.من و او <> Me and him

More than for ”Me and him”, Moravia is usually known for ”Agostino”, ”La ciociara”, ”Gli indifferenti”, ”L’attenzione” or ”La noia”, because they make you read them in high school. But ”Me and him” is usually a little stunned, despised: it almost seems that it is not even to be considered as literature, nor as a reading-pastime, but something to be a little ashamed of, to hide, as if it were a porn of the worst kind. It is certainly not a 5-star masterpiece but it is certainly a sincere, open, frank book. The ”him” of the title is obviously the protagonist’s penis and the theme of the novel is by no means trivial: how much the sexual impulse influences to the point of ruining it, the artistic and intellectual inspiration of an artist; how much, listening to the advice of his penis, can ruin an artist. The protagonist, Federico, speaks directly with his penis, and his penis replies: if we think that the book came out in 1970 we can imagine the welcome. Federico is an intellectual, a screenwriter who wants to become a director. At some point we discover that he has a double personality, he seems to be talking to himself. In reality we discover that he speaks with ”him”: Federico is watching and ”him” acts, speaks and orders. The result is a crazy story, full of inventions, and a constant dialogue between the protagonist and his overbearing penis. Federico doesn’t want (rationally) believe that Freud is right, that is, all human behavior originates from sexuality, but what happens to him is certainly on this trajectory … With the scrolling of the pages, we realize that the penis is Federico’s consciousness split, not his unconscious, not his alter ego, but with his own well-defined personality. Moravia presents him as a character in his own right, detached from the man, almost a twin with whom he does not get along. Moravia shows us Federico who thinks, reasons, makes hypotheses, makes plans; and then he shows us how ”him” ruins all this rationality and brings it where he wants.
From this role play, funny and often absurd situations arise, poised between the two extremes: Federico and his ”normal” organs on one side and ”him” on the other side, with ”him” almost always winning. Perhaps in the Italy of the 1970s, this view of sex was to be considered scandalous, but who knows what Moravia would say today, with the sex used to sell products, with porn sites within everyone’s reach. I think he would think he saw right: the sexual mania of our era has many (many indeed) points in common with that of Federico. The plot is certainly a little male chauvinist and perhaps men like it more, because we can identify some (some) parallelism. Many situations are unreal, in the sense that they would not be possible in reality, but the added value that Moravia gives to this book, beyond the usual respectable discourses, is to give sex back its literary, playful, superficial, almost fairytale dimension, to be enjoyed without too many intellectual introspections. A book that should certainly be read by everyone, and that will make us see in a slightly different way the ”boring” Moravia of high school.