Two Women

By Alberto Moravia

Book Overview

FIRST PUBLISHED in English in 1958,Two Womenis a compassionate yet forthright narrative of simple people struggling to survive in war. The two women are Cesira, a widowed Roman shopkeeper, and her daughter Rosetta, a naive teenager of haunting beauty and devout faith. When the German occupation of Rome becomes imminent, Cesira packs a few provisions, sews her life savings into the seams of her dress, and flees with Rosetta to her native province of Ciociara, a poor, mountainous region south of Rome. Cesira's currency soon loses its value, and a vicious barter economy, fraught with shifty traffickers and thieves, emerges among the mountain peasants and refugees. Mother and daughter endure nine months of hunger, cold, and filth as they await the arrival of the Allied forces. Cesira scarcely cares who wins the war, so long as victory comes soon and brings with it a return to her quiet shopkeeper's life. Instead, the Liberation brings tragedy. While heading back to Rome the pair are attacked by a group of Allied Moroccan soldiers, who rape Rosetta and beat Cesira unconscious. This act of violence and its resulting loss of innocence so embitters Rosetta that she falls numbly into a life of prostitution. Throughout these hardships Moravia offers up an intimate portrayal of the anguish and destruction wrought by war, both on the battlefield and upon those far from the fray.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586420208
• ISBN13: 9781586420208
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Zoland Books
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.8" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Characters can be fallible

I agree much more with the 5-star reviewer than with Persad. Hasn't he ever heard of fallible characters? The narrator is abolutely self-centered, selfish, narrow-minded, and many other things, but she is in many ways a keen observer of the horrific events she moves through. Personally I found it interesting to read about the Liberation through the eyes of this character rather than via some omniscient narrator or distant historian. I find Moravia's unadorned prose attractive and sophisticated. A good book and two very interesting and REAL female characters.

compelling

In this novel Moravia gives the reader a poignant portrayal of the anguish and destruction that is brought about by war. Cesaria and her daughter Rosetta escape from Rome just as the German army is about to enter the city. For months the two women withstand hunger, cold, and humiliation as they await the Allied forces. When liberation comes, it brings unforeseen suffering. On their return to Rome Cesaria and Rosetta are brutally raped by a group of Allied Moroccan soldiers. This act of violence so destroys Rosetta's personality that she becomes anesthetized of feeling and prostitutes herself for a pair of stockings. The novel is well written and Moravia makes the point that war is as traumatic for civilians as it is for those on the front lines.