What a strange fish the distinguished Other Press will present to us this August in the form of the unfinished manuscript of Alberto Moravia’s Two Friends!
The provenance of this brilliant slab of prose reads like an improbable piece of fiction. Sometime in the mid 20th century, Italian novelist Alberto Moravia leaves his house to move to a new one. Thirty years later, an old suitcase is discovered in the basement of AM’s original house. Apparently left undisturbed, it contains an unfinished manuscript from the hand of the winner of Italy’s coveted Strega Prize.
Here fate moves in threes. The suitcase’s unnumbered typewritten pages contain three unfinished versions of the same story about two friends who are also rivals in a vicious subterranean contest for the supremacy of their personal wills. It’s an obsessive conflict to see which friend will conclusively psych-out the other. I know that friendship can be complicated. After all, look what blog I’m on. But these guys want to see which of them will possess the other’s soul.
In the original manuscript, Moravia also followed his fascinating practice of writing select passages into the text in triplicate. Why would he do this? I suppose to keep one version pristine while he would be left free to experiment with revising the other two instances of the passage. Moravia would revise by writing over his typewritten pages. Are you old enough to remember typewriter ribbon? Yes, you did get ink on your hands.
Sergio and Maurizio live in Rome towards the end of WWII. Improbable friends, their backgrounds couldn’t be more different. Like the great Saramago, Moravia is an expert in writing about poor people, a rarity in American literature where everyone seems to have enough money to spend, in a distinct contrast to the situation of the actual population of the country.
And Sergio is poor. A frustrated and bitter writer of occasional film reviews for the papers, he sounds like the equivalent of a blogger: Someone who is good at writing prose but who can’t persuade anyone to pay him very much for it. He’s a new faith convert to the Communist party. And Moravia is very clever about making Sergio’s political allegiance both a role he plays to give his empty life meaning and a genuine intellectual conviction.
Maurizio, in contrast to the socially awkward Sergio, is the poised and gallant aristocrat of his bankbook. He comes from a comfortable, upper middle class family and lives in a cool neighborhood of generously proportioned houses and gardens. He loves women and is a connoisseur of serial romance. Maurizio has lots of friends, everyone loves him, wants to be with him. And Sergio is obsessed with him.
Now Sergio is straight. That’s clear enough from the text. But he has this fixation with the glamorous Maurizio that flirts with, but doesn’t pass over into homoeroticism. Moravia says that when Sergio runs into Maurizio on the street, he has an urge, difficult to control, to embrace him. To Maurizio, with his impeccable manners, Sergio is just one of many acquaintances and the warmth he shows the Sergio’s of the world is just an expression his gallantry and poise. Or is there more to it than that? You’ll want to unravel the puzzle of Two Friends, for the puzzle is friendship.
Should you want to read an unfinished story that’s presented to you in three versions with each version containing gaps? Why would you want to read a story which presents a plot that never resolves itself?
It’s amazing. In Version A, Sergio lives with his parents. In version B he lives with his girlfriend. In version A, Maurizio is a playboy, indifferent to politics. In Version B, he’s a reformed Fascist. In version C, he was a freedom fighter during the war. The name of Sergio’s girlfriend changes from version to version. Version A leans heavily on presenting the family backgrounds of the two friends while Version B, in the interests of a more dynamic plot, largely skips that part. The third version only is in first person: Sergio’s. The three texts differ in pacing and atmosphere.
As for that piece of work, Sergio, he beats his girlfriend. In one version, she leaves him. In another version, she doesn’t. Sergio can be jealous to the point of violence if someone else shows an interest in his lover. On the other hand, he counts her of little worth unless someone else desires her. He offers her to Maurizio, who wants her, maybe.
In return, Maurizio will agree to join the Communist party, which means that Sergio wins the contest of friends. Maurizio says that he knows Sergio is his enemy and will act accordingly. But several paragraphs later, the text refers to them as friends. Not even the Three Guys ever put me through this.
Damn those writers! They can do what they like. What they write is arbitrary until by the magic of their creative art and their publisher’s will, it’s ordained aesthetic truth. Can you imagine a Madame Bovary where Emma doesn’t kill herself? Can you imagine a Pride and Prejudice where Darcy and Elizabeth don’t get married? I bet their authors could.
Poor reader. Poor reader. Forced to endure the shameful Other Press, which has presented the bibliophile with this literary sucker punch, a messed-up manuscript that isn’t finished.
I’ll never forget this amazing story as long as I live. And watch out JR, JC and JE! Now that I’ve read Two Friends, I’m ready for anything that friendship has on offer.
