Very different from Moravia's more famous novels, this book reads like a '60s Blake Edwards farce. The claim that it's some sort of satire about Mussolini doesn't really hold up; if anything, Moravia spends a lot of time portraying Communists as rigid, clueless buffoons. Overall, kind of amusing but not worth seeking out. ( )

En ny läsupplevelse. Jag fick tipset av ett antikvariat att läsa Moravia. Ett bra tips som garanterat kommer att ge många härliga lästimmar framöver. En bok om makt och egen vinning. ( )

סיפור עלילה מורכב כשל עלילת אופרה. כתוב בסגנון יבש פדנטי ולקוני. מעשה בגנראל דיקטטור, אשה שהוא חושק בה, צמד מהפכנים ומשטרה חשאית. כולם מרמים ומרומים על ידי כולם. סאטירה על המשטר הפאשיסטי באיטליה. ( )

The English title of this translated novel seems insipid and poorly chosen. It doesn't convey the essence of the story at all. In Italian the title is La Mascherata, meaning not so much a fancy dress party as a masquerade, or at least something masked or camouflaged. And that is what this book is about on so many levels: each of the characters is taking part in a game of calculated subterfuge, pursuing a goal inevitably linked to power, sex or money, but always with an element of pretence or concealment. Even the book itself has something of a masked purpose: it is a kind of farce containing an analysis of the Italian fascist regime of Mussolini, but pretending to be the story of a dictatorship in an unnamed ex-Spanish colony somewhere "on the other side of the ocean". Copies of the second edition of the book were seized by the Italian authorities. Continued ( )