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Theorem
Theorem is the most enigmatic of Pier Paolo Pasolini's four novels. The book started as a poem and took shape as a film, also called Theorem, before turning at last into a work of fiction. In short prose chapters interspersed with stark passages of poetry, Pasolini tells a story of transfiguration and trauma.
To the suburban mansion of a prosperous Milanese businessman comes a mysterious and beautiful young man who invites himself to stay. The young man exercises a strange fascination on the inhabitants of the house, and soon everyone, from the busy father to the frustrated mother, from the yearning daughter to the weak-willed son to the housemaid from the country, has fallen in love with him. Then, as mysteriously as appeared, the infatuating young man departs. How will these people he has touched so deeply do without him? Is there a passage out of the spiritual desert of modern capitalism into a new awakening, both of the senses and of the soul? Only questions remain at the end of a book that is at once a bedroom comedy, a political novel, and a religious parable.
To the suburban mansion of a prosperous Milanese businessman comes a mysterious and beautiful young man who invites himself to stay. The young man exercises a strange fascination on the inhabitants of the house, and soon everyone, from the busy father to the frustrated mother, from the yearning daughter to the weak-willed son to the housemaid from the country, has fallen in love with him. Then, as mysteriously as appeared, the infatuating young man departs. How will these people he has touched so deeply do without him? Is there a passage out of the spiritual desert of modern capitalism into a new awakening, both of the senses and of the soul? Only questions remain at the end of a book that is at once a bedroom comedy, a political novel, and a religious parable.
189 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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About the author
Pier Paolo Pasolini
375 books864 followersItalian poet, novelist, critic, essayst, journalist, translator, dramatist, film director, screenwriter and philosopher, often regarded as one of the greatest minds of XX century, was murdered violently in Rome in 1975 in circumstances not yet been clarified. Pasolini is best known outside Italy for his films, many of which were based on literary sources - The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales...
Pasolini referred himself as a 'Catholic Marxist' and often used shocking juxtapositions of imagery to expose the vapidity of values in modern society.
His essays and newspaper articles often critized the capitalistic omologation and also often contributed to public controversies which had made him many enemies. In the weeks leading up to his murder he had condemned Italy's political class for its corruption, for neo-fascist terrorist conspiracy and for collusion with the Mafia and the infamous "Propaganda 2" masonic lodge of Licio Gelli and Eugenio Cefis.
His friend, the writer Alberto Moravia, considered him "the major Italian poet" of the second half of the 20th century.
Pasolini referred himself as a 'Catholic Marxist' and often used shocking juxtapositions of imagery to expose the vapidity of values in modern society.
His essays and newspaper articles often critized the capitalistic omologation and also often contributed to public controversies which had made him many enemies. In the weeks leading up to his murder he had condemned Italy's political class for its corruption, for neo-fascist terrorist conspiracy and for collusion with the Mafia and the infamous "Propaganda 2" masonic lodge of Licio Gelli and Eugenio Cefis.
His friend, the writer Alberto Moravia, considered him "the major Italian poet" of the second half of the 20th century.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 172 reviews
October 31, 2019
È impossibile dire che razza di urlo
sia il mio: è vero che è terribile
tanto da sfigurarmi i lineamenti
rendendoli simili alle fauci di una bestia –
ma è anche, in qualche modo, gioioso,
tanto da ridurmi come un bambino.
È un urlo fatto per invocare l’attenzione di qualcuno
o il suo aiuto; ma anche, forse, per bestemmiarlo.
È un urlo che vuol far sapere,
in questo luogo disabitato, che io esisto,
oppure, che non soltanto esisto,
ma che so.
È un urlo
in cui in fondo all’ansia
si sente qualche vile accento di speranza;
oppure un urlo di certezza, assolutamente assurda,
dietro a cui risuona, pura, la disperazione.
Ad ogni modo questo è certo: che qualunque cosa
questo mio urlo voglia significare,
esso è destinato a durare oltre ogni possibile fine.
(Pier Paolo Pasolini, Teorema)
https://youtu.be/2mhX9BRX958
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April 3, 2023Es muy difícil hablar de un libro como «Teorema» porque ni siquiera se puede encajar fácilmente en un género literario. Parece una novela, pero en realidad son una serie de apuntes para una obra que igual podría ser una película, una obra de teatro o el propio libro en sí. Además, está salpicada de otros elementos como noticias de prensa, poemas o reflexiones en forma de preguntas retóricas. Es decir, es una rareza que solo puede haber salido de la mente de un intelectual de la altura de Pasolini.
Lo que está claro es que es un estudio sobre las debilidades, la doble moral y las contradicciones de la burguesía en los años 60. Este tema, tan presente en la obra del genio, se mezcla con profundas reflexiones religiosas y relativas a la actualidad política, sindical y revolucionaria de la época. Todo se canaliza a través de un misterioso joven que llega a la gran mansión de una familia de clase alta y que perturba para siempre la vida de todos sus habitantes al seducir, sexualmente, a todas las personas que allí viven, desde la criada hasta el padre de familia.
Esta primera mitad (que tiene mucho de novela, pero también de película semierótica de la Italia de la época) es la que más me ha interesado, ya que el autor transmite muy bien la perturbación que el joven adonis despierta en los habitantes de la casa. La segunda mitad, en la que se nos muestra lo que aquellos días supusieron en la vida de esas personas a modo de corolario, me ha resultado demasiado críptica y me ha sido más complicada de seguir debido a la altura de las referencias y las reflexiones de Pasolini. En definitiva, esta obra me ha resultado una curiosidad muy llamativa y original, con fragmentos muy disfrutables.
Lo que está claro es que es un estudio sobre las debilidades, la doble moral y las contradicciones de la burguesía en los años 60. Este tema, tan presente en la obra del genio, se mezcla con profundas reflexiones religiosas y relativas a la actualidad política, sindical y revolucionaria de la época. Todo se canaliza a través de un misterioso joven que llega a la gran mansión de una familia de clase alta y que perturba para siempre la vida de todos sus habitantes al seducir, sexualmente, a todas las personas que allí viven, desde la criada hasta el padre de familia.
Esta primera mitad (que tiene mucho de novela, pero también de película semierótica de la Italia de la época) es la que más me ha interesado, ya que el autor transmite muy bien la perturbación que el joven adonis despierta en los habitantes de la casa. La segunda mitad, en la que se nos muestra lo que aquellos días supusieron en la vida de esas personas a modo de corolario, me ha resultado demasiado críptica y me ha sido más complicada de seguir debido a la altura de las referencias y las reflexiones de Pasolini. En definitiva, esta obra me ha resultado una curiosidad muy llamativa y original, con fragmentos muy disfrutables.
June 4, 2024
I read this in two days immediately after watching the film, which probably wasn’t the best way to do it and was in fact the opposite of what I planned to do.
I became briefly obsessed with Pasolini after watching his madcap and frankly just mad adaptation of the Decameron, but though there are many things I like, I don’t think it’s going to be a lasting affair.
Theorem tells the story of a bourgeois family in Lombardy who are visited by a mysterious stranger. They all become sexually obsessed by him, and when he leaves as mysteriously as he comes, they are transformed in different ways. The sister enters a catatonic state, the mother starts picking up young men on the sides of roads, the brother becomes an artist, the father gives away his successful factory. Most intriguingly, the maidservant Emilia returns to her impoverished rural village just outside of Milan, and becomes some kind of saint. Not in the sense that she does good deeds, but in the sense that she levitates over buildings.
The novel was being written as the film was being made, meaning that one is not an adaptation of the other, and in a sense this makes the differences between them particularly puzzling, although there aren’t all that many differences. The film contains many inserted shots of the slopes of a smoking volcano and its sand blowing in the wind. There is not mention of this in the book; instead there are peculiar lapses into poetry, which sometimes describe a character’s inner state, and sometimes a political position.
Reading the book also brought me slightly closer to Pasolini’s intentions regarding urban vs rural divides, and the fact that the region to which Emilia arrives after several bus journeys is the same one the father and the stranger flash by in their car on a daytime drive.
But overall both book and film remain extremely opaque (the theorem, for example, resists definition), and not in a way that made me wish to think about them more or excavate the subtext. Perhaps it was simply my lack of interest with the premise: why are all the characters sexually obsessed with the man? Surely there are other ways of being obsessed? Overall it felt very much of its time, very 1968, and though I wanted to know more about the factory and the political underpinning to Pasolini’s idea, and even more about the saintly Emilia, I never quite saw why a bourgeois family, and only a bourgeois family, was the best way to explore these ideas.
I became briefly obsessed with Pasolini after watching his madcap and frankly just mad adaptation of the Decameron, but though there are many things I like, I don’t think it’s going to be a lasting affair.
Theorem tells the story of a bourgeois family in Lombardy who are visited by a mysterious stranger. They all become sexually obsessed by him, and when he leaves as mysteriously as he comes, they are transformed in different ways. The sister enters a catatonic state, the mother starts picking up young men on the sides of roads, the brother becomes an artist, the father gives away his successful factory. Most intriguingly, the maidservant Emilia returns to her impoverished rural village just outside of Milan, and becomes some kind of saint. Not in the sense that she does good deeds, but in the sense that she levitates over buildings.
The novel was being written as the film was being made, meaning that one is not an adaptation of the other, and in a sense this makes the differences between them particularly puzzling, although there aren’t all that many differences. The film contains many inserted shots of the slopes of a smoking volcano and its sand blowing in the wind. There is not mention of this in the book; instead there are peculiar lapses into poetry, which sometimes describe a character’s inner state, and sometimes a political position.
Reading the book also brought me slightly closer to Pasolini’s intentions regarding urban vs rural divides, and the fact that the region to which Emilia arrives after several bus journeys is the same one the father and the stranger flash by in their car on a daytime drive.
But overall both book and film remain extremely opaque (the theorem, for example, resists definition), and not in a way that made me wish to think about them more or excavate the subtext. Perhaps it was simply my lack of interest with the premise: why are all the characters sexually obsessed with the man? Surely there are other ways of being obsessed? Overall it felt very much of its time, very 1968, and though I wanted to know more about the factory and the political underpinning to Pasolini’s idea, and even more about the saintly Emilia, I never quite saw why a bourgeois family, and only a bourgeois family, was the best way to explore these ideas.
November 3, 2009
Probably best appreciated in conjunction with the much more famous film, of which this is neither its source material nor an after-the-fact novelization. According to its creator, both were conceived and created simultaneously ("the book had been painted with one hand while the other he was on a fresco—the film" is how the introduction paraphrases Pasolini's own explanation), and while it certainly does shed some light on some of the more opaque actions in the film (particularly all the running around the characters seem to do), the novel certainly does precious by way of "explaination." Instead it reveals different facets of the work, mostly of the internal sort, but at the same time it unveils its own sets of riddles and mysteries. The Vistor—Dionysus? Christ? Demon? Angel? Death?—remains as enigmatic as ever, though his presence, and subsequent loss, is just as deeply felt as the lives of those he leaves (abandons?) spin dizzyingly out of control, elegantly conveyed in both prose and poetry.
Both film and novel are of the type that make me wish I knew so much more—more about mythology, Biblical history, European Marxism, art, religious mysticism, Pasolini himself and his own personal mythology, even "inconsequential" topics like Italian geography...
"In any case this is certain: that whatever/ this scream of mine tries to say/ it is fated to last beyond any possible end."
Both film and novel are of the type that make me wish I knew so much more—more about mythology, Biblical history, European Marxism, art, religious mysticism, Pasolini himself and his own personal mythology, even "inconsequential" topics like Italian geography...
"In any case this is certain: that whatever/ this scream of mine tries to say/ it is fated to last beyond any possible end."
March 3, 2024
kakvo skladno čisto savršenstvo stila ukusa i smisla - kao i film - my man never disappoints <3
December 4, 2024
A mysterious young visitor arrives at the home of a wealthy, middle-class Milan family. His presence is both magnetic and unsettling. He engages in intimate relationships with each family member: the devout maid, the sensitive son, the repressed mother, the timid daughter, and the tormented father. This visitor's influence is profound, offering each individual a form of spiritual and existential awakening. As the visitor departs as abruptly as he arrived, the family members are left to grapple with the void he leaves behind in magnificently original and shocking ways.
Pasolini, with his poetic flair and theatrical descriptions, wrote a fine novel about the intersection of sexuality, spirituality, and the inherent rot of bourgeois existence. Religious undertones seamlessly blend with Marxist hints, crafting a plot that, despite its brevity, is surprisingly hard-to-follow. I must confess, the title eludes me. What theorem was I to decipher here? Perhaps the film will shed some light on Pasolini’s cryptic message.
Pasolini, with his poetic flair and theatrical descriptions, wrote a fine novel about the intersection of sexuality, spirituality, and the inherent rot of bourgeois existence. Religious undertones seamlessly blend with Marxist hints, crafting a plot that, despite its brevity, is surprisingly hard-to-follow. I must confess, the title eludes me. What theorem was I to decipher here? Perhaps the film will shed some light on Pasolini’s cryptic message.
December 26, 2024
Estoy lleno de una pregunta que no sé responder.
Qué novela preciosa y qué traducción increíble: cada palabra escogida con pinzas.
Debo confesar, sí, que la lectura me resultó un poco tediosa en los primeros párrafos, con ese ejercicio metaliterario de revelar las estructuras del propio texto - "como el lector ya habrá advertido, el nuestro es, más que un relato, lo que en las ciencias se llama un informe", por ejemplo; pero entendiendo que esta novela surge a la par con la película y, de cierta forma, representa notas y ladrillo para la misma, el estilo adquiere otra relevancia.
No me deja de llamar la atención la recepción que tuvo Teorema ante el público: una obra sobre el libertinaje y el desenfreno, leí en una crítica contemporánea. Me impresiona por dos razones: la primera es que, para la época, habiéndose publicado en sus países vecinos obras como Lolita, Teorema me parece más bien vainilla; la segunda es que, contraria a otros relatos de tono sexual, esta novela es ante todo erótica, una tentación permanente frente a una escena jamás descrita - por lo menos, en lo que al huésped respecta.
A propósito de ese personaje, Pasolini reconstruye un mito cristiano en esta novela, con toda su imaginería y misticismo. En el taller conversábamos sobre como el huésped debe entenderse como una representación de Cristo, o por lo menos otra figura canonizada, y por tal es que su belleza seduce y transforma a todos los miembros de la familia burguesa. Más adelante en la novela, ya terminando la segunda parte, el autor plantea una pregunta que, a mi parecer, sostiene la trama: "¿Acaso porque los burgueses no pueden ser verdaderamente religiosos? ¿No en cuanto creen o creen creer, sino en cuanto no poseen un real sentimiento de lo sagrado?".
De cierta manera, lo sentí yo mientras leía, Pasolini entendió el futuro con esta novela: el triunfo de la burguesía por sobre el modelo capitalista o socialista, la caducidad de la lucha de clases y el delito histórico - esas son sus palabras - que representa la democratización de los movimientos sociales.
Qué novela preciosa y qué traducción increíble: cada palabra escogida con pinzas.
Debo confesar, sí, que la lectura me resultó un poco tediosa en los primeros párrafos, con ese ejercicio metaliterario de revelar las estructuras del propio texto - "como el lector ya habrá advertido, el nuestro es, más que un relato, lo que en las ciencias se llama un informe", por ejemplo; pero entendiendo que esta novela surge a la par con la película y, de cierta forma, representa notas y ladrillo para la misma, el estilo adquiere otra relevancia.
No me deja de llamar la atención la recepción que tuvo Teorema ante el público: una obra sobre el libertinaje y el desenfreno, leí en una crítica contemporánea. Me impresiona por dos razones: la primera es que, para la época, habiéndose publicado en sus países vecinos obras como Lolita, Teorema me parece más bien vainilla; la segunda es que, contraria a otros relatos de tono sexual, esta novela es ante todo erótica, una tentación permanente frente a una escena jamás descrita - por lo menos, en lo que al huésped respecta.
A propósito de ese personaje, Pasolini reconstruye un mito cristiano en esta novela, con toda su imaginería y misticismo. En el taller conversábamos sobre como el huésped debe entenderse como una representación de Cristo, o por lo menos otra figura canonizada, y por tal es que su belleza seduce y transforma a todos los miembros de la familia burguesa. Más adelante en la novela, ya terminando la segunda parte, el autor plantea una pregunta que, a mi parecer, sostiene la trama: "¿Acaso porque los burgueses no pueden ser verdaderamente religiosos? ¿No en cuanto creen o creen creer, sino en cuanto no poseen un real sentimiento de lo sagrado?".
De cierta manera, lo sentí yo mientras leía, Pasolini entendió el futuro con esta novela: el triunfo de la burguesía por sobre el modelo capitalista o socialista, la caducidad de la lucha de clases y el delito histórico - esas son sus palabras - que representa la democratización de los movimientos sociales.
January 6, 2025
I think it would have helped having Pasolini's film fresh in my mind, as it's not the easiest material to fully grasp without the film vividly playing along in my head. Having said that, the very idea of a mysterious stranger unsettling the family household by his presence was intriguing, albeit in an arthouse fashion. I do prefer Pasolini's gritty earlier work depicting the poverty-stricken in the slums of Rome, but this did manage to hold my attention, just. Not sure an English translation would have made a difference over the French one, which flowed pretty well.
read-in-2024
August 28, 2024It'd be really funny if there were commercial novelizations of Pasolini films, but this, in fact, is not that, but the parallel creation to his filmic magnum opus, written in tandem and avowedly of equal importance. It's been a while since I saw the film, but this doesn't seem to depart from it drastically, besides in the poetry interludes, and some of the authorial asides on the indeterminacy of season and duration. It's hard to convey that in a linear film, but this is, essentially, an instantaneous fable, occurring all at once all times and no times. Perhaps these windows into Pasolini's philosophizing around the story are really the key addition this format brings.
I read somewhere that this story, book or film Im not sure, saw him hauled into Italian court on obscenity charges. His defense was that he had accurately portrayed the eruption of the divine into mundane life. He was acquitted. (I'm paraphrasing something I half remember, so this could be inaccurate but I'm going to stick with this version of the story anyway.)
I read somewhere that this story, book or film Im not sure, saw him hauled into Italian court on obscenity charges. His defense was that he had accurately portrayed the eruption of the divine into mundane life. He was acquitted. (I'm paraphrasing something I half remember, so this could be inaccurate but I'm going to stick with this version of the story anyway.)
May 16, 2020
Great book, a bit too modern and lyric for my taste, but probably better suited this way for transforming it into a movie. A movie that I've added to my watchlist :).
The story seems simple: a very wealthy family in Milano, in a unspecified modern time (as the author mentions several times at the beginning, it could have been spring or autumn, or else), is profoundly affected by a turning point in their life. What follows is actually an investigation into modern life, people with power and wealth, but without religion or sacred, focused on possession and consumerism. At turning points, the previous society (mainly peasants, working class) returned to religion - as a balance, while modern world has failed to find its own point of balance.
To this point, bourgeoisie (or even capitalism or socialism; in one word, the modern society) has replaced the soul with the conscience, thus previous religious experiences (unexplainable and sacred, "miracles" or divine) are now transformed to acts of consciousness (explainable and individual, plain or simple). Thus modern people, in contrast to the peasants or villagers, cannot find salvation as individuals lack a soul, but merely a conscience which is limited and individual. For me, the entire book is a manifesto for the modern society (regardless of organisation, bourgeoisie, capitalism, or socialism) to find a new religion that offers individuals a stronger meaning in life and also a maybe a more connected society.
The story seems simple: a very wealthy family in Milano, in a unspecified modern time (as the author mentions several times at the beginning, it could have been spring or autumn, or else), is profoundly affected by a turning point in their life. What follows is actually an investigation into modern life, people with power and wealth, but without religion or sacred, focused on possession and consumerism. At turning points, the previous society (mainly peasants, working class) returned to religion - as a balance, while modern world has failed to find its own point of balance.
To this point, bourgeoisie (or even capitalism or socialism; in one word, the modern society) has replaced the soul with the conscience, thus previous religious experiences (unexplainable and sacred, "miracles" or divine) are now transformed to acts of consciousness (explainable and individual, plain or simple). Thus modern people, in contrast to the peasants or villagers, cannot find salvation as individuals lack a soul, but merely a conscience which is limited and individual. For me, the entire book is a manifesto for the modern society (regardless of organisation, bourgeoisie, capitalism, or socialism) to find a new religion that offers individuals a stronger meaning in life and also a maybe a more connected society.
June 16, 2020
Leí este libro sin saber nada sobre él, por recomendación de mi mamá. Lo primero que me llamó la atención es la constante referencia que hace al lector y la ambigua de las descripciones: "sale del portal del liceo Parini (o quizás ya ha salido y regresa a su casa por las calles cotidianas)". Pero más allá de los detalles de la narración la trama me atrapó por completo. Esta familia burguesa, vacía y superficial que con la llegada del "huésped" cambian completamente. Y lo que su despedida significa para ellos. Alternancia entre prosa y una poesía que agrega tanto al texto. Bellísimo. De esos libros completos.
April 8, 2016
Pasolini no sólo es un gran cineasta (o, al menos, lo es para mí); de hecho, también es un violento escritor. Si bien sólo he leído esta obra, he quedado plenamente convencido de que alguien que logra escribir una historia con tantos y tan diferentes registros narrativos (el poema, el microrrelato, el cuento corto e, incluso, los aforismos) de manera contundente, no puede defraudar demasiado en el resto de su producción. Teorema es, ante todo, una parábola bien lograda (a diferencia de "Pocilga", una de sus películas más pobres, a mí parecer) de la pérdida de un Dios (o, más bien, la destrucción de una estructura: la capitalista, representada por Pablo, el padre de la casa y personaje que rememora al bíblico homónimo nacido en Tarso, perseguidor de Jesús que termina por seguirlo y convertirse en apóstol) y su posterior reemplazo por otro (que, dicho sea, encarna la figura del errante, cual Jesús de Nazaret que vive entre los hombres para mostrar las enseñanzas divinas y desaparecer).
Teorema describe la angustia de una familia burguesa que ve cómo su estructura de vida (o consciencia pseudo-divina como clase, afirmaría Pasolini) fallece ante la entrega incondicional del huésped, figura enigmática que se entrega en cuerpo (mas nunca del todo en alma) a los miembros de la casa. Cada uno de ellos, a su manera, se verá a sí mismo sucumbir en los brazos del extraño...en sus caricias y recia ternura, que los intriga y posee de manera diferente. Tras la caída de la figura (estructural) del padre (ideal capitalista pequeño-burgués) y el advenimiento del nuevo Dios (el huésped), la narración deriva en un contrapunteo en el que las diferentes historias cuentan la entrega a la fe ciega del extraño, a su doctrina antitética con respecto a los valores burgueses. A esa entrega incondicional que confunde y aliena en un primer momento, hasta verse erradicada (al menos sólo en el caso de Pedro y Pablo, padre e hijos del hogar, respectivamente).
Un libro que teje, a partir de la simbología propia de la parábola, imágenes en tensión (el símil entre la biblia y la crítica marxista a la burguesía) que terminan por explotar en intuiciones políticas de un fuerte valor poético...de una violencia apacible. Nunca me imaginé que Pasolini escribiese parecido a Walter Benjamin; menos pensé que tuviese una sensibilidad similar que le permitiese generar imágenes dialécticas: esas que ponen en tensión imágenes que expresan ideas (mas no razones deductivas o inductivas) con el fin de generar iluminaciones profanas que, al hacerse cognoscibles, generen la necesidad de actuar para los sujetos.
Teorema describe la angustia de una familia burguesa que ve cómo su estructura de vida (o consciencia pseudo-divina como clase, afirmaría Pasolini) fallece ante la entrega incondicional del huésped, figura enigmática que se entrega en cuerpo (mas nunca del todo en alma) a los miembros de la casa. Cada uno de ellos, a su manera, se verá a sí mismo sucumbir en los brazos del extraño...en sus caricias y recia ternura, que los intriga y posee de manera diferente. Tras la caída de la figura (estructural) del padre (ideal capitalista pequeño-burgués) y el advenimiento del nuevo Dios (el huésped), la narración deriva en un contrapunteo en el que las diferentes historias cuentan la entrega a la fe ciega del extraño, a su doctrina antitética con respecto a los valores burgueses. A esa entrega incondicional que confunde y aliena en un primer momento, hasta verse erradicada (al menos sólo en el caso de Pedro y Pablo, padre e hijos del hogar, respectivamente).
Un libro que teje, a partir de la simbología propia de la parábola, imágenes en tensión (el símil entre la biblia y la crítica marxista a la burguesía) que terminan por explotar en intuiciones políticas de un fuerte valor poético...de una violencia apacible. Nunca me imaginé que Pasolini escribiese parecido a Walter Benjamin; menos pensé que tuviese una sensibilidad similar que le permitiese generar imágenes dialécticas: esas que ponen en tensión imágenes que expresan ideas (mas no razones deductivas o inductivas) con el fin de generar iluminaciones profanas que, al hacerse cognoscibles, generen la necesidad de actuar para los sujetos.
January 28, 2024
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Theorem is better read as a companion to the 1968 film. In the introduction, Stuart Hood writes, “It was, as [Pasolini] explained, as if the book had been painted with one hand while with the other he was working on a fresco—the film.”
It is the story of a wealthy Milan family whose world is turned upside down after a striking young man invites himself to stay at their mansion. Each member of the family is drawn to him (and each family member sleeps with him). His presence and later disappearance highlight the spiritual bankruptcy of this family and the bourgeois in general.
The novel fills in some gaps while raising further questions. It is equally enigmatic. Is the visitor a saint-like figure or one of evil and death? What is this theorem that Pasolini is trying to convey?
It is a break from neo-realism's failed ideals and dangerous mythologies. It is an anti-novel more aligned with the Russian Formalists (with a nod to Viktor Shklovsky early on in the text). It is layers of Marxism, mythology, and Christianity, interwoven into the story with a poet’s hand.
In time, I will have to revisit the film and maybe this book to see if I can draw out any of its secrets.
3.75*
It is the story of a wealthy Milan family whose world is turned upside down after a striking young man invites himself to stay at their mansion. Each member of the family is drawn to him (and each family member sleeps with him). His presence and later disappearance highlight the spiritual bankruptcy of this family and the bourgeois in general.
The novel fills in some gaps while raising further questions. It is equally enigmatic. Is the visitor a saint-like figure or one of evil and death? What is this theorem that Pasolini is trying to convey?
It is a break from neo-realism's failed ideals and dangerous mythologies. It is an anti-novel more aligned with the Russian Formalists (with a nod to Viktor Shklovsky early on in the text). It is layers of Marxism, mythology, and Christianity, interwoven into the story with a poet’s hand.
In time, I will have to revisit the film and maybe this book to see if I can draw out any of its secrets.
3.75*
May 21, 2024
L’he llegit en català i en edició magnífica de Lleonard Muntaner. Crec que serà dels millors llibres d’aquest any. Crec que dedicaria la vida a Pasolini. Crec que li dedicaria la vida.
September 7, 2024
sexuality is language; sexuality is self-discovery; sexuality & eros could be a passage out of the spiritual desert of modern capitalism, into a new awakening <3
October 7, 2024
Well this was a weird one. It seems some reviewers dismissed it as a film treatment, and it does honestly read like that.
There are poems and interjections from the narrator and long descriptions of scenery. We don’t get all that close to the central characters whose transformations make up what plot there is, which makes it quite unsatisfying. All the while Pasolini tells you “This isn’t a typical narrative as you can see, there is not as strict an order of events or scenes as such to start us off”—but I just thought, well, why the hell not? The book’s far worse off because of the decision not to prioritise such things.
I remember liking the film better. But I watched it ten years ago while I was drunk and I’m pretty sure the link I found to watch it started about halfway through the film. Even so it was definitely better than this, aha! Though, sure, maybe due a rewatch if I truly want to absorb its complexities 😉
There are poems and interjections from the narrator and long descriptions of scenery. We don’t get all that close to the central characters whose transformations make up what plot there is, which makes it quite unsatisfying. All the while Pasolini tells you “This isn’t a typical narrative as you can see, there is not as strict an order of events or scenes as such to start us off”—but I just thought, well, why the hell not? The book’s far worse off because of the decision not to prioritise such things.
I remember liking the film better. But I watched it ten years ago while I was drunk and I’m pretty sure the link I found to watch it started about halfway through the film. Even so it was definitely better than this, aha! Though, sure, maybe due a rewatch if I truly want to absorb its complexities 😉
November 5, 2025
» 3.75 stars ⋆˙⟡
*Major Spoilers Ahead*
—— Unhinged Thoughts
EVERYONE WAS HORNY. \(”˚☐˚)/
Mom. Dad. Brother. Sister. MAID. All slept with this mysterious guest who arrives and stays at their house.
They get so transfixed by him that when he abruptly leaves, they all quite literally lose their minds.
The maid turns into a saint who levitates into the sky and her hair turns green from eating only boiled nettles. She then buries herself alive underneath the dirt where construction workers were pouring cement over the next day.
The mother goes into town and makes it a habit to bang young boys. THREE IN ONE DAY?! (·•᷄ࡇ•᷅ ) someone call the POLICE.
The sister literally becomes paralyzed and is put into a hospital.
The brother becomes a hysterical artist.
The father strips his clothes in a train station and then walks all the way to the desert naked lol.
LIKE WHAT THE HELL???
What was that man PACKING?? Is my question. Everyone lost their ever-loving mind when he dipped??
—— More Sophisticated Thoughts 🗿
This story is placed within Italy, following a prosperous family and how all their lives are forever touched by a mysterious guest who infiltrated their home.
Many themes within the story represent the class pressures of society between the rich and the poor. It portrays the loss of innocence and the yearning for that child-like purity once again. It also conveys how exploring one’s sexuality can be redefining and oftentimes freeing.
I also believe the guest was a representation of the god Eros. Each character was inexplicably enthralled by him and their lives were rendered meaningless as soon as that presence went away.
—— In Conclusion
What the hell? What the hell-y?
In other words, this mysterious man is a whole MENACE. Just obliterated that entire family with the power of his sexuality lol. Go off, I guess.
Now I gotta go write an essay about it for World Lit 🏃🏼♀️➡️
*Major Spoilers Ahead*
—— Unhinged Thoughts
EVERYONE WAS HORNY. \(”˚☐˚)/
Mom. Dad. Brother. Sister. MAID. All slept with this mysterious guest who arrives and stays at their house.
They get so transfixed by him that when he abruptly leaves, they all quite literally lose their minds.
The maid turns into a saint who levitates into the sky and her hair turns green from eating only boiled nettles. She then buries herself alive underneath the dirt where construction workers were pouring cement over the next day.
The mother goes into town and makes it a habit to bang young boys. THREE IN ONE DAY?! (·•᷄ࡇ•᷅ ) someone call the POLICE.
The sister literally becomes paralyzed and is put into a hospital.
The brother becomes a hysterical artist.
The father strips his clothes in a train station and then walks all the way to the desert naked lol.
LIKE WHAT THE HELL???
What was that man PACKING?? Is my question. Everyone lost their ever-loving mind when he dipped??
—— More Sophisticated Thoughts 🗿
This story is placed within Italy, following a prosperous family and how all their lives are forever touched by a mysterious guest who infiltrated their home.
Many themes within the story represent the class pressures of society between the rich and the poor. It portrays the loss of innocence and the yearning for that child-like purity once again. It also conveys how exploring one’s sexuality can be redefining and oftentimes freeing.
I also believe the guest was a representation of the god Eros. Each character was inexplicably enthralled by him and their lives were rendered meaningless as soon as that presence went away.
—— In Conclusion
What the hell? What the hell-y?
In other words, this mysterious man is a whole MENACE. Just obliterated that entire family with the power of his sexuality lol. Go off, I guess.
Now I gotta go write an essay about it for World Lit 🏃🏼♀️➡️
May 3, 2022
En su segunda epístola, Pedro narra cómo el señor vendrá como un ladrón en la noche. La exégesis bíblica interpreta esta pasada de metáfora a través de la parusía, de esa espera(nza) de la segunda llegada de Dios, pero a mí me gusta interpretarlo desde no su llegada, sino su marcha: el ladrón no solo llega cuando no se le espera, sino que también abandona el hogar sin ser notado. Y es en esta marcha de lo sagrado cuando aparece la catástrofe.
Ahora bien, Teorema, de Pasolini, dista bastante de ser una obra nocturna: por el contrario, es una obra plenamente mediterránea, donde el sol ilumina todo hasta el punto de hacerlo resplandeciente, sagrado. Su luz, sin embargo, es una luz difuminada, que atraviesa gasas y que, lejos de devolver figuras claras, devuelve tan solo gestos, movimientos, pero nunca cuerpos completos. Este juego con la ausencia de detalles y la falta de concreciones siempre ha sido algo presente en la obra fílmica de Pasolini, pero aquí lo traslada al ámbito literario de una forma sorprendentemente evocadora, que da un aire más misterioso -y mistérico- a la obra y sus protagonistas.
Teorema es una obra que aborda la falta de gestualidad, de una dimensión íntima, en la burguesía, concretamente en el seno de una familia de la alta burguesía industrial italiana. Abotargada por el tedio burgués, la llegada de un joven muchachito trastoca completamente.
Para Pasolini, Teorema trata de cómo la burguesía se enfrenta a lo sagrado y cómo, cuando lo tiene ante sí, al intentar poseerlo no solo vacía al objeto de sacralidad, sino que se vacía a sí misma de subjetividad. La mirada del burgués, una vez se aleja de ese cuerpo sagrado, se confirma como una mirada sin vida que, al igual que el cadáver balbuceante de la mercancía, tan solo se dedica a repetir gestos que ya no son gestos sino automatismos despojados de toda subjetividad (en este sentido, es imposible evitar pensar en El desierto rojo de Antonioni, y concretamente, en la figura del hijo).
La única redención posible está en la figura de la limpiadora que, como figura paradójica enclaustrada en el orden burgués sin pertenecer a él, es la única capaz de aceptar el carácter sagrado del huésped que les ha visitado, si bien a cambio ella se convierte en objeto ya no sacro, sino sacrifical. Con Teorema, Pasolini nos desvela no sólo como la gestualidad burguesa es una gestualidad hueca, construida a través de la repetición y el tedio; sino cómo también contamina y desacraliza cualquier atisbo de trascendencia.
Ahora bien, Teorema, de Pasolini, dista bastante de ser una obra nocturna: por el contrario, es una obra plenamente mediterránea, donde el sol ilumina todo hasta el punto de hacerlo resplandeciente, sagrado. Su luz, sin embargo, es una luz difuminada, que atraviesa gasas y que, lejos de devolver figuras claras, devuelve tan solo gestos, movimientos, pero nunca cuerpos completos. Este juego con la ausencia de detalles y la falta de concreciones siempre ha sido algo presente en la obra fílmica de Pasolini, pero aquí lo traslada al ámbito literario de una forma sorprendentemente evocadora, que da un aire más misterioso -y mistérico- a la obra y sus protagonistas.
Teorema es una obra que aborda la falta de gestualidad, de una dimensión íntima, en la burguesía, concretamente en el seno de una familia de la alta burguesía industrial italiana. Abotargada por el tedio burgués, la llegada de un joven muchachito trastoca completamente.
Para Pasolini, Teorema trata de cómo la burguesía se enfrenta a lo sagrado y cómo, cuando lo tiene ante sí, al intentar poseerlo no solo vacía al objeto de sacralidad, sino que se vacía a sí misma de subjetividad. La mirada del burgués, una vez se aleja de ese cuerpo sagrado, se confirma como una mirada sin vida que, al igual que el cadáver balbuceante de la mercancía, tan solo se dedica a repetir gestos que ya no son gestos sino automatismos despojados de toda subjetividad (en este sentido, es imposible evitar pensar en El desierto rojo de Antonioni, y concretamente, en la figura del hijo).
La única redención posible está en la figura de la limpiadora que, como figura paradójica enclaustrada en el orden burgués sin pertenecer a él, es la única capaz de aceptar el carácter sagrado del huésped que les ha visitado, si bien a cambio ella se convierte en objeto ya no sacro, sino sacrifical. Con Teorema, Pasolini nos desvela no sólo como la gestualidad burguesa es una gestualidad hueca, construida a través de la repetición y el tedio; sino cómo también contamina y desacraliza cualquier atisbo de trascendencia.
February 20, 2024
i'm a big believer in sometimes reading books which you are maybe a little too stupid for. i was initially really intimidated by pasolini's filmography because i consider myself someone who doesn't really know anything about film and diving into a director that's new to me is always a bit of a daunting task, hence why i started with a book but this was obviously no easier to handle. not that it should be! ultimately a very good thing. all of which is to say im very excited to watch teorama
— "It is a scream
in which behind the fear
one hears a certain craven accent of hope:
or else a scream of certainty, absolutely absurd,
in which there is the pure sound of despair.
In any case this is certain: that whatever
this scream of mine tries to say
it is fated to last beyond any possible end."
— "It is a scream
in which behind the fear
one hears a certain craven accent of hope:
or else a scream of certainty, absolutely absurd,
in which there is the pure sound of despair.
In any case this is certain: that whatever
this scream of mine tries to say
it is fated to last beyond any possible end."
January 18, 2026
(3,5/5). J'ai vu Théorème il y'a 3 mois, j'ai en partie aimé mais je savais que je n'avais pas tout saisi. Je pensais acheter un scénario mais je pense que (même si les histoires sont les memes) il faut le voir comme un livre à part. En lisant j'avais beaucoup de flashs et ça m'a vraiment donné envie de revoir le film... Pasolini écrit étonnamment bien même si je ne suis pas convaincue de la longueur de certains passages. y'a des trucs qui marchent quand même vachement mieux en image. Le bouquin est moins subtile que le film... ça m'a aidé a comprendre certains trucs...
Y'a un coté très proustien (jss matrixée et je vois marcel partout..) dans l'idée d'un mode de formes sans fond, la bourgeoisie (tout comme l'aristocratie dans la Recherche) tient sur des conventions... un seul événement (un inconnu, d'ailleurs surement pour ça que c'est un théorème...) et tout s'effondre.. Quelques expressions très belles sur l'amour aussi ça laissera une empreinte c sur
Y'a un coté très proustien (jss matrixée et je vois marcel partout..) dans l'idée d'un mode de formes sans fond, la bourgeoisie (tout comme l'aristocratie dans la Recherche) tient sur des conventions... un seul événement (un inconnu, d'ailleurs surement pour ça que c'est un théorème...) et tout s'effondre.. Quelques expressions très belles sur l'amour aussi ça laissera une empreinte c sur
October 24, 2017
Si potrebbe cercare una qualsiasi via di fuga se Pasolini fosse realistico. Ma Pasolini non è realistico, è esatto. Ineccepibile nei modi (e scrupoloso oltre ogni immaginazione).
June 2, 2024
Initially quite meta, which I quite enjoyed, setting up the situation and characters and scene in conversation with the reader about the choices being made. I very much felt like I was in conversation with a director - somehow thinking through the options made the scenes more precise for me, once I had personally settled on spring for example. It was at about this point that I learned he actually is a director and that in fact the movie version of the project came first. But I can see why he might have wanted to write the book because there is so much interior to the characters in terms of exegesis, I'm not sure I would have understood the point of much of it re bourgeois values and religion and revolution. Or maybe I'm just too far removed from 1960s Italy. There are, towards the end, two chapters of questions asked by "reporters" investigating events that finally for me made everything sufficiently simple: that the bourgeoisie cannot recognize religious experience when it happens to them, they mistake it for sex, for being about themselves and their behavior and choices; their failure to transform themselves and to love humanity as God loves them leads to madness or empty gestures driven by guilt rather than truly redemptive actions; and the workers are on the cusp of a new world and will need to chose - if they follow the bourgeoisie and give up either their revolution or their religion they are lost. At the same time, all of the happenings are in fact very powerful visually and clearly metaphorical, especially as the family collapses after the guest departs - the trek home of the servant and her transformation, the son blindly trying to paint, the mother's wild car ride etc. And there is essentially no dialogue in the book, just a few interior monologues in the form of poems - I wonder if the film is also basically silent? I feel that it should be. With the vividness of the scenes reading the book, I am looking forward to comparing the print vision to the film.
December 21, 2023
My resolution for 2024 is to really get into Passolini, the gay Italian Marxist of my dreams, so this was my jumpstart.
His filmmaking POV is instantly felt, the novel reads like a treatment, like the action slugs from a screenplay.
Great to read something that is so overtly allegorical. It’s erotic and taboo, mystic and cryptic, biting and beautiful.
His filmmaking POV is instantly felt, the novel reads like a treatment, like the action slugs from a screenplay.
Great to read something that is so overtly allegorical. It’s erotic and taboo, mystic and cryptic, biting and beautiful.
September 23, 2025
no sé si he llegado a entender nada pero me ha quedado claro que teorema es lo que saltburn no pudo llegar a ser
April 6, 2025
An excellently written companion to Pasolini's masterful film of the same name, written as the movie was filmed, 'Theorem' incisively cuts at the heart of 20th century bourgeois society. For how dense the book and film are, their central thesis is stated rather plainly: the bourgeoisie simply can 'not have a real feeling for the sacred.' God (or Christ or Dionysus or Apollo or whatever archetype thee family which occupies this work choose to apply to their mysterious visitor) himself pays them as visit, and does it bring revelation? Spirituality? Liberation? None of the above. They simply can not grasp it, can not see beyond their own irrelevant desires and neuroses to take anything larger from such a singular experience. In a prison of their own making, the bourgeoisie have destroyed the innate human awe for the sacred and the profound, leaving them stuck in a languid mindset of anxious discontentedness. They lack not for interiority, after all, there is hardly an dialogue in this book, but that interiority is entirely self-obsessed. They meet God and all they can think about is how he makes them horny, or restless, or self-hating.
Pasolini was of course a committed Marxist (a belief he would be murdered for), and thus he is not writing from a place of religiosity per se, but from the perspective of belief as a whole. The working classes of Italy (and by the extension the world) have a taste for awe and profundity which allows them to envision change on a scale unimaginable to the bourgeois mind. Whether this be belief in the transformative power of Marxist social revolution, or in the tradition Catholic religious mysticism of the Italian countryside, they have not cut themselves off from the propulsive force of humanity which has animated societal change and collective being for millennia. The family at the center of this book are effectively corpses: cold, chilly, and empty (by Italian standards anyway). If God, in his beauty and mystery, were to pay you a visit, and all you could think about is how that makes you want to fuck him, what does that really say about your depth of character? And when he leaves, they are unable to take anything constructive from the experience. Pietro goes off to pretend to be a starving artist, but all his paintings are terrible. Paolo wanders the desert naked in a cosplay of Christ's spiritual sojourn, yet he gains no insight from it at all. The mother drives her car wildly through the twisting streets. Yet these pursuits remain as empty as everything they did before his visit. They have no taste for the sacred, it can mean nothing to them, and can improve them in no way, they are a lost cause of their own creation.
Pasolini was of course a committed Marxist (a belief he would be murdered for), and thus he is not writing from a place of religiosity per se, but from the perspective of belief as a whole. The working classes of Italy (and by the extension the world) have a taste for awe and profundity which allows them to envision change on a scale unimaginable to the bourgeois mind. Whether this be belief in the transformative power of Marxist social revolution, or in the tradition Catholic religious mysticism of the Italian countryside, they have not cut themselves off from the propulsive force of humanity which has animated societal change and collective being for millennia. The family at the center of this book are effectively corpses: cold, chilly, and empty (by Italian standards anyway). If God, in his beauty and mystery, were to pay you a visit, and all you could think about is how that makes you want to fuck him, what does that really say about your depth of character? And when he leaves, they are unable to take anything constructive from the experience. Pietro goes off to pretend to be a starving artist, but all his paintings are terrible. Paolo wanders the desert naked in a cosplay of Christ's spiritual sojourn, yet he gains no insight from it at all. The mother drives her car wildly through the twisting streets. Yet these pursuits remain as empty as everything they did before his visit. They have no taste for the sacred, it can mean nothing to them, and can improve them in no way, they are a lost cause of their own creation.
September 17, 2015
Pasolini a écrit Théorème en 1968, en parallèle de la conception du film du même nom, comme il le fera l'année suivante avec Porcherie. Je conseille vivement d'aborder les deux œuvres de la même manière : en parallèle l'une de l'autre. Leur aspect complémentaire est vraiment intéressant, et met en lumière la dimension naturellement elliptique du cinéma pasolinien.
Un pitch (parce qu'il faut savoir aller bien au-delà) : dans une famille bourgeoise de Milan, un mystérieux invité arrive un jour, qui a toutes les caractéristiques du messie. Il initie l'un après l'autre les membres de la famille à la sexualité. Après son départ, ceux-ci se retrouvent confrontés à une quête de Dieu, qui sera plus ou moins aboutie. Le film et le livre se veulent une vive critique de la bourgeoisie, celle-ci ne permettant pas l'aspect, de prime abord, au mysticisme.
J'ai lu d'autres critiques, et il me semble que cet aspect a été mal compris : la critique de la bourgeoisie dans Théorème va bien au-delà d'une critique marxiste, elle est aussi christique. Seul le dépouillement permet l'avènement du sacré, et c'est pourquoi la bourgeoisie est corrompue. Il s'agit d'un thème récurrent dans son œuvre, et qui doit être accepté avant d'aborder le roman - au risque de braquer bien des lecteurs, qui ne s'arrêteront qu'à la perception basique de la prise de position.
Roman expérimental, poétique, à la lecture difficile mais très enrichissante.
Un pitch (parce qu'il faut savoir aller bien au-delà) : dans une famille bourgeoise de Milan, un mystérieux invité arrive un jour, qui a toutes les caractéristiques du messie. Il initie l'un après l'autre les membres de la famille à la sexualité. Après son départ, ceux-ci se retrouvent confrontés à une quête de Dieu, qui sera plus ou moins aboutie. Le film et le livre se veulent une vive critique de la bourgeoisie, celle-ci ne permettant pas l'aspect, de prime abord, au mysticisme.
J'ai lu d'autres critiques, et il me semble que cet aspect a été mal compris : la critique de la bourgeoisie dans Théorème va bien au-delà d'une critique marxiste, elle est aussi christique. Seul le dépouillement permet l'avènement du sacré, et c'est pourquoi la bourgeoisie est corrompue. Il s'agit d'un thème récurrent dans son œuvre, et qui doit être accepté avant d'aborder le roman - au risque de braquer bien des lecteurs, qui ne s'arrêteront qu'à la perception basique de la prise de position.
Roman expérimental, poétique, à la lecture difficile mais très enrichissante.
March 12, 2025
Scrivere può essere mestiere e può essere arte.
Pasolini anche in quest’opera dipinge un libro con tutti i colori a sua disposizione collocandoli lì dove era perfetto che fossero.
In fin dei conti la società non è altro che una puttana che giace sul letto della propaganda ( cit.).
Leggere questo quadro è stato un momento di riflessione e di gioia pura . Sentimenti impalpabili come neve da cui sortiscono azioni dure come macigni.
Questa non è forse la vita?
La vita descritta da Pasolini, senza veli verginali, viene vissuta con una potenza ed una delicata violenza che penetra sin nelle ossa.
Oggi il suo urlo di lotta sembra obsoleto, ma come lui stesso scrive in chiusura “ ad ogni modo questo è certo: che qualunque cosa questo mio urlo voglia significare, esso è destinato a durare oltre ogni possibile fine .
Ogni possibile fine.
Pasolini anche in quest’opera dipinge un libro con tutti i colori a sua disposizione collocandoli lì dove era perfetto che fossero.
In fin dei conti la società non è altro che una puttana che giace sul letto della propaganda ( cit.).
Leggere questo quadro è stato un momento di riflessione e di gioia pura . Sentimenti impalpabili come neve da cui sortiscono azioni dure come macigni.
Questa non è forse la vita?
La vita descritta da Pasolini, senza veli verginali, viene vissuta con una potenza ed una delicata violenza che penetra sin nelle ossa.
Oggi il suo urlo di lotta sembra obsoleto, ma come lui stesso scrive in chiusura “ ad ogni modo questo è certo: che qualunque cosa questo mio urlo voglia significare, esso è destinato a durare oltre ogni possibile fine .
Ogni possibile fine.
January 5, 2019
Me ha gustado más en la relectura. Parte de la culpa, la excelente edición. También, una lectura más sosegada, más consciente,paladeando la prosa y la poesía de Pasolini. Sus intenciones, el subtexto. Lo que no cuenta.
Read
March 19, 2024Mare meva quant simbolismeee!
Sempre està guay veure com cau l’estructura familiar burgesa. I més des de l’erotisme i lo sagrat i l’escàndol i… vaja, des de Pasolini. Sempre a favor d’aquest dandi, ti amo.
Sempre està guay veure com cau l’estructura familiar burgesa. I més des de l’erotisme i lo sagrat i l’escàndol i… vaja, des de Pasolini. Sempre a favor d’aquest dandi, ti amo.
March 4, 2020
Провокативно и незаборавно...
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