Bitter Honeymoon and Other Stories

by Alberto Moravia

Bitter Honeymoon and Other Stories

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Italian Literature, Italy, Classics

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

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

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most of his novels, once again Moravia intelligently delves into the complexities of human relationships, but just on a smaller scale.

This collection of eight short stories wasn't bad, but those in Roman Tales were superior I thought. Three of them here stood out for me. One involved two roommates staying at a sanatorium in Austria and the dilemma that faced one of them, while another sees a fresh marriage hit the rocks as soon as the bride voices her opinion on the location of their honeymoon - 'I don't think its the least bit beautiful. I don't like it - no, not at all.' A marriage, we would learn, that is based more on the will to love rather than genuine feelings. As dark storm clouds roll in later on things turn more political.

And also the story of a man who moved away from the city to an idyllic Island after breaking from his mistress, only for their love affair to be reignited, possibly, after she comes to stay. There is a lot of teasing going on. Teasing and contempt. And these themes actually seem to run through most of the stories. A bit like Kundera; although not as bad, Moravia doesn't always treat his women characters too well, and this is possibly the most disgruntled I've known him to be.

I always wondered about his relationship with Elsa Morante, as interestingly the four most bitter stories here were written after they wed and prior to their separation.

I much prefer Moravia the novelist.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eight Stories printed between 1927 and 1952.
Eight Stories with...
The Many Guises of Male and Female :

Honeymooners, In-Love Husband and Estranged Wife, Dissatisfied Mistress and Rejected Man,
Young man and Young/Older women, Hospitalised, both Youth and Younger Girl,
Prostitute and Client, Ageing Mistress and Young Client.
Young Boy and a Cat (?)

The Women bear the Brunt of Descriptive Titles...and "cat" is NOT one of them !!!
But ALL enjoy being the subjects of Moravia's fluid, descriptive, exacting, rich vocabulary and style.
Moravia has style and it is a joy to experience.
Plots drag you in and how situations are resolved keeps your nose buried
as well as the pleasures of expressive language...and an excellent translation.
I boosted this to 5 Stars because I enjoyed the language so much.
I also enjoyed the stories themselves.
Plot and Texture, you might say !

What next??...I wish I had ???......MORE MORAVIA!!! at hand.
Short stories and Novels can be far apart however...using varied and different strategies
because of the lengths expected...imposed??
Daphne du Maurier is an author of Both
and Both hers are at polar extremes.
Thomas Hardy comes to mind as well.

This book may well be out of print
...or more likely only available in Italian, being one of their classic writers.
Nationalism plays a large part in what we find in bookstores.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

yeh I like Moravio, albeit he's a bit macho

[Daniel Polansky]

Italian men of various ages make poor decisions while in love. Well-written and engaging, if fixated on a fairly singular theme.

[Philip Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moravia is the master. Where Lawrence fails in his promise to deliver the female mind, the Italian serves up the sphinx, head and body. Though whether we come away from his writing any the wiser, I am not sure. Certainly we seem to get a lot closer, and Moravia's women are both objects and players in the game of sex, which Lawrence could never accept. Rarely taking us into the bedroom itself, with all the skill of the romantic storyteller he allows his protagonists to dally on the threshold and thus reveal their inner selves. His greatest skill is offering the two viewpoints almost simultaneously, while holding enough back on each to keep the reader puzzling beyond the end.

Of course, the writer’s obsession with penetration is very old hat these days. And there is no deeper questioning of motives, the hunt is accepted for what it is. Men seek to possess women, and women either go along with them or not. The destructiveness of men's obsessions and impulses is made clear, as is the frequent indifference of their quarry. Women, we are led to believe, may be satisfied by the act itself, which suggests a lack of awareness on Moravia’s part; or else a lingering prudishness. Even women essentially selling their company may be put off by a saucy word or find a piquant tale offensive. Writing in the era of Simone de Beauvoir, he seems to take pretty much the same view of equality over difference. That given a level playing field, as it were (ie, a socialist world), inequalities of the sexes would wither away.

In about half of these stories, older women who have lived off men as mistresses come to an existential crisis. In the others, illness, war or politics has brought matters to a head. Until the final - title story - the reader unfamiliar with Moravia's work might believe him to be a bit of a misogynist. Women's indifference to the outside world seems to be endemic: a silk scarf, a bagful of cash and jewellery, or a pretty house in the countryside their only aim. But Bitter Honeymoon itself pins a notice to the wall. Woke females (to use a 21st century expression) exist. They may be possessed, but only at the risk of betraying a man's secrets. These secrets may be a prurient interest in women as objects of desire and pleasure, a dwindling income, or a fascist past. You may not learn more about women – or men – by reading this stories, but you will get closer to them; and, if such a thing interests you, get to eavesdrop on their intimacies.

[Tanya Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The introduction to the edition I have of this collection of Alberto Moravia’s collection of short stories, characterises their unifying theme as being that of the “ravages of love,” and I think that’s true not just to the ugliness to come out of it, but also to the ugliness within it. Each of the lovers in Moravia’s stories possess a sort of contempt towards the object of their desire and there seems to be much of the same contempt returned towards them.

The sensual aspects of the text only serve to heighten this notion in the detailed cataloguing of the physical characteristics of the lover, and their desirability or lack thereof in a paradoxical sense. This assessment extends beyond the physical as the narrators of each of these stories attempt to penetrate into the psyche of their lovers with complete conviction, sometimes as a way to push them away, other times as a means to foster any kind of intimacy, but each leading to a maddeningly obsessive yet painfully misleading infatuation.

I also have to appreciate how dedicatedly the landscapes these characters inhabit are delineated in the prose that allow for exploring the ways in which the natural world and their surroundings at large inevitably seep into the mental and physical aspects of these characters and thus play a role in their relationships to each other in terms of where they go and what they do, or what they think of and what they speak of.

Every element within the narration of these short stories comes together to cohesively try and expose “the naked heart” of man, or woman in the case of “The English Officer” though I found it to be the weakest of the eight, as they attempt to enact the same mechanical impulse upon their lovers within each text. Albeit, less successfully.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man jumps headfirst onto a land mine to escape political persecution/end his marriage -- and other such tales. My sort of writer. Second time through, and it still holds up.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

title story is me & my gf

[N Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of 8 short stories. I don't know if it's because Moravia didn't have the time to build up his usual complex psychological portrait, but I just found these depressing with little to provoke thought.

[Kelly]

My husband bought this for me at the renowned Atlantis Books, in Santorini. While we were on our honeymoon.

[YAMAMURA Tsukiko]

Penguin Books,Italian

[Salma Fathey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read 9 years ago .. can't forget how amazing ,, wish to get it as an e-book .. can someone help me ... plss?

[Kathleen]

loved it, bought it