A review by daja57
Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo

lighthearted reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Zeno is a rich but incredibly ineffectual hypochondriac. 

This novel is set in Trieste in the early years of the twentieth century (1900s) when Trieste, now part of Italy, was the naval base on the Adriatic Sea for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Zeno is a rich man who over-analyses every thing he does, from getting married (to the wrong woman) to taking a mistress to being an immensely unsuccessful businessman. It seemed to me a rather more explicit version of The Diary of a Nobody except that it had fewer laughs and significantly more words. 

Perhaps that was the point. Zeno could not decide on any action unless he had considered it from every perspective. Usually, what he did was embarrassingly inappropriate, at which point he reanalyses everything to prove to himself that he was right after all. I suppose it was meant to be funny but the joke was suffocated under the weight of words. Wearisomely long-winded.