L'opera
The Mother is an intriguing and marvellously written book. Its note of worthiness lies in the psychological study of the three main characters: Maria Maddalena, the mother of a young parish priest; Paul, the priest himself; and Agnes, the rich lonely woman who irrupts into the lives of both mother and son. Throughout the story, Paul fights against his human desires. He lacks the ambition to be a good priest because the choice was not his but his mother´s. His oath was taken before he really knew his ambition in life; his role was vested on to him by others and conditioned by society. In what is probably her greatest masterpiece, the 1926 Nobel Laureate Grazia Deledda tells us in this novel that avoiding one´s true call in life may have consequences and, above all, that the disposing of the aberrant conditions which cause people to sin is perhaps the greatest misdeed of all. The novel is set in Aar, a poor and remote Sardinian village in the beginning of the twentieth century. The story takes place in less than three days and concerns the struggle between the mother and her only son, Paul, the local priest. The mother, Maria Maddalena, grew up in this small parish and she sees this as the rest of their lives: to be together and that he becomes the best priest Aar ever had. One night she discovers that Paul is involved with a woman, Agnes, and suddenly realizes that everything she wished for is now in peril. “The love of the priest for the woman is sheer instinctive passion, pure and undefiled by sentiment. As such it is worthy of respect, for in other books on this theme the instinct is swamped and extinguished in sentiment. [...] All the priest´s education and Christianity are really mere snuff of the candle.” (from the Introduction by D.H. Lawrence)
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