Zeno's Conscience: A Novel
by Italo Svevo
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Book Summary Information
Author: Italo SvevoTranslator: William Weaver
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-02-04
ISBN: 0375727760
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Zeno's Conscience: A Novel
Book Review: Oblomov all'italiana
Summary: 5 Stars
As André Gide once said: "Toute chose appartient à qui sait en jouir." Alas, those of us who do not possess this happy faculty, still have to somehow come to terms with life. This is the main problem in Svevo's novel, concisely summarized by its hero: "Simply recalling everything we humans expected from life sufficed for us to see how strange it was, and to arrive at the conclusion that perhaps mankind is located in its midst by mistake and doesn't belong there."
Of course, the theme of being out of place in life is not new in literature. "Exotopic" men can be found earlier in Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks", Flaubert's "L' Éducation sentimentale", and, ultimately, some sixty years before, in Goncharov's "Oblomov". So, perhaps thematically the only peculiar novelty of "Zeno's Conscience" is in the incorporation of certain Freudian elements in main hero's self-analysis. Nevertheless, the originality of this work is striking in the context of the fact, that even though Svevo is often compared to Joyce or Proust, he hasn't read any of their novels until after the publication of "Zeno's Conscience" (though he knew Joyce personally for many years since 1904, when Joyce was his English tutor in Trieste).
Full of humor, irony, and astute aphorisms, this book is an honest confession of its main hero, who fails to immerse himself in life. If you liked Proust, Joyce, or Musil, this book is for you.
Summary of Zeno's Conscience: A Novel
Long hailed as a seminal work of modernism in the tradition of Joyce and Kafka, and now available in a supple new English translation, Italo Svevo?s charming and splendidly idiosyncratic novel conducts readers deep into one hilariously hyperactive and endlessly self-deluding mind. The mind in question belongs to Zeno Cosini, a neurotic Italian businessman who is writing his confessions at the behest of his psychiatrist. Here are Zeno?s interminable attempts to quit smoking, his courtship of the beautiful yet unresponsive Ada, his unexpected?and unexpectedly happy?marriage to Ada?s homely sister Augusta, and his affair with a shrill-voiced aspiring singer. Relating these misadventures with wry wit and a perspicacity at once unblinking and compassionate, Zeno?s Conscience is a miracle of psychological realism.Literary Books
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