution, but then we have The Voyeur’s Stroll – apparently, there is another book called The Voyeur, close to 200 pages long, by Moravia – wherein we have this personage who watches (the definition of the voyeur) a naked couple, as they come back from taking a swim
Then there is The Hands Around The Neck, the woman wants her spouse to…put his hands around her neck, which reminds me of The Story of O https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... 807th on The Greatest Books of All Time site, this book is really about BDSM, and I wonder…
Would it be published today? On the other hand, it is written by a woman, Pauline Reage, and that means we do not have the fantasies of a man, beating, harassing, hurting his partner, who becomes a sort of slave, except she enjoys this with ardor, she has climaxes with these abusers, and then is that pain…’pain is so close to pleasure’

[Fotini Koumantou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Στην πραγματικότητα, 2.5 αστέρια. Γράψιμο αδιάφορα στεγνό και χαρακτήρες μονοδιάστατοι, κάτω απο μία απαράλλακτη, επί ~35 διηγήματα, αφηγηματική ομπρέλα, η οποία ισοπεδώνει και αφομοιώνει κάθε ηρωίδα. Αν η συλλογή αυτή προοριζόταν για έναν λίβελο της πρώιμης αστικής κοινωνίας, με εστίαση στις εμπειρίες γυναικών, καταλήγει μία ρηχή καρικατούρα της «Γυναίκας» μέσα από το αδαές ανδρικό βλέμμα.

[Raquel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contos interessantes de um enfant terrible da literatura italiana.

[athanasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

ας τα κάνουμε 3.5

[Nabayit Solomon · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice

[Ana Margarida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Histórias de mulheres que caem no “mundanismo”.
Sem julgamento e sem romance.

[José Van Rosmalen · Rating 3 out of 5]

De Italiaanse schrijver Alberto Moravia schreef de verhalen die in deze bundel zijn opgenomen eind jaren zestig van de vorige eeuw. Het zijn 34 korte verhalen die gemeenschappelijk hebben dat ze vrouwelijke hoofdpersonen hebben. De verhalen spelen allemaal in een grootstedelijke omgeving, met name in Rome. Moravia had communistische opvattingen en bekritiseerde de burgerlijke samenleving. Hoewel de verhalen vanuit vrouwelijk perspectief zijn geschreven, heb ik als lezer toch de indruk dat ze met een mannelijke pen zijn geschreven. Vaak gaat het om uiterlijkheden, over de aantrekkelijke vormen, het willen behagen, maar ook om het manipuleren, spelletjes die mensen met elkaar spelen. Ik vind de verhalen zeker nog wel leesbaar. Moravia schreef wat hij ongetwijfeld als moderne verhalen beschouwde, met minirokken, met snelle auto’s, met glamour. Je krijgt al lezend associaties met Italiaanse films uit die jaren. Maar juist omdat ze toen zo modern leken, zijn de verhalen toch niet tijdloos, enigszins gedateerd dus. Daarom geef ik drie sterren. Trefwoorden: Rome, jaren zestig, maatschappelijke rol vrouw.