"This is my real crime... I am guilty of indifference...", it was no one else who said this, it was Michelet, the protagonist of "The Indifferent Man".
The Indifferent Man is a classic that has been circulating for nearly a century and has been hailed as the first existentialist novel in Europe.
Its author is alberto Moravia, a famous Italian novelist of the twentieth century, whose works have had a major impact on Italian literature and even in the world literary world, and many films have been made into films.
Moravian is good at using realistic brushwork to trigger the depths of people's hearts through ordinary stories that happen around people. He has written nearly eighteen novels and twelve short story collections in his lifetime, which dissect people's despair and anxiety, explore the value of human social existence, and reveal the absurdity of the world and life.
He argues: "The task of the writer is to reveal how modern man has become a tool to be exploited, not his own ends." ”
"The Indifferent Man" tells the absurd story of a clumsy boy from the bourgeoisie who tries to resist but eventually falls into indifference in the face of a deformed family environment and dirty social relations.
The story takes place in a declining bourgeois family in Italy, where the protagonist Michelet spends all day doing nothing, idle, turning a blind eye to his mother and lover, Leo, a senior employee of the Ministry of Justice, in a long-term abnormal relationship, and later accidentally learning that his sister has also become Leo's lover, and he tries to vent his anger in the face of the deformed relationship between his mother, sister and Leo, but eventually turns a cold eye on it.
During this time, Michelet tried to control himself twice, once in the face of Leo, the anger in his heart could not be contained, throwing ashtrays at him, but accidentally hit his mother.
Another time, it is learned from her lover Lisa that her sister has secretly become Leo's lover in order to change her fate and live a new life, and an angry Michelet is ready to go to Leo for revenge and is determined to kill him.
However, when he bought a pistol and walked to Leo's door, he expected Leo not to be home, so that he did not have to make the choice of shooting or not shooting. Unfortunately, Leo was at home, and seeing the greedy and lustful guy who always made him angry, he didn't have the courage to pick up the pistol, and finally although he pulled the trigger, he forgot to load the bullet inside.
A farce ended in such a mess, and the two opportunities that could have mastered oneself and made choices disappeared. Mikale, who has a cowardly personality, has returned to being the cold and cowardly person he usually is.
Moravia
Moravia sets the story in the context of a specific era, because he lived in the same era as mussolini's regime, which imprisoned people's thoughts and actions.
The whole of Italy is under the oppressive rule of the regime's terror, where everyone is at risk and morally corrupt, and intellectuals are either indifferent to everything or are complicit with the authorities. At that time, people could not find their own value in society, and the spiritual world was deserted.
The protagonist in the novel is such a typical representative, in a deformed and absurd family environment, his thoughts and actions are misplaced. Several attempts to resist and take the initiative to make choices, but because of their own cowardly character, the struggle failed, and in the end there was no escape from the tragedy of fate.
A large number of inner monologues are used in the work to show the inner world of the characters.
For example, on his way to his lover Lisa's house, he hears a tricky ghost saying, "Do you think that when you become a veritable brother, a veritable son, and a veritable lover, when you become like all sentient beings, and truly become a selfish, shrewd mortal, does that mean that you are one step closer to the current situation?" Don't you think that making yourself one of all sentient beings is a sign of cowardice? ”
While he wants to break free and control his own life and choices, he succumbs to reality and society, and can only make a false gesture, which makes his "life a failed comedy".
He can't hate his enemy Leo, and he can't love his lover Lisa for one reason, that is, indifference.
Michelet's life is full of contradictions and pains, he tries to control himself, but each time he finds himself the actor and puppet who is controlled, and has to make a gesture of being at the mercy of others.
He lacks faith, he lacks sincere passion, all he has is indifference, but he cannot find the source of his indifference, and therefore he is more miserable.
"His heartland dried up and became a desert. The Tree of Faith and the Tree of Hope, which could shade the heart, was nowhere to be found, and he could not cool under these two great trees. His soul is hypocritical and despicable, and he finds the same in the souls of others. His eyes, in examining life and himself, always shot out a look of discouragement and impurity. ”
This was his present situation, and the state of the people of the whole of Italy under the rule of the regime at that time. The hypocrisy of the government, the moral decay of the people, everyone is a masked and thoughtless masquerade.
When Moravia created "The Indifferent Man", his tuberculosis had not yet healed, and he was tormented by illness, and in the novel, he not only expressed a kind of uneasiness of his existence, but also melted into his inner feeling of powerlessness and guilt about life.
At the same time, the work truly shows the living conditions of modern people under the Italian fascist rule, as well as the tragic fate of individual existence. In the face of the huge transformation and change of society, the power of the individual is insignificant, and people desperately seek themselves and try to realize their self-worth, but in the end they find nothing.
Loneliness, indifference and madness, as the characters in the novel explore the road to spiritual recovery, may bring us bystanders some inspiration.