[The theater of the Italian futurists and Pirandello, in which] man is at the best a machine or at the least an impassive block of wood,… influenced the youthful Alberto Moravia in writing his first novel The Indifferent Ones…. The plot was consciously structured into two days, like two acts of a drama. The cast of characters was restricted to five figures. Indeed, as in a stage work, the author maintained a strict economy of words and gestures for the characters. There is an obvious theatricality about the novel. The characters move from a living-room to a dining-room as if the stage sets were shifted. Some of the characters hide behind a curtain to spy on others. Just as a crucial moment is about to be reached, a door opens and a maid enters to hinder an extreme solution. Although the scene is Rome, the city is but...