Rating: 
Summary: Literary masterpiece, with a final twist.
Review: "Confessions of Zeno" is the journal of a middle-aged man in Trieste, Italy (in the NE, near Croatia, Slovenia and Austria). He first describes briefly his difficult relationship with his father, and his problems quitting smoking, but then moves to the heart of his narrative, which concerns his life spent with a successful merchant-class family, with whose father he has a business relationship, and whose two daughters he desires a personal relationship. He courts each in turn, eventually marrying one, but keeps a mistress for a time, and comes to befriend the man who marries the other daughter, even entering into a business relationship with him. He manages to have a child, and lives a relatively quiet bourgeois existence.The problem is, he is utterly detached, self-centered, and hypocritical. When we say "business relationship", we use the term loosely. He despises honest labor. Worse, during the various troubles he has with his friends and family, he cannot see it is his personality which causes them. The book is subtle and clever, describing the story through his eyes, but still making it clear he is usually the trouble-maker. The journal was supposed to have been written for the sake of a psychologist, who is now publishing it to convince his patient he requires more therapy. For the greater part, it is a generally plain book, with interesting characters who take us through interesting adventures, even if those adventures are made comical by the man writing the tale, unaware what a clown he truly is. At the end of the book, the book's full effect dawns on us, and we finally understand the psychologist perfectly. The ending is quite subtle, and this reviewer was shocked enough to need to re-read the last few pages a few times before actually believing what it seemed to say, but the book's message was that much more effective because of this subtlety. After reading a "plain" book for so many pages, the ending is that much more powerful. The book's style is clear and engaging, the characters well drawn and endearing, and the stories charming. Many readers will be happy enough to follow this "tragicomic" story for its own sake, but patient and insightful readers will be rewarded with a conclusion that forces them to question what the book had told them all along, and reflect on the meaning of life, love, family, and friendship.
Rating:
Summary: Zeno's paradox
Review: As a great Seinfeld fan previous reviewers drew my attention to this book as "James Joice's favorite Seinfeld episode" and by describing its protagonist as literature's own George Costanza. Indeed, certain passage from this book put the highly neurotic hero in Seinfeldian situations, but just like the honorable Jason Alexander Zeno Cosini to me was too much of a lightweight to carry a plot on his own. In addition, while an episode like Zeno and the three sisters is very comic, the following chapters involving infidelity and the business relationship with brother-in-law Guido are definitely more tragic than comic. While the resolution in the final chapter helps to put things in some perspective, I certainly did not have the "Aha Erlebnis" that others described. Yet, putting this book in context it was definitely ahead of its time. Of course one could see this book as "August Strindberg in Trieste", but there is clear grounds to see Zeno as a symbol of Italy before world war one. So for everyone ready for a tragic-comedic diary of a recovering self-obsessed neurotic this is definitely a book of interest. Poor Zeno, too bad that you were created before the great Paolo Conte. He would have cured you immediately with his "comme di, la comedy da vie" (how do you put life's comedy into words)!
Rating:
Summary: Zeno's paradox
Review: As a great Seinfeld fan previous reviewers drew my attention to this book as "James Joice's favorite Seinfeld episode" and by describing its protagonist as literature's own George Costanza. Indeed, certain passage from this book put the highly neurotic hero in Seinfeldian situations, but just like the honorable Jason Alexander Zeno Cosini to me was too much of a lightweight to carry a plot on his own. In addition, while an episode like Zeno and the three sisters is very comic, the following chapters involving infidelity and the business relationship with brother-in-law Guido are definitely more tragic than comic. While the resolution in the final chapter helps to put things in some perspective, I certainly did not have the "Aha Erlebnis" that others described. Yet, putting this book in context it was definitely ahead of its time. Of course one could see this book as "August Strindberg in Trieste", but there is clear grounds to see Zeno as a symbol of Italy before world war one. So for everyone ready for a tragic-comedic diary of a recovering self-obsessed neurotic this is definitely a book of interest. Poor Zeno, too bad that you were created before the great Paolo Conte. He would have cured you immediately with his "comme di, la comedy da vie" (how do you put life's comedy into words)!
Rating: 
Summary: Over-analytical
Review: Ever feel like chucking your career, and following your true calling as a psychologist? Then you may be one of the select few who will find pleasure in this book. Every event that transpires, every word that is uttered, every facial expression, must be dissected by the narrator, to the point where the plotting dissolves into mush. There are those, I see, who managed to find humor in the endless babble. But I recommend this book to you, reader, only if you are very, very patient.
Rating:
Summary: still great
Review: Having read this book over ten years ago, it is nice to know that it reads better now (probably because I understand more of Svevo's concerns). The book isn't a comedy, it's a sad and moving look at the last century's human condition. It is an end of cycle lament at the start of modernism, the first shots of postmodernism and the loss of humanity this all ensues. Technology leads to the bomb and the obssession with consumerism and political correctness that have made our era a tragic one. Literature is the only secular salve for bruised lives and quests for happiness.
Rating:
Summary: James Joyces' Favorite Seinfeld Episode
Review: I first bought this book in 1984, when I was taking a class on James Joyce. I'd heard it was Joyce's favorite book. It took me 15 years to actually get a copy and READ it because I was a little intimidated. Yeah, it's great literature, yeah, it strips a man to his soul, and shows you the inner workings of a pathetic mind, BUT the way I've sold my friends on it is this: Confessions of Zeno is nothing less than a 1920s Italian Seinfeld episode. Zeno is George. Spiteful, conniving, kinda smart and kinda dumb at the same time, lying to himself and everyone around him, getting in trouble, hitting on women left and right, and above all else, laugh-out-loud funny. If that appeals to you, buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Life Style
Review: I just quit from an engineering consultant coporation last Friday, then probably to be a business owner with my friend later. When I walked around in the biggest bookstore "ESLITE" in Taipei last Sunday, the book " La Conscienza di Zeno" catch my eyes. Then, I decided to buy it without opening it in the bookstore.I have to admit that I really have an enjoyable Sunday afternoon by reading this lovely masterwork. I can't help myself to stop laughing when I read the confession of Zeno's conscience. I think it's pretty similar to read this novel and someone's diary. But, the difference to our diaries or biographies is that Italo Svevo¡¦s writing skill is much better than us (even better than Milan Kundera), and I think the way that Svevo observes and perceives this world and the life is more interesting than ordinary people. In my eyes, I think the best point of this book is that Svevo tried to stand on an ordinary people¡¦s point to describe a real and ridiculous life, and I really appreciate Svevo¡¦s humor.This is an admirable and recommendable book, especially for people who want to involve into this spectacular and ridiculous world. I haven¡¦t read the English translation of this book yet, but I believe it would be worthy to spend 35 dollars to enjoy an enjoyable summer afternoon or night.THE MOST DANGEROUS ENEMY OF ORDINARY PEOPLE IS THE ORDINARINESS.
Rating:
Summary: Why is this a Great Novel?
Review: Important, influential critics, such as V.S. Prtichett, Martin Seymour-Smith and James Woods have declared that "Zeno's Conscience," (formerly published as "The Confessions of Zeno") is not merely one of the best Italian novels of the last century, but one of the best novels of the last century period. A reader looking at this book may wonder why. On the face of it this book provides a comic account of a prosperous Triestan businessman, Zeno Cosini. It starts with his discussion of his inability to quit smoking, an inability fatally flawed by his lack of any desire to do so. We then face a discussion of his relationship with his father and his father's death. We hear about Zeno's courtship and his marriage, how he conducted an adulterous affiar, and how he saw his wife's brother-in-law ruin his business. Overall, these accounts are amusing. Certainly they are filled with the stuff of traditional comedy. Zeno tries to marry one attractive sister, proposes to a second one, and marries the third, plainest one--with whom he is very happy. He carries on a relationship with a would be vocalist who had the most musical voice--but can't really sing. We learn of how this relationship failed because his mistress thought his beautiful sister-in-law was actually his wife. But what makes this novel so superior to to other comic novels? What makes this better than Kingsley Amis, or Neil Simon?
Well it's easy to point out negative factors, since Svevo is not as sentimental or crude as Simon. Although Svevo went out of his way to write in a more everyday style than the more refined cast of contemporary Italian literature, his book flows much better than Amis' awkward contortions. And Zeno is obviously more complex and better characterized than Amis' autobiographical, whining self-pitying protagonists. Instead Svevo presents a deep, rich, subtle psychology for his protagonist. This in itself distinguishes him from Waugh and Catch-22. There have been other pioneers in 20th century fiction, but instead of the complex modernist techniques of Woolf, Joyce, Proust and Kafka, Svevo presents his as a comedy. But it is no idiosyncracy that Joyce encountered Svevo and did so much to ensure his discovery. Although the framing story of the book is Cosini's displeasure with his psychoanalyst, Svevo's account of Cosini's reactions, delays, excuses, subterfuges, and endless rationalizations does resemble the paradoxical nature of Freud at his best. Its use of comic paradox is reminiscent of another contemporary assimilated Jewish writer, Kafka (whom Svevo almost certainly never read). One can only give a few examples. There is of course, the countless notations Svevo makes of his final cigarette. At one point Zeno's father jokes that Zeno is crazy. So Zeno goes and decides to get as a joke an official certificate of sanity. This only leads his father to believe he really is crazy. (Later Zeno's youngest sister-in-law agrees). Zeno comments on how his father read ponderous moralistic works; now that he is older he is inclined to accept his practice: "One may be driven to commit murder by love or hatred, but one can only advocate murder out of sheer wickedness." Later we see the excruciating dilemma where Zeno rages at the doctor who can keep his father alive when he will not recover from the stroke he has had. We see the multiple lies Zeno concocts arounds himself as he covers up an assignation with a visit to a dying acquaintance. And so Svevo's account goes on, and takes a darker tone in its final pages as Zeno finds himself in the middle of World War One, and ends up speculating about the final extinction of humanity.
Rating:
Summary: James Joyces' Favorite Seinfeld Episode
Review: rarely has an author shown as much insight into a mans journey through life as italo svevo. what rang true allmost a century ago resonates today in us all. zeno was a somewhat less than perfect,but honest "everyman", whose thoughts,intelligent, funny, and a little pathetic,make up one of the best works of fiction you will ever come across. roll over joyce!!!
Rating:
Summary: still great
Review: The character is a lame fellow who decides to marry a woman he dislikes because he fells in love with her sister. All the pages of the novel are washed away describing inconsequential conducts and behaviors. I fail to see anything funny or at least an issue worth discussing with a friend, let alone explain to him/her what the book is about. Its theme is actually about nothing. Indeed my feelings for this book contradicts the enthusiastic reviews offered by other fellows, and I am surprised because some books which I have bought from Amazon.com based on the popular opinion have not disappointed me. Well, I guess there is always an exception to a rule.
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