Stephanie Jane reviewed Confessions of Zeno
Bizarrely entertaining
5 stars
On the face of it, Confessions Of Zeno begins in a similar way to The Savage Detectives in that a young man, relatively incapable yet convinced of his own importance, is running around town to no great purpose whilst trying to catch the eyes of as many young women as he can. In the case of the latter book, I soon got so exasperated by that man's antics that I DNF'd the book. Confessions Of Zeno on the other hand so endeared its narrator to me that I've enjoyed the read and awarded it five stars! I can understand why it is considered a classic of its time.
Zeno is a thoroughly hapless young gentleman on independent means who, despite his frequent and repeated efforts to screw up his life, always manages to land on his feet. His efforts in business inevitably go very wrong, yet right themselves as soon …
On the face of it, Confessions Of Zeno begins in a similar way to The Savage Detectives in that a young man, relatively incapable yet convinced of his own importance, is running around town to no great purpose whilst trying to catch the eyes of as many young women as he can. In the case of the latter book, I soon got so exasperated by that man's antics that I DNF'd the book. Confessions Of Zeno on the other hand so endeared its narrator to me that I've enjoyed the read and awarded it five stars! I can understand why it is considered a classic of its time.
Zeno is a thoroughly hapless young gentleman on independent means who, despite his frequent and repeated efforts to screw up his life, always manages to land on his feet. His efforts in business inevitably go very wrong, yet right themselves as soon as he stops trying. His dreams of marriage are ground into the dust by the first two women to whom he proposes, yet his third proposal results in a long-lived and happy marriage. He is about as self-involved a narrator as I've ever met and is always complaining of some illness or another, yet I loved spending time in his company. Svevo had the talent to evoke both sympathy and empathy in his readers, and to perfectly tread the line of making his protagonist just believable enough while still bizarrely entertaining. Confessions Of Zeno is 377 pages of small yellowed print and it took me several months to actually embark upon its reading, but I am now glad to have done so!
