Tami

Not in the slightest pornographic, like one might expect from Moravia.

The sensuality is more subdued and not in the main focus of this story.

It is a quite clever story about a wanna-be writer who is a privileged and arrogant a**hole, self-centered and pretentious. Into it comes a little unwilling pity as he also talks about his unhappiness and suicide - but the reader can never be sure if this isn't another ploy of his to center attention on him.

Through his own account we learn about his life, his feelings, his musings, his love for his wife - an emotion he seems to use for himself, to fit into his image of himself.

He decides solely based on his own needs and wishes - and the conclusion of the little novella shows him, that unfortunately other people might do the same. His wife decides to live her life like she wants to as well.

And it this includes sexual adventures with an unattractive, but willing barber, she goes for it.

There was a slightly bitter humor in the comparison of the behaviour his wife shows him to that of an indulgent mother.

What was in my eyes very well done, was the slow revelation of the true power balance between those two. How intellectual snobbism (which I detest in people - even fictional :-)) led to a total misapprehension of said power structure in the relationship.