SOURCE: A review of Command, and I Will Obey You, in Studies in Short Fiction, Fall, 1971, pp. 646-48.

Here, Fantazzi faults Moravia's contradiction between style and subject matter in Command, and I Will Obey You.

The Moravia of this slick, finished collection of tales [Command, and I Will Obey You] bears many traits of resemblance to the Trigorin of Chekhov's The Seagull. In contrast to the restless young writer, Trepliov, the older and established Trigorin is merely the facile manipulator of a métier, for whom life has become an indifferent source of subject matter for his art. The resulting transcription inevitably becomes dull and inauthentic. Moravia, like Trigorin, is a pro, whose studied expertise is too much in evidence. One has the impression that, although fully aware of his lapse into the formulaic and even procrustean shaping of reality, he knows that it is too late for...