[Moravia] considers himself a realist writer: … he has steadfastly defended realism against all other artistic currents. His defense is founded on humanism, on the idea of man as an end and not as a means; and among the arts, realism alone is humanistic…. (p. 4)

When Moravia speaks of reality, he is often referring to objective reality, that reality which exists independently of human consciousness and which would still have intrinsic value even if there were no men. In the novels of Moravia objective reality is most commonly evident in things, in the object experienced by Moravia's characters as a physical presence. It is simply there, contingent (in that there is no apparent reason for it to be there, but it cannot not be there) and autonomous, for it exists in a dimension different from that of human beings, lending itself to neither definition nor explanation nor possession by...