Conjugal Love
A Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
To begin with I’d like to talk about my wife. To love means, in addition to many other things, to delight in gazing upon and observing the beloved.
--From Conjugal Love
When Silvio, a rich Italian dilettante, and his beautiful wife agree to move to the country and forgo sex so that he will have the energy to write a successful novel, something is bound to go wrong: Silvio’s literary ambitions are far too big for his second-rate talent, and his wife Leda is a passionate woman. This dangerously combustible situation is set off when Leda accuses Antonio, the local barber who comes every morning to shave Silvio, of trying to molest her. Silvio obstinately refuses to dismiss him, and the quarrel and its shattering consequences put the couple’s love to the test.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Italian stylist Moravia (1907 1990) had his novels The Conformist and Contempt filmed by Bertolucci and Godard, respectively; this novel, freshly translated by Harss (who provides a short note), was written in 1949. Independently wealthy narrator Silvio Baldeschi is in his early 30s, an aesthete whose two elusive desires in life are to love a woman and create a great work of literature. He marries the sensuous Leda, a woman unschooled in everything except love, with whom he feels harmoniously suited. Together they move to his isolated villa in Tuscany for several months, where Leda is to act as muse for Silvio's great work. But Silvio decides their nightly lovemaking saps the energy he needs to write his masterpiece: over 20 days of intensive writing, they abstain while village barber and notorious womanizer Antonio, who comes daily to shave Silvio, moves in on Leda. The writer's inability to defend his wife's honor as the barber makes advances, let alone take her desire for Antonio seriously, begins the unraveling of their marriage. Moravia, in this Contempt-like setup, achieves a sly, convincing portrait in the voice of Silvio, whose love for Leda emasculates him, yet fuels his work.
