CONFESSIONS OF ZENO

by Italo Svevo ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Published originally in 1930 by Knopf, New Directions is re-presenting this author not only with this work- but with several others to follow. Svevo, who was originally discovered by Joyce, has been compared to litterateurs from Proust to Kafka. Considerably in advance of the public taste, he is still not for a popular taste; his writing, which has much of both farce and fantasy, is also influenced by Freud. This novel concerns the inner and outer life of Zeno Cosini who at 57 undertakes an analysis which retraces his life; its more neurotic indications in his strong nicotine addiction, his consistent hypochondria, his passing erotic inclinations. But it is more overtly the story of his marriage to Augusta, squint-eyed sister of the beautiful Ada with whom he had fallen in love, whom he had tried to marry, before his acquiescence to the substitution of Augusta. Basically happy in his marriage, Zeno had nonetheless passing affairs, was a consultant in the failure of Ada's marriage to the flighty, fickle Guido- who suicides.... For the experimentalist vanguard.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: New Directions

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1947

Categories: FICTION