Two Women tells of the effect of war and its attendant disruption of the lives of ordinary people - on Cesira, the prosperous widow shopkeeper and on her beloved 17 year old daughter, Rosetta. In a series of unforgettable scenes the author tells, through the mouth of the mother, of hardships, perils, disillusionment and despair - and of the final persistence, in spite of every tribulation, of the good in human nature. This is an intensely moving novel. The author has created in the mother a character so intensely, warmly human, that we share her every thought and deed, her strengths and frailties, her despair and, in the final pages of the book, her hopes reborn.
R**Y
Survival in Italy during the Second World War
An interesting novel that sets out to show the effects of war and how society and accepted standards of behaviour break down. It tells the story of a mother and daughter who are forced to flee from Rome as the Germans and the Allies fight for the control of Italy. Living amongst the peasants is difficult and in the end everything seems to be lost. The characterisation is very sketchy and stereotyped and this reduces the emotional impact of the story.
D**H
Four Stars
A THINKING MAN OR WOMANS BOOK
V**S
Bleakly luminous, extremely well-written and strongly imagined story of two Italian refugees
An astonishing act of imagination. This bleakly luminous Italian refugee war story is told from the point of view of Cesira, a slightly grasping shopkeeper of peasant stock. She flees from Rome with her innocent daughter, vainly seeking refuge from war in the mountains south of the city.The harshly beautiful landscape is marvellously evoked at every turn. There is a particularly lyrical section when Cesira, her daughter, Rosetta, and their only friend, Michele, roam the mountain tops looking for berries and other food.But most of all one remembers the calculating but gradually softening intelligence and limited hopes of Cesira as she struggles to survive. The transformation of her daughter after she is raped is tellingly described, as is the relentless petty greed of most of the villagers in Sant' Eufemia, where Cesira and Rosetta hide for many months.I am surprised that the book is not still in print. It is very well written, extremely realistic and credible. The sensitive 1961 translation by Davidson has stood the test of time.
P**M
Well written book about Italy During WW2
Depressing book.
A**L
Five Stars
Perhaps Moravia's most heart-wrenching work.
R**H
Excellent. Mr
Excellent. Mr. Moravia is superb and I still see Sophia Loren playing the part while reading the novel. Highly recommend Two Women.
R**T
Profound
Two Women is greater than just a novel about someone's experience in a war; it is much more a novel about surviving in the world while faced with the problems of living. Moravia was a deep thinker who looked at the greater meanings of given situations, with many observations that lead to bigger questions. Reading this novel made me think of the song Imagine by John Lennon, and to see that John Lennon and Alberto Moravia were asking somewhat the same question. Except that Moravia answered this, while Lennon did not.
A**D
A classic of world literature
In its richly detailed, nuanced, and utterly moving portrayal of the experience of everyday people amid the calamity of World War II, Two Women is one of the great war novels of all time and one of the twentieth-century's greatest novels. Had Alberto Moravia gone on to win the Nobel Prize that many say he well deserved, I suspect it would have figured largely in the decision. It is certainly not some vapid "antiwar" work, but one that captures human beings and their suffering in all the poignant, painful, often dumb, and even occasionally comic detail that only the finest literature can evoke. Sure, the protagonist we meet in the novel's opening pages is a typical, rather superficial resident of Rome, but she is presented as anything but a stick figure. Is this not the brilliance of Moravia's venture here? To tell the story of war from the perspective of a person who on the one hand is not the sort to generally reflect upon the meaning of life and war, while on the other hand being clearly moved and, indeed, changed by what she has witnessed and experienced?
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