Agostino- Freud? It’s you?

Set in a beach village in Italy during the summer, “Agostino” focuses on a 13-year-old boy and explores the loss of youthful innocence and the perplexities of growing up. The central theme in this novel is sexuality and Agostino’s loss of innocence. While reading this book, I could almost imagine Freud sneering at me.

Agostino adores his mother (quite literally) and is thrilled to be in her presence. However, one day she is “taken” away from him by a young man. Agostino was subsequently introduced to a new emotion: jealousy. He spirals into a state of grief and rage at the man, which is appropriate for a young child being exposed to the real world. Later, we see Agostino engaging with a group of boys who mistreat him, but he befriends him; possibly he was in a vulnerable state and needed to be accepted?

However, the most interesting scene was when Agostino met Berto and was peer pressured to smoke. This was an excellent illustration of how Agostino’s childhood was no longer innocent. It was pretty alarming when the adult man arrived after witnessing their fight. I expected him to stop them from smoking, but instead, he split the pack among them and encouraged them to smoke.

But what disturbed me was Agostino’s “friends” portrayal of Agostino’s mother. Agostino hears them and is asked about his mother, and he feels like an object while his mother is the one who is being treated like one. They also teach him about sex, using crude gestures and jokes.I needed to take a minute to myself after reading this section.

Along with sexism, this book emphasises the issue of racism. They treated Homs as inferior.

“Then, to Agostino’s great surprise came a black boy.” (24)

“Agostino decided that at least the black boy wouldn’t beat him” (36)

Overall, the book did a fantastic job showing real-world sexism and racism. This book was simple to read in terms of language, but boy am I happy Sigmund Freud isn’t alive to read it. His theory of the Odeipus complex accurately depicts what is happening in this novel, from Agostino’s sexual possessive sentiments for his mother to his “curiosity” for her–Freud would have enjoyed this.

Question of the Week: If you could,what alternative name would you give this book? Why?