Zeno's Conscience

Zeno's Conscience (Italian: La coscienza di Zeno [la koʃˈʃɛntsa di dˈdzɛːno]) is a novel by Italian writer Italo Svevo. The main character is Zeno Cosini, and the book is the fictional character's memoirs that he keeps because his psychiatrist recommended to do so in order to overcome his illness. He writes about his father, his business, his wife, and his tobacco habit. The original English translation was published under the title Confessions of Zeno. After two novels, Una vita and Senilità, were ignored by critics and public, and after a long period of literary silence, entirely devoted to work, in 1923 Svevo self-published this novel, quite different in style. It was appreciated by a close friend of Svevo's, James Joyce, who presented the book to two French critics, Valéry Larbaud and Benjamin Crémieux. The success of the novel expanded to Italy, thanks to the poet Eugenio Montale. The previous novels follow a naturalistic model; Zeno's Conscience, instead, is narrated in the first person, and is focused entirely on the character's thoughts and feelings. Moreover, Zeno is an unreliable narrator, since in the very first page his doctor, publishing the diary, says that it is made of truths and lies. However, there are important similarities among Svevo's three novels. Even in the third-person narrative of Una vita and Senilità, the reader knows only the point of view of the main characters; and these are, or feel, unfit to live. The titles are revealing: Una vita had previously the title Un inetto (An unfit); Senilità (literally Senility) is a state of mind, a feeling of weakness in front of everyday life events and encounters. As to La coscienza di Zeno, the title's ambiguity causes the different ways it is translated not only into English, but also into German (Zenos Gewissen, Zenos Bewusstsein). Zeno talks of his various failures, of his feeling ill and looking for a cure he'll never find. In the end, however, he recognizes that life itself is an illness, and it always brings to death.