Zeno's Conscience (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Svevo, Italo

3.78

26,892 ratings by Goodreads

9780140187748: Zeno's Conscience (Penguin Modern Classics)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014018774X ISBN 13: 9780140187748

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2002

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This enormously engaging, strange novel is both an engrossing saga of a family and a hilarious account of addiction and failure as its helpless hero, notionally undergoing psychiatric help, manages spectacularly to fail to give up smoking, run his business or make sense of his private life.

A hymn to self-delusion and procrastination ZENO'S CONSCIENCE has provoked enormous affection in its readers both in Italian and English since its first publication in the 1920s.

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Review:

"Svevo's masterpiece . . . �in a fresh translation by the dean of Italian literary translators." -"Los Angeles Times" "An excellent new rendering �of a marvellous and original book."-James Wood, "London Review of Books" "A masterpiece, a novel overflowing with human truth in all its murkiness, laughter and terror, a book as striking and relevant today as when it was first published, and a book that is in every good way-its originality included-like life." -Claire Messud, "The New Republic""Hilarious. . . . Effortlessly inventive and eerily prescient. . . . William Weaver . . . updates the novelist's idiosyncratic prose with great affection." -"The Atlantic Monthly""An event in modern publishing. For the first time, I believe, in English, we get the true, dark music, the pewter tints, of Svevo's great last novel. . . . �Svevo is a master." -Joan Acocella, "The New Yorker""�An exhilarating and utterly original novel. . . . Weaver's version strikes one as excellent." -P. N. Furbank, "Literary Review""One of the great comic novels of the twentieth century. . . . �Svevo is perhaps "the "most significant Italian modernist novelist." -"The Times Literary Supplement""�A neglected masterpiece. Seventy-five years old, the novel feels entirely modern." -"The Boston Globe""A reason for celebration. . . . If you have never read Svevo, do so as soon as you can. He is beautiful and important." -"New Statesman""One of the indispensable 20th-century novels. . . . A revolutionary book, and arguably (in fact, probably) the finest of all Italian novels." -"Kirkus Reviews""No one has done more to make modern Italian literatureavailable in English than William Weaver. . . . �His new translation is scrupulously accurate." -"Anniston Star"

Book Description:

This 20th century masterpiece uses the traditional form of autobiography to explore some very untraditional themes. Under the guidance of a psychoanalyst an old man looks back over his life, exploring his motives and trying to make sense of things, but when he decides to abandon the treatment, his reminiscences are published by Doctor S as an act of revenge against the patient who has frustrated the doctor's own desire for complete understanding. In laying bare the disturbing power relations between therapist and subject, Svevo explores the dynamics of identity and self-knowledge in ways which link him with his great contemporaries, Joyce, Proust and Musil.

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