قصة الكتاب :
\r\nZeno’s Conscience is a novel by author Italo Svevo published in 1923. Italo Svevo is the pen name of Ettore Schmitz, a businessman who was educated as an Austrian and a German but lived in Trieste and wrote in Italian. The original English translation of the book was published under the title Confessions of Zeno. The book is presented as diary entries that have been maintained by Zeno Cosini at the insistence of his psychiatrist. The doctor leaves us a short note at the beginning of the novel explaining that the records were maintained by Zeno while he was treating him in order to aide him in his psychoanalysis. He has published the book as revenge for Zeno’s discontinuation of his visits. Although written as a diary entry, it does not follow a chronological pattern and has instead been structured into several chapters, each of which is regarding a specific theme. The last chapter alone has been presented in the actual form of a diary entry. Zeno’s musings throw light on his father, his wife, his business and his tobacco habit.\r\n
\r\nAlthough the book is famously about quitting smoking, it is much more than that. Zeno uses the novel to tell five interrelated stories: the story of his attempt to give up smoking, the story of his father’s death, the story of his marriage, the story of his mistress and the story of his doomed business partnership with his wife’s brother-in-law. Each of the stories is narrated in simple, straightforward manner but as the novel progresses the themes as well as Zeno’s feelings get complicated. Zeno grows more unsure of the rightness of his actions until the end, when he decides that his doctor’s approach to cure him is not right and that the things the doctor asks him to do away with are the very things that he holds close to his heart. Zeno may not come across as much of a hero but as an observer of his own as well as other people’s lives, he is astute. Zeno also possesses a sense of humour, which reveals itself in the manner in which he makes his observations. As with all psychoanalytical exploration, it is seen how the most trivial topics can be subject to grave meditations. Zeno makes a life’s philosophy not just on the subject of smoking but also on the joys of the elusive ‘last cigarette’, which he is still smoking at the end of the novel.\r\n
\r\nWhile many writers at the time set out to produce masterpieces that helped secure their names in literary history, writers like Svevo decided to render a small piece of the psychic and geographical landscape i.e. Zeno in Trieste through 1916, as well as possible. The result has been truly remarkable. Zeno’s Conscience stands out as one of the finest Italian novels of the 20th century and deserves to be read for its treatment of love and the intricate workings of the subconscious. \r\n