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.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
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
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.
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Paperback. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.62. Seller Inventory # G0394700635I5N00
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Soft cover. Condition: Good. Undated Vintage Books reprint (V-63). Translated from the Italian by Beryl De Zoete. Cover design by Milton Glaser. G. Covers show significant general creasing, and some rubbing and soiling. Binding is sound. Name to front end paper, and no other writing. Moderate toning to pages. Seller Inventory # 2750
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Seller: Remarks Used Books, Pittsfield, MA, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. A Vintage Book (V-63) Translated from the Italian by Beryl De Zoete. Cover design by Milton Glaser, Perma-bound in hardcover for library use. Clean & tight copy w/slight uniform fading & edge-foxing to text block, o/w unmarked; cover is very well preserved w/lacquer. Very Good condition. "CONFESSIONS OF ZENO was hailed as the best novel of the year when it was first published in Italy in 1923. This success was repeated when it was translated and first published in English in 1930. Today it is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century fiction." [publisher copy] "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."--Ben Guterson. "You might with advantage take out your map of modern literature and mark on it the name of Italo Svevo . . . for Svevo and his novel, CONFESSIONS OF ZENO, will henceforth be on other people's maps . . . It is a very remarkable book."--Arnold Bennett. "Looking back for many years I can recall no work of such ironic intelligence and bubbling humor as this novel."--Matthew Josephson. Erstwhile library copy appears unchecked-out (no pocket or date-stamps), unread & unmarked (but for library name on edges), w/square & tight binding. Quite presentable. Seller Inventory # RUB2768
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