Details Epithetical Books Zeno's Conscience
| Title | : | Zeno's Conscience |
| Author | : | Italo Svevo |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 437 pages |
| Published | : | February 4th 2003 by Vintage (first published 1923) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. European Literature. Italian Literature. Cultural. Italy |
Italo Svevo
Paperback | Pages: 437 pages Rating: 3.83 | 14280 Users | 675 Reviews
Representaion In Pursuance Of Books Zeno's Conscience
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 one 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 irony, and a perspicacity at once unblinking and compassionate, Zeno’s Conscience is a miracle of psychological realism.
Mention Books As Zeno's Conscience
| Original Title: | La coscienza di Zeno |
| ISBN: | 0375727760 (ISBN13: 9780375727764) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Zeno Cosini |
| Setting: | Trieste(Italy) |
Rating Epithetical Books Zeno's Conscience
Ratings: 3.83 From 14280 Users | 675 ReviewsComment On Epithetical Books Zeno's Conscience
Italo Svevo (1861-1928) was Jewish businessman and part-time writer who lived virtually his entire life in Trieste. At one point, he engaged James Joyce as an English tutor. Joyce was impressed with the Conscience of Zeno which he rescued from obscurity by using his contacts in Paris to have the book published in a France. The success in France led to an English translation being released and a successful relaunch of the book in Italy.La Conscience de Zeno is a charming and witty biography ofI was completely taken aback by how funny this was. Recommendations from Jameses - Joyce and Woods - coupled with its lengthiness, led me to believe this book would be a heavy, somber, read. It's a joy, an encomium to the Everyman, a Walserian celebration of dorky, awkward neurotics who marry plain women when rebuffed by others, flail in business, and, leaning over their fathers' deathbeds, are slapped in the face. Occasionally, Svevo can tend to verbosity, dragging out a series of guilty
I prefer its alternative title: "The Confessions of Zeno." A fictional character named Zeno--rich, a hypochondriac and a solipsist--writes his autobiography, goaded on by a doctor doing psychoanalysis on him. He talks about his attempts to stop smoking, his father's death, his marriage, wife, mistress and his business partnership with his brother-in-law who later dies while attempting to stage his second fake suicide. Divided into six(6) main chapters, its starts strongly and had it been ended
Zeno's Conscience became an immediate favorite of mine. Zeno is witty, self-deprecating, sly, ironically ignorant of himself, but at glimpses he is a man of self-reflecting genius. Zeno and Leopold Bloom share their origins in Svevo himself, and the classical "everyman" is well-crafted in both of them, in Zeno in particular is the "lovable fool" which seems to have a tradition in Italian modern literature (notably Calvino's Marcovaldo and Palomar). The novel's premise is the self-narrated story
Zenos Conscience is fantastic. Its also very strange. The first and third chapters are ferociously funny, some of the funniest prose Ive ever readif nothing else, the casual reader could fly through the first chapter, which hilariously dissects the protagonists addiction to cigarettes and his countless attempts to quit. Yet theres an intense sadness and despair in other places. (Its been said that Zeno is almost a prototype for Woody Allens cinematic schlemiel persona. I would add that theres a
This is a fascinating book which has a lot working against it (old views, old contexts lending themselves to some unfortunate views like sexism, light racism, etc) but, like an able dialectic, these only serve to augment this book's positives.The story of Zeno and his battle with, essentially, himself and his litany of neurotic obsessions (and how this is reflected by and caused by and a cause of his external circumstances) is one that is uniquely, and enjoyably maddening. Though not always
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