Confessions of Zeno [Paperback]

Italo Svevo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 18, 1989

As a form of therapy, Zeno's doctor advises him to write his memoirs. The patient reconstructs the events in his life into a palatable reality founded upon compromise and rationalization.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The pliant protagonist of Italo Svevo's 1923 classic Confessions of Zeno is, among other things, a bumbling businessman, a guilt-ridden adulterer, and a hardcore nicotine addict. What Zeno Cosini most definitely is not is wordless. For the novel is in fact a dense and comically excruciating exercise in self-revelation, undertaken by the narrator as part of his psychoanalytic treatment. Zeno never finds a cure for his affliction, which seems to be a strain of continental angst. Yet his reflections remain as audacious as they are exhaustive--and, much of the time, masterfully absorbing.

As we soon discover, Zeno is a master is the convoluted rationalization. He concocts numerous reasons why his "last cigarette" needn't truly become his last; he strives endlessly to convince himself that he loves his wife; he tirelessly justifies an awkward affair, all the while vacillating between a paralysis of action and a lazy submission. "My resolutions are less drastic and, as I grow older, I become more indulgent to my weaknesses," Zeno proclaims early on. (Later he backpedals even further, confessing that his "resolutions existed for their own sake and had no practical results whatever.") As a last-ditch tactic, he transmutes his disappointments into inevitabilities--an act of creative bookkeeping that becomes steadily creepier as the narrative unfolds.

There are times, to be sure, when Zeno seems to grasp that life isn't merely feints and games, that subterfuge and dark motivation aren't the whole of human transaction. Yet he always retreats back into his extravagant, consoling fantasies. Perhaps that's why Svevo's book still has the power to discomfit: Zeno's ingenious whitewashing of an indifferent world feels alarmingly like the fictions we tell ourselves on a daily basis. --Ben Guterson

Language Notes

Text: English, Italian (translation)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 18, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679722343
• ISBN-13: 978-0679722342
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars James Joyces' Favorite Seinfeld Episode, May 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Confessions of Zeno (Paperback)

I first bought this book in 1984, when I was taking a class on James Joyce. I'd heard it was Joyce's favorite book. It took me 15 years to actually get a copy and READ it because I was a little intimidated. Yeah, it's great literature, yeah, it strips a man to his soul, and shows you the inner workings of a pathetic mind, BUT the way I've sold my friends on it is this: Confessions of Zeno is nothing less than a 1920s Italian Seinfeld episode. Zeno is George. Spiteful, conniving, kinda smart and kinda dumb at the same time, lying to himself and everyone around him, getting in trouble, hitting on women left and right, and above all else, laugh-out-loud funny.

If that appeals to you, buy it.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Literary masterpiece, with a final twist., December 12, 2002

By 

Hovig J. Heghinian (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Confessions of Zeno (Paperback)

"Confessions of Zeno" is the journal of a middle-aged man in Trieste, Italy (in the NE, near Croatia, Slovenia and Austria). He first describes briefly his difficult relationship with his father, and his problems quitting smoking, but then moves to the heart of his narrative, which concerns his life spent with a successful merchant-class family, with whose father he has a business relationship, and whose two daughters he desires a personal relationship. He courts each in turn, eventually marrying one, but keeps a mistress for a time, and comes to befriend the man who marries the other daughter, even entering into a business relationship with him. He manages to have a child, and lives a relatively quiet bourgeois existence.

The problem is, he is utterly detached, self-centered, and hypocritical. When we say "business relationship", we use the term loosely. He despises honest labor. Worse, during the various troubles he has with his friends and family, he cannot see it is his personality which causes them. The book is subtle and clever, describing the story through his eyes, but still making it clear he is usually the trouble-maker.

The journal was supposed to have been written for the sake of a psychologist, who is now publishing it to convince his patient he requires more therapy. For the greater part, it is a generally plain book, with interesting characters who take us through interesting adventures, even if those adventures are made comical by the man writing the tale, unaware what a clown he truly is. At the end of the book, the book's full effect dawns on us, and we finally understand the psychologist perfectly. The ending is quite subtle, and this reviewer was shocked enough to need to re-read the last few pages a few times before actually believing what it seemed to say, but the book's message was that much more effective because of this subtlety. After reading a "plain" book for so many pages, the ending is that much more powerful.

The book's style is clear and engaging, the characters well drawn and endearing, and the stories charming. Many readers will be happy enough to follow this "tragicomic" story for its own sake, but patient and insightful readers will be rewarded with a conclusion that forces them to question what the book had told them all along, and reflect on the meaning of life, love, family, and friendship.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my 5 all-time favorites, September 6, 1999

By 

D. Wayne (Juneau, Alaska) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Confessions of Zeno (Paperback)

This is a book that I read to please a friend who begged me to try it. It sounded dull, especially when I was told that the author was a wealthy middle aged friend of James Joyce and had only written the book as an experiment, to have something in common with his writer pal. I don't know if that story is true, but no matter...the book is very good. You don't have to know anything about literature or about Italy to enjoy meeting ZENO and getting to know him. Warning: skip over the first few chapters if you're trying to quit smoking or if you're staying up late and you don't want to wake up your spouse with a late-night laughing jag. Enjoy.