La Coscienza di Zeno
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 Cover of the second edition of La coscienza di Zeno (1925) |
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| Author | Italo Svevo |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Italo Svevo |
| Released | 1923 |
La coscienza di Zeno (Confessions of Zeno, Conscience of Zeno, or Zeno's Conscience) is an Italian novel by Italo Svevo. The main character is Zeno Cosini and the book is the fictional character's memoirs that he keeps at the insistence of his psychiatrist. Throughout the novel, we learn about his father, his business, his wife, and his tobacco habit. The novel was self-published in 1923.
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[edit] Plot summary
The novel is presented as a diary written by Zeno (who claims that it is full of lies), published by his doctor. The doctor has left a little note in the beginning, saying that he had Zeno write his autobiography in order to help him in his psychoanalysis. The doctor has published the work as revenge for Zeno discontinuing his visits.
Zeno first writes about his cigarette addiction and cites the first times that he smoked. In his first few paragraphs, he remembers his life as a child. One of his friends would buy for him and his brother cigarettes, which they would smoke. Soon, he steals money from his father in order to buy tobacco, and he finally decides not to do this out of shame. Eventually, he starts to smoke his father's half-smoked cigars instead. The problem with his "last cigarette" starts when he is twenty. He contracts a fever and his doctor tells him that he must abstain from smoking in order for him to heal. He decides that smoking is bad for him and he smokes his "last cigarette" so he can quit. However, this is not his last and he soon becomes plagued with "last cigarettes." He attempts to quit on days of important events in his life and soon obsessively attempts to quit on the basis of the harmony in the numbers of dates. Each time, he fails to let his last cigarette be truly the last. He goes to doctors and asks friends for help in order to give up the habit, but to no avail each time. He goes so far as to break out of a clinic that he commits himself into.
When Zeno hits middle age, his father's health begins to deteriorate. He starts to live closer to his father in case he passes away. Zeno is very different from his father, who is a serious man, while Zeno likes to joke. For instance, when his father states that Zeno is crazy, Zeno goes to the doctor and gets an official certification that he is sane. He shows this to his father who is hurt by this joke and becomes even more convinced that Zeno must be crazy. His father is also afraid of death, being very uncomfortable with the drafting of his will. One night, his father falls gravely ill and loses consciousness. The doctor comes and works on the patient, who is brought out of the clutches of death momentarily. Over the next few days, his father is able to get up and regains a bit of his self. He is restless and shifts positions for comfort often, even though the doctor says that staying in bed would be good for his circulation. One night, as his father tries to roll out of bed, Zeno blocks him from moving, to do as the doctor wished. His angry father then stands up and slaps Zeno in the face before dying.
His memoirs then trace how he meets his wife. When he is starting to learn about the business world, he meets his future father-in-law Giovanni Malfenti, an intelligent and successful businessman, whom Zeno admires. Malfenti has four daughters, Ada, Augusta, Alberta, and Anna, and when Zeno meets them, he decides that he wants to court Ada because of her beauty and since Alberta is quite young, while he regards Augusta as too plain, and Anna is only a little girl. He is unsuccessful and the Malfentis think that he is actually trying to court Augusta. He soon meets his rival for Ada's love, who is Guido Speier. Guido speaks perfect Tuscan (while Zeno speaks the dialect of Trieste), is handsome, and has a full head of hair (compared with Zeno's bald head). That evening, while Guido and Zeno both visit the Malfentis, Zeno proposes to Ada and she rejects him for Guido. Zeno then proposes to Alberta, who is not interested in marrying, and he is rejected by her also. Finally, he proposes to Augusta (who knows that Zeno first proposed to the other two) and she accepts, because she loves him.
Very soon, the couples get married and Zeno starts to realize that he can love Augusta. This surprises him as his love for her does not diminish. However, he meets a poor aspiring singer by the name of Carla and they start an affair, with Carla thinking that Zeno does not love his wife. Meanwhile, Ada and Guido marry and Signior Malfenti gets sick. Zeno's affection for both Augusta and Carla increases and he has a daughter by the name of Antonia around the time Giovanni passes away. Finally, one day, Carla expresses a sudden whim to see Augusta. Zeno deceives Carla and causes her to meet Ada instead. Carla misrepresents Ada as Zeno's wife, and moved by her beauty, breaks off the affair.
Zeno goes on to relate the business partnership between him and Guido. The two men set up a merchant business together in Trieste. They hire two workers named Luciano and Carmen (who becomes Guido's mistress) and they attempt to make as much profit as possible. However, due to Guido's obsession with debts and credit as well as with the notion of profit, the company does poorly. Guido and Ada's marriage begin to crumble and so does Ada's health and beauty. Guido fakes a suicide attempt in order to gain Ada's compassion and she asks Zeno to help Guido's failing company. Guido starts playing on the Bourse (stock exchange) and loses even more money. On a fishing trip, he asks Zeno about the differences in effects between sodium veronal and veronal and Zeno answers that sodium veronal is fatal while veronal is not. Guido's gambling on the Bourse becomes very destructive and he finally tries to fake another suicide in order to gain Ada's compassion. However, he takes a fatal amount of veronal and dies. Soon thereafter, Zeno misses Guido's funeral because he himself gambles Guido's money on the Bourse and recovers three quarters of the losses.
Zeno relates his current life. It is during the time of the Great War and his daughter Antonia (who greatly resembles Ada) and son Alfio have grown up. His time is spent on visiting doctors to cure his supposed imagined sickness. One of the doctors claims that he is suffering from the Oedipus complex, but Zeno does not believe it to be true. All the doctors are not able to treat him. Finally, he realizes that life itself resembles sickness because it has advancements and setbacks and always ends in death. Human advancement prolongs life and it is that which causes more sickness and weakness in humans. Zeno imagines a time when a person will invent a new, powerful weapon of mass destruction and another will steal it and destroy the world, setting it free of sickness.
[edit] Trivia
- Italo Svevo self-published the novel with his own money when various companies rejected the manuscript.
- James Joyce was a friend of Italo Svevo, to whom he gave English lessons. La coscienza di Zeno was not highly regarded in Italy, but through the work of James Joyce, it became extremely popular in France.
- Italo Svevo and Zeno Cosini share some common traits such as being cigarette addicts, businessmen, and loving husbands.
[edit] References
- Svevo, Italo. Zeno's Conscience. Translated by William Weaver. New York: Vintage International, 2001.
