Italo Svevo Boeken

First published in 1893, this novel is concerned with the bourgeois soul and its inability to will or act. The heroes are typically men of business, but with cultural pretensions and he depicts them in their free time when they are not working.

A newly translated collection of fiction by the influential Italian modernist, continuing on his landmark work Zeno's Conscience. A Very Old Man collects five linked stories, parts of an unfinished novel that the great Triestine Italo Svevo wrote at the end of his life, after the international success of Zeno’s Conscience in 1923. Here Svevo revisits with new vigor and agility themes that fascinated him from the start—aging, deceit, and self-deception, as well as the fragility, fecklessness, and plain foolishness of the bourgeois paterfamilias—even as memories of the recent, terrible slaughter of World War I and the contemporary rise of Italian fascism also cast a shadow over the book’s pages. It opens with “The Contract,” in which Zeno’s manager, the hardheaded young Olivi, expresses, like the war veterans who were Mussolini’s early followers, a sense of entitlement born of fighting in the trenches. Zeno, by contrast, embodies the confusion and paralysis of the more decorous, although sleepy, way of life associated with the onetime Austro-Hungarian Empire which for so long ruled over Trieste but has now been swept away. As always, Svevo is attracted to the theme of how people fail to fit in. It is they, he suggests, who offer a recognizably human countenance in a world ravaged by the ambitions and fantasies of its true believers.

Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century upheaval, the narrative explores themes of illusion and self-deception through the life of Mario Samigli, a disillusioned septuagenarian writer. As he clings to his dreams through fables, a traveling salesman tricks him into believing that his long-forgotten novel will be published, igniting a misguided pursuit of fame. This leads to neglect of his ailing brother and an inevitable confrontation with reality, illustrating the pitfalls of impractical aspirations in a pragmatic world.

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.

The book explores themes of nostalgia and the bittersweet nature of final moments, using the metaphor of a last cigarette to evoke deep emotions. It delves into the complexities of human experiences, highlighting the significance of endings and the memories they leave behind. Through rich imagery and introspective narrative, the author invites readers to reflect on their own moments of farewell and the flavors of life that linger in memory.

In this tragicomic study of deception and disappointment, Italo Svevo - who himself was an undiscovered writer until his old age - parodies elements of his own life and offers an insightful psychological portrait of a person who has lost touch with reality.

Not so long ago Emilio Brentani was a promising young author. Now he is an insurance agent on the fast track to forty. He gains a new lease on life, though, when he falls for the young and gorgeous Angiolina - except that his angel just happens to be an unapologetic cheat. But what begins as a comedy of infatuated misunderstanding turns darker, as Emilio's jealous persistence in his folly - against his friends' and devoted sister's advice, and even his own best knowledge - may lead to severe consequences in his other relationships. Marked by deep humanity and earthy humor, by psychological insight and an elegant simplicity of style, As a Man Grows Older (Senilità, in Italian; the English title was the suggestion of Svevo's great friend and admirer, James Joyce) is a brilliant study of hopeless love and hapless indecision. It is a masterwork of Italian literature, here beautifully rendered into English in Beryl de Zoete's classic translation.

Nicht ohne Vorfreude auf die bevorstehende Reise ohne Begleitung verabschiedet sich am Mailänder Bahnhof ein gut situierter älterer Herr von seiner Ehefrau. Mit sanft distanzierter Ironie und hintergründiger Komik erzählt Svevo, wie sein Held sich - wenn auch nur in Gedanken - seiner neugewonnenen Freiheit hinzugeben versucht, aber an seiner eigenen Lebensuntauglichkeit zu scheitern droht. Giacomo Aghios reist mit dem Zug nach Triest. Sein Bedürfnis nach Erlebnissen lässt ihn die Bekanntschaft seiner Mitreisenden suchen: Er lernt einen Versicherungsinspektor, der ihn wegen seiner Mitteilsamkeit etwas abschätzig einen 'verkleideten Dichter' nennt, und den unglücklich verliebten Herrn Bacis kennen. Doch aufgrund seiner eigenen inneren Gespaltenheit verweigert sich Aghios einer ernsthaften Auseinandersetzung mit seinen Reisegefährten und mit dem wirklichen Leben. Im erst posthum erfolgreichen Werk Italo Svevos spielen 'Unfähige' eine besondere Rolle: Es sind Männer, die ihre spontane Jugendlichkeit zu früh aufgegeben haben und sich im Leben verzetteln.

Eigentlich Ettore Schmitz, geboren am 19. Dezember 1861 in Triest. Besuchte eine deutsche Schule (Segnitz bei Würzburg), erhielt eine kaufmännische Ausbildung in Triest, wurde Bankangestellter und später Unternehmer. Seine ersten beiden Romane setzten sich nicht durch. Entdeckt und gefördert wurde er erst durch James Joyce und Valéry Larbaud. Noch vor dem Durchbruch der Psychoanalyse machte Svevo die psychologische Erforschung des Durchschnittsmenschen und seiner banalen Existenz zum Stoff seiner Romane, in denen er auch bereits die Technik des Bewustseinsstromes ausbildete. Er gilt heute neben Joyce, Proust, Kafka und Musil als bahnbrechender Erzähler der modernen Weltliteratur. Italo Svevo kam am 13. September 1928 bei einem Autounfall ums Leben.