[KlaraNovikoffa]

Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo
translated from the Italian by William Weaver


"You see things less clearly when you open your eyes too wide."

If these words, spoken by Zeno Cosini, were heeded by him over the course of Zeno's Conscience, it would be a vastly different book. But Zeno is deluded by his own grandeur. Vain, supercilious, and disloyal, he never seems to give the reader much room for admiration. Of course, it was not Svevo's intention for us to respect Zeno. Rather, we should be bewitched by him. And we are. The book, which spans over 400 pages, seemed to scarcely be long enough. The preface tells us that this manuscript is being published as a gesture of revenge on the part of Zeno's psychiatrist, the mysterious "Doctor S". We soon forget that, though, as Zeno begins his beguiling, introspective "Preamble".

"The doctor has urged me not to insist stubbornly on trying to see all that far back," Zeno writes. "Recent things can also be valuable, and especially fantasies, and last night's dreams."

The present tense soon shifts, however, and, after a 23-page chapter entitled "Smoke," which centers around Zeno's addiction to cigarettes, Zeno begins reminiscing about many things. The first event he shares with us is his father's death. This event composes one section of this five-part novel, and it is the most sober part of what, overall, is a highly amusing book. As Zeno's father endures the agonies of a terminal illness, Zeno suffers emotionally. While his father dies, he recalls:

"On that sofa I wept my most searing tears. Weeping obscures our guilt and allows us to accuse fate, without contradiction. I wept because I was losing my father for whom I had always lived."

But had the self-absorbed Zeno really lived for his father? Or is he merely deluding himself?

In the second part of the book, "The Story of My Marriage," Zeno proves to be both pompous and naive. Although the truth is often right before him, he fails to perceive it. He is so blinded by the illusions he has about himself, that the conclusions he comes to about people and circumstances are almost ludicrous. "It's surely easier to change oneself than to reshape others," he declares ironically. Indeed, it is easier to change oneself--but first, the desire to change must be there, and it's impossible to believe that Zeno isn't entirely pleased with the person he is.

He is quick to make assumptions, too, especially if they are in accordance with that which he desires. When he meets the quartet of Malfenti sisters, he immediately assumes that Ada, the sister he is most interested in will instantly be attracted to him. Rather than setting out to win her, however, his single objective is marriage. "An unusual path for love to take," he admits, "a very broad path, a very comfortable path, but one that doesn't lead to the goal, close though it may be. Love achieved in this way lacks the principal ingredient, the subjugation of the female..."

We soon get accustomed to Zeno's philosophical theories, some of which are both annoying and amusing. Other observations are surprisingly shrewd: "There is nothing more difficult in this world than to achieve a marriage exactly the way you want to."

Zeno is a highly unpredictable character, and this is one thing about him that compels you to keep reading. When he ends up married to Augusta, the one Malfenti sister whom he had no attraction to, it's easy to believe that his home life will be doomed to failure. But in a book filled with inconsistencies, featuring a leading character who possesses so many idiosyncracies, it is never wise to make assumptions.

"I loved Augusta and she loved me," Zeno announces at the start of section three, "Wife and Mistress." This bold statement prepares the reader for a partnership that is both happy and fruitful. Although Zeno contradicts his initial statement in the very next paragraph, by admitting that his feelings for Augusta may be closer to "gratitude" than love, he is nevertheless content with his choice of bride and with his married life. He muses, almost nostalgically,

"Days go by, suitable for framing; they are rich in sounds that daze you, and besides their lines and colors, they are also filled with real light, the kind that burns and therefore isn't burning."

The two of them "shun" musuems in order to enjoy the paintings and pictures that make up "real life." But the conjugal bliss does not last long. Zeno seduces Carla, a dark-haired beauty who seems to be the opposite of his wife in every way. We are reminded of a prior observation as we walk with Zeno through his casual yet passionate affair: "It is a known fact that we men do not seek in a wife the characteristics we adore and despise in a mistress."

Zeno considers himself to be an expert on the art of love. "Women always know what they want," he affirms, and, naturally, Carla wants him. He is her first lover, and her adoration captivates Zeno. But she is also volatile and sensitive, and soon these qualities outweigh her attributes.

It's no surprise, of course, since, as Zeno explains to Augusta's sister, Alberta, while cavalierly discussing the subject of love:

"...a woman (is) an object whose value fluctuate(s) far more than any stock on the market....a woman might have a high value at a certain hour of the morning, none at all at noon, and then in the afternoon be worth twice her morning value, only to end in the evening at an actually negative value...."

Ultimately, Carla loses all value for Zeno. He does, however, still treasure his wife, Augusta. Although he assumes that she has never had the slightest suspicions in regard to his liaison, the reader wonders whether or not this is yet another one of Zeno's self-delusions. We are never shown that Augusta has any inkling of the truth, but then we are not offered any insight into her perspective. This is Zeno's story, and his vantage point is all that exists.

For example, when Zeno decides that he suffers from a myriad of ailments, we can only surmise, from all that we know about him, that these are psychomatic. The illnesses are very real to him, and he is constantly fearing death as a result of one health problem or another. He manages to persuade himself that he has everything from lung disease to diabetes, though these self-diagnosed ailments are always proven to be imaginary. Zeno's business partnership with his brother-in-law, Guido, is another source of frustration. There are various complications with finances, and Zeno is incapable of making the astute decisions that are necessary to solve these difficulties. Ada, his wife's sister and his original love interest, becomes disfigured by an illness, and Guido ends up in an torrid affair with his fetching secretary, Carmen. This part of the novel reads a bit like a soap opera. There is a great deal of drama, but, because of how it is presented, none of it seems contrived. Once the reader's interest is fully engaged, it is nearly impossible to stop reading. As all these traumatic events come to an end, Zeno bemoans the bitterness of life, while, at the same time, offering advice on how to survive it:

"...at any point of the universe where you are settled, you end up being infected. You have to keep moving. Life has poisons, but also some other poisons that serve as antidotes. Only by running can you elude the former and take advantage of the latter."

In a way, Zeno is always running. He keeps moving, never really accepting responsibility for the choices he makes. He daydreams about Ada, even after he is married to her sister, and fantasizes about the past, moving backward into memories rather than forward into reality. In the final chapter he makes a confession that suggests to the reader why his attempts at psychoanalysis have never been successful. He finally admits:

"...I wasn't looking for therapy, after all. I wanted again May roses in December. I had them once, why couldn't I have them again?"

How can we be surprised that Zeno wants May roses in December? He is a man who has religiously pursued the unattainable, a fanciful creature whose inflated opinion of himself shields his eyes from the truth. Although he says at one point, "Certainly the world would be a sweeter place if more people resembled me," the reader must surely be glad that Zeno is one of a kind.

Stylistically, Svevo transports us into a world of modernism that echoes the work of Joyce, one of his most fervent admirers. The structure of Zeno's Conscience is innovative and logical, and, even though Zeno oftentimes makes no sense, Svevo's realistic prose enables us to perceive Zeno's most ridiculous actions as being completely believable. At once witty, brilliant, and rich with detail, this novel is a work of sheer genius.

Hailed as a "seminal work of modernism," Zeno's Conscience was published in Italian in 1923 and in English in 1930. Svevo, whose birth name was Ettore Schmitz, was sixty-two years old at the time of publication. Five years later, Svevo was killed in an automobile accident. When speaking of Zeno's Conscience, in a letter sent to Svevo and dated January 30, 1924,
James Joyce says, "I am reading (Zeno's Conscience) with great pleasure. Why be discouraged? You must know it is by far your best work." At the time of his death, Svevo was contemplating, among other works, a sequel to this incomparable novel.

My rating: ++


~Titania


"...things that no one knows, things that leave no trace,
do not exist..."
~Zeno's Conscience, Italo Svevo

[pipitous]

I read this book years ago and expected to love it - in fact, knew I would - and yet, and yet, it did absolutely nothing for me. I found it pretty tough going, really. But everyone else I know who's read it really likes it, so it's probably just me... It depends a lot on whether you are amused by/feel sympathy for/are interested in the delusions of the main character, and I wasn't. It certainly had worthwhile moments, and I found the recurring, easily broken resolution to quit smoking funny (as anyone who smokes says the same thing all the time)... I just felt a slight but insistent sense of annoyance with him and with the book all the way through.

However, sometimes you're just in the wrong frame of mind when you read something. Your review makes me want to give Zeno's Conscience another run somewhere down the line.

As for the sequel, there is one published (and out-of-print) in English translation under the title The Further Confessions of Zeno (Zeno's Conscience was originally published as The Confessions of Zeno in English). I have a copy in my parents' attic in the States somewhere, but I don't know if it's something Svevo completed in his lifetime, or if it's one of those posthumous fragments publishers so like to print, often against the dying author's wishes.

[auctionlover]

OK, OK, OK, I surrender! You use very persuasive sales techniques and I'm putting it on my 'Must Read' list. I admit it: I've put off reading him for far too long. The Oxford Companion to English Literature gives the novel just two sentences, and they make it tempting as well:

'Zeno is a complex and delicately balanced novel in which time and point of view are relative. Arguing with his psychoanalyst, Zeno struggles with chance, time, marriage, and tobacco, disclosing the source of his malady as the Oedipus complex.'

Let's see how Titania's techniques work, though:

"You see things less clearly when you open your eyes too wide."

Yes, I'm a sucker for paradox. Good start.

Vain, supercilious, and disloyal, he never seems to give the reader much room for admiration.

Yes, unpleasant characters can make for interesting reading.

"The doctor has urged me not to insist stubbornly on trying to see all that far back," Zeno writes. "Recent things can also be valuable, and especially fantasies, and last night's dreams."

This is beginning to take on an oddness that pleases me.

"On that sofa I wept my most searing tears. Weeping obscures our guilt and allows us to accuse fate, without contradiction. I wept because I was losing my father for whom I had always lived."

I love the sentence 'Weeping obscures our guilt and allows us to accuse fate, without contradiction.' Good use of quotation.

In the second part of the book, "The Story of My Marriage," Zeno proves to be both pompous and naive. Although the truth is often right before him, he fails to perceive it. He is so blinded by the illusions he has about himself, that the conclusions he comes to about people and circumstances are almost ludicrous. "It's surely easier to change oneself than to reshape others," he declares ironically.

Self-deception, over and over. Sounds like a classic case out of Sartre's filing cabinet. Zeno is obviously a 'salaud', or swine.

"Days go by, suitable for framing; they are rich in sounds that daze you, and besides their lines and colors, they are also filled with real light, the kind that burns and therefore isn't burning."

The two of them "shun" musuems in order to enjoy the paintings and pictures that make up "real life."

Is there any more of this art and life business? OK, I know: 'Read the book!'

Hailed as a "seminal work of modernism," Zeno's Conscience was published in Italian in 1923 and in English in 1930.

Titania, where does this bit of quotation come from? Svevo certainly doesn't instantly spring to mind as a member of the modernist canon, though, but that's probably because, for some odd reason, most of those works are in English: Stein, Pound, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Wyndham Lewis, for instance, and of course Joyce.

James Joyce says, "I am reading (Zeno's Conscience) with great pleasure. Why be discouraged? You must know it is by far your best work."

The all-important Joyce link, which reminds me that I first came across Svevo's name in Richard Ellmann's superb James Joyce.

Once again, Titania, a brilliant, generously sized review. Good sale.

Gotta scamper off.

[KlaraNovikoffa]

I read this book years ago and expected to love it - in fact, knew I would - and yet, and yet, it did absolutely nothing for me. I found it pretty tough going, really. But everyone else I know who's read it really likes it, so it's probably just me...

Liehtzu,
I appreciate your honesty. Sometimes it has to do with when a person reads a book. Perhaps it was simply the wrong time...

It depends a lot on whether you are amused by/feel sympathy for/are interested in the delusions of the main character, and I wasn't.

I agree. If you don't find the protagonist interesting, you're not going to find the book entertaining.

It certainly had worthwhile moments, and I found the recurring, easily broken resolution to quit smoking funny (as anyone who smokes says the same thing all the time)... I just felt a slight but insistent sense of annoyance with him and with the book all the way through.

I always feel a sense of annoyance with most of Joyce Carol Oates' characters. It's difficult to get into a book when the main character or characters irritates you.

However, sometimes you're just in the wrong frame of mind when you read something. Your review makes me want to give Zeno's Conscience another run somewhere down the line.

Wow! I can't imagine my review having that much an impact on you. I'll take that as a tremendous compliment, and, yes, I do hope you'll give the book another try.

As for the sequel, there is one published (and out-of-print) in English translation under the title The Further Confessions of Zeno (Zeno's Conscience was originally published as The Confessions of Zeno in English). I have a copy in my parents' attic in the States somewhere, but I don't know if it's something Svevo completed in his lifetime, or if it's one of those posthumous fragments publishers so like to print, often against the dying author's wishes.

I haven't ever heard of there being a sequel. I'm glad you told me about this. It's probably something that Svevo wouldn't have wanted to be published, but you never know.

I only wish Svevo had written more books. We can only imagine what he might have written, had he been as prolific as Balzac or Zola.

Thanks, liehtzu, for your comments. I enjoyed them.


~Titania

[KlaraNovikoffa]

OK, OK, OK, I surrender! You use very persuasive sales techniques and I'm putting it on my 'Must Read' list.

Bravo! If I can convince you to read a work of literature that's been translated from Italian into English, well...I'm one convincing Titania .

I admit it: I've put off reading him for far too long.

At least you admit it. You're one step ahead of the rest.

The Oxford Companion to English Literature gives the novel just two sentences, and they make it tempting as well:

'Zeno is a complex and delicately balanced novel in which time and point of view are relative. Arguing with his psychoanalyst, Zeno struggles with chance, time, marriage, and tobacco, disclosing the source of his malady as the Oedipus complex.'

That sums things up, and, I'll admit, it sounds somewhat tempting.
However, a review that is a mere paragraph cannot possibly do this book justice.

I appreciate your sharing, however .

Also, I'm glad you enjoyed the paradoxical quote from the book that I opened my review with. Actually, this book is infinitely quotable, and it was difficult to pick which quote to use among so many. However, the fact that Zeno never does seem to see anything clearly makes that particular quote highly ironic. Hence my decision to use it...

Yes, unpleasant characters can make for interesting reading.

Indeed! Who wants to read about nice, boring, everyday people?

I love the sentence 'Weeping obscures our guilt and allows us to accuse fate, without contradiction.' Good use of quotation.

I'm delighted you liked that quote. It's even more effective when you read it in the context that Svevo puts it in (the chapter centering around
Zeno's father's death).

Self-deception, over and over. Sounds like a classic case out of Sartre's filing cabinet. Zeno is obviously a 'salaud', or swine.

I do think Zeno is a bit of a swine...though rather intriguing and amusing
nonetheless. Indeed, he's so delusional that you can't help but laugh.

Is there any more of this art and life business? OK, I know: 'Read the book!

More apt advice couldn't have been given: Read the book!

Titania, where does this bit of quotation come from?

From the back of the book. I took it right off the back cover. I couldn't resist.

Svevo certainly doesn't instantly spring to mind as a member of the modernist canon, though, but that's probably because, for some odd reason, most of those works are in English: Stein, Pound, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Wyndham Lewis, for instance, and of course Joyce.

Well, I think Svevo has been rather disgracefully overlooked, to a large extent. It probably does have something to do with the fact that he's Italian, rather than English or American. But he certainly is a modernist writer....which means, of course, he's just the sort of author I know you like .

...I first came across Svevo's name in Richard Ellmann's superb James Joyce.

I'll have to find a copy of this. I'm glad you made a mention of it, lionel.

Once again, Titania, a brilliant, generously sized review. Good sale.

Ah, you're just trying to make me blush with your lavish flattery .
Your compliments are much appreciated, by the way.

Gotta scamper off.

Well...if you must, you must!

Thanks again, lionel. You know how highly I value your praise.


~Titania

[auctionlover]

Bravo! If I can convince you to read a work of literature that's been translated from Italian into English, well...I'm one convincing Titania .

Just rub it in.

I appreciate your sharing, however .

As you know, I believe in sharing things.

Indeed! Who wants to read about nice, boring, everyday people?

Perish the thought.

I'm delighted you liked that quote. It's even more effective when you read it in the context that Svevo puts it in (the chapter centering around
Zeno's father's death).

I'm gonna read it, there's no need to be pedantic.

I do think Zeno is a bit of a swine...though rather intriguing and amusing nonetheless. Indeed, he's so delusional that you can't help but laugh.

I've met a few like that. Best to ignore the buggers though.

More apt advice couldn't have been given: Read the book!

Right, I've got the message: RTFM.

Well, I think Svevo has been rather disgracefully overlooked, to a large extent. It probably does have something to do with the fact that he's Italian, rather than English or American. But he certainly is a modernist writer....which means, of course, he's just the sort of author I know you like .

Rant, rant fuckin rant. You're already preaching to the converted, darling.

Ah, you're just trying to make me blush with your lavish flattery .
Your compliments are much appreciated, by the way.

Thought so. But spare me the false timidity.

Well...if you must, you must [scamper off]!

Oh, sorry, Titania, as I suppose that must have seemed like an abrupt closure. I should have said that it's all these books, yuh know? Heaps and heaps.

[KlaraNovikoffa]

I'm gonna read it, there's no need to be pedantic...You're already preaching to the converted, darling.

Lionel,
Okay, darling, I believe you...and I'm glad you're converted.

I know I sent you this link already, but everybody else might enjoy taking a look at another review of Zeno's Conscience. This one is written by author Jane Smiley.

Jane Smiley on Italo Svevo's Zeno's Conscience | Books | The Guardian


Enjoy.

~Titania

[Zugaxxsn]

Excellent review, titania, for an excellent novel. If I hadn't already read it, this review would have convinced me to do so. It's one of my all-time favorite novels, as you may know. Also, I didn't see it mentioned, but it may be a point of interest for lionel, our Kelman zealot : Svevo wrote this novel in a regional Italian dialect (Triest), which barred him entry into the ranks of 'literature' for a while. LIterature was supposed to be written in 'standard' Italian. I've recently encountered a newer translation into German but am reluctant to read it, considering to get my Italian off the ground first and tackle it from that angle.

[KlaraNovikoffa]

Excellent review, titania, for an excellent novel.

Many thanks, Mirabell. Your compliments mean a great deal to me.

If I hadn't already read it, this review would have convinced me to do so.

Ah, then I would have accomplished as much as any reviewer could possibly hope for. Thank you once again.

It's one of my all-time favorite novels, as you may know.

I did suspect as much, having seen the enthusiasm you demonstrated in regard to this book on the Italo Svevo thread .

Also, I didn't see it mentioned, but it may be a point of interest for lionel, our Kelman zealot : Svevo wrote this novel in a regional Italian dialect (Triest), which barred him entry into the ranks of 'literature' for a while. LIterature was supposed to be written in 'standard' Italian. I've recently encountered a newer translation into German but am reluctant to read it, considering to get my Italian off the ground first and tackle it from that angle.

I'm quite certain lionel will find these details interesting. You know, it is a small miracle that I've persuaded him to read Zeno's Conscience at all, since he tends to shun most translated literature.

And that reminds me, lionel: I'll look forward to reading your review of this novel when you finish it. I do hope it will be all that you imagined...and more.

~Titania

[auctionlover]

Two of em at it now. They'll be calling the cops in next, marching me off to the nearest bookstore. Yes, I knew that about the language of Trieste, Mirabell, and think it may even be mentioned in Ellmann.

But 'tends to shun', Titania? You know I try,though, as does Mirabell. So come on. Play fair. I shall read it, take the dogs back, put the instruments of torture away, call off the heavy mob. I've said it. You know I don't lie.

Play fair? That reminds me: it's a short story by George Garrett, the working-class writer. Brilliant story rantrantrant.............

[Zugaxxsn]

But 'tends to shun', Titania? You know I try,though, as does Mirabell. So come on. Play fair. I shall read it, take the dogs back, put the instruments of torture away, call off the heavy mob. I've said it. You know I don't lie.

Yep, I believe I share your misgivings towards translation, as German, though, I was forced to read things in translation if I wasn't to be stuck with a smallish body of literature. There are loads of Japanese, Russian, Italian and Spanish writers whom I have not read on account of my reluctance to read the book as distorted through a different person's interpretation. BUt what you're gonna do, eh?

[auctionlover]

Yep, I believe I share your misgivings towards translation, as German, though, I was forced to read things in translation if I wasn't to be stuck with a smallish body of literature. There are loads of Japanese, Russian, Italian and Spanish writers whom I have not read on account of my reluctance to read the book as distorted through a different person's interpretation. BUt what you're gonna do, eh?

As I've mentioned elsewhere, translation may work perfectly well with instructon manuals and the like but in literary works you hit a number of difficulties. Sometimes, as with the truly appalling Parshley translation of Beauvoir's work, The Second Sex, and which I've mentioned before on the forum, you get a whole slew of problems: sexism, anglocentrism, ignorance of the original language, ignorance of philosophy, etc. Thankfully, this is an extreme case, but there are sometimes words that are untranslatable because they have so many culturally-specific connotations, words that have more than one - maybe even several meanings, and the list goes on.

Yes, translation is a problem, but obviously we would deprive ourselves of so much good literature if we ignored it.

[deethythitoth]

Hi there, I'm from BC, Canada. I just discovered this forum looking for thoughts about this book. I read a different translation (titled The Confessions of Zeno, trans: Beryl de Zoate, Vintage International).

I liked Titania's review above. My thoughts, in brief:

Don't know what to make of this one. Strange use of unreliable narrator - just when I was getting used to the idea that Zeno's entire testimony is shot through with rationalization and narcissism (making it hilarious but an untrustworthy source for authorial nuggets of wisdom), he begins to make surprisingly astute and convincingly insightful observations. Also, given the novel's conceit, it's impossible not to read through a kind of psychoanalytic lens - but the relationship between novel and 'psychoanalysis' is not really that clear (to me). I think I had too many preconceptions going into this book, I blasted through most of it kinda waiting for passages of meta-commentary that would cast light on the never-ending blathering about day to day life (such passages never arrived) - the real action, the comedy and the subtle surprises, involves actually following the narrator's tangled threads of thought, reading between the lines of his journal, then watching him read between the lines himself, watching the recursive movement of his thought as it succeeds or fails (mostly fails) to explain itself to itself.

Zeno's journal is funniest when he recounts trying to quit smoking, most suggestive as he describes his relationship with his father, slapstick as he describes the trials of courtship, tedious as he describes his marital infidelities, and insightful as he describes his business (this last, I think I'll re-read - feels like Svevo is up to something here). The final section - 'Psychoanalysis' is just strange. The last few pages of the novel seem important, but I can't get a handle on how they fit together with the rest (if they do). Enjoyable in that they provide food for thought, but a little bothersome in that they leave everything unsettled.

Anyway, pretty interesting novel - I was kind of annoyed for about 2/3 of the time it took me to read - but by the end, it's given me a lot of laughter and quite a bit to think about.