TWO WOMEN

by Alberto Moravia ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 12, 1958

.... of Rome, a mother and a daughter, leave the city to find personal safety in the country during the war- and to wait for their rescue by the British troops. Donna Cesine, a widow, a shopkeeper, of considerable self-respect as well as shrewd, peasant practicality, is also a devoted mother- and Rosetta, her daughter, has been well-protected over and above her innate and rather exceptional piety and purity. They spend many months in the mountains in hibernation- and comparative isolation, except for their contact with Michele, a young man of anti-Fascist, anti-religious sentiments. Completely indifferent to the outcome of the war- over and above that it should terminate as quickly as possible-life is limited by their one need and one concern- food. Finally the long awaited English advance brings some unexpected results. They leave the village- and in the next one, in a church, Rosetta is raped by a group of Moroccan soldiers. ""Acquiring a taste for what had been imposed on her by force"", she goes on to become the willing whore of any man-the coarse Clorindo, the black marketeer, Rosario, and when Rosario is shot down- Cesine steals his money so that the two of them- one a thief, one a prostitute- make their return to the city..... Far from the intimate sensuality of his earlier books, except in its closing chapters, this is rather a closely particularized documentation of the war in its side effects on those left behind, and it is achieved with irony and an even greater realism.

Pub Date: May 12, 1958

ISBN: 1586420208

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1958

Categories: FICTION