Contempt

by Alberto Moravia, Tim Parks (Introduction), Angus Davidson (Translator)

Overview

Contempt is a brilliant and unsettling work by one of the revolutionary masters of modern European literature. All the qualities for which Alberto Moravia is justly famous—his cool clarity of expression, his exacting attention to psychological complexity and social pretension, his still-striking openness about sex—are evident in this story of a failing marriage. Contempt (which was to inspire Jean-Luc Godard's no-less-celebrated film) is an unflinching examination of desperation and self-deception in the emotional vacuum of modern consumer society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590171226
Publisher:	New York Review Books
Publication date:	09/09/2004
Series:	NYRB Classics Series
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	181,991
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Alberto Moravia (1907–1990) was one of Italy’s greatest twentieth-century writers. Among his best-known books to have appeared in English are Boredom, The Woman of Rome, The Conformist (the basis for Bernardo Bertolucci’s film), Roman Tales, Contempt (the basis for Jean-Luc Godard’s film), and Two Women.

Tim Parks, a novelist, essayist, and translator, is Associate Professor of Literature and Translation at IULM University in Milan. His books include Teach Us to Sit Still: A Skeptic’s Search for Health and Healing and The Server.

Editorial Reviews

Rich in substance and resonant with meaning…a rare achievement.
— The New York Times

Moravia remains one of the twentieth century’s smoothest and most entertaining poets of paralysis, of the genial ennui generated by the triumph of materialism over humane values…his novels offer a bracing counterpoint to today’s soft-hearted and -headed fiction.
— Boston Review

From the Publisher

Published in 1960 and 1954, respectively, these both tell the story of two men obsessed with love or the lack of it. Boredom offers Dino, an artist son of affluent parents who loses interest in his art and then himself until falling for a young model. He will do anything to possess her, even if it destroys him. Contempt's Molteni becomes stricken with the notion that his wife despises him and attempts to discern why. His life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as by the time he is done badgering her to discover the reasons for these imagined ill feelings, she truly does hate him. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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