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A GHOST AT NOON by Alberto Moravia

A GHOST AT NOON

By

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Young

Again a hovering, lowering, and somewhat neurasthenic scrutiny of an intimate relationship traces the vagaries in the marriage between Riccardo Molteni, a script writer who feels only a distaste for this type of work and Emilia, of more common origins. Reluctantly, resentfully, Riccardo agrees to do a script- and then a second one- for Battista, a film producer, who is to become the hypotenuse in this triangle. Riccardo broods over the changing character of his marriage, from its initial exclusiveness to Emilia's withdrawal from him. Her physical beauty torments him, her indirection- as she refuses to explain herself or explain away Battista's attraction to her- exasperates him- and finally she leaves him and her death, which follows, is surrounded with the same ambiguity..... The irreconcilables between a civilized man and a primitive woman are warmed by emotional outbursts, cooled by the assiduous analysis which follows, and continues this writer's sequence of brief encounters- and revelations.