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Home / APS Together / Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo | Day 8

 

APS TOGETHER

Day 8

Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo

p. 140—p. 162 (“unless it was crushed beneath an entire speeding train.”)

September 20, 2022 by Claire Messud

Guido’s caricatures of Zeno are the catalyst for physical pain that “was never thereafter to leave me.” More than Ada’s rejection, Zeno attributes his agony to the fact that Guido’s “drawing [was] so superior to mine.” Not only the superior hair, and the superior violin playing, but also the superior drawing!

Of Guido “speaking ill of women,” Zeno, then shocked, observes, “I know [now] he bursts into abundant discourse on any subject if he thinks he can be sure of pleasing his interlocutor.” Sound like anyone we know? And indeed, Zeno explains that he was too tired to protest—thereby pleasing his interlocutor… 

Late for his own wedding because he has been—like many prospective spouses—filled with doubt, Zeno proceeds to blame his tardiness “on three different causes”; and even when saying his vows is “confecting a fourth explanation”—aware that the very number of excuses proves their falsity (a lesson some contemporary political figures could usefully learn).

Daily Reading

Day 1

p. 3 (Preface)—p. 20 (“I was too busy missing other things.”)

Day 2

p. 20—p. 37 (“But I would have been amazed to see him really happy, alone and old as he was.”)

Day 3

p. 37—p. 60 (end of “My Father’s Death”)

Day 4

p. 61—p. 80 (“It’s surely easier to change oneself than to reshape others.”)

Day 5

p. 80—p. 98 (“On the crowded Via Cavana, therefore, I had thought more purposefully than in my solitary study.”)

Day 6

p. 98–p. 117 ("'Good for you, Zeno. You’ve earned your keep.’”)

Day 7

p. 117—p. 139 (“all the flotsam accumulated in my nerves would have been swept away by it.”)

Day 8

p. 140—p. 162 (“unless it was crushed beneath an entire speeding train.”)

Day 9

p. 162—p. 185 (“I had found something more than a mere pretext for doing what it was my desire to do.”)

Day 10

p. 185—p. 209 (“I continued acting the sick man.”)

Day 11

p. 209— p. 232 (“wine shouts it, overlooking whatever life has subsequently added.”)

Day 12

p. 232—p. 253 (“but on some crowded city street”)

Day 13

p. 253—p. 271 (end of chapter)

Day 14

p. 272–p. 296 (“I would not torment myself any more for having wanted to play that false role of Mentor.”)

Day 15

p. 296—p. 318 (“the Ada who had scornfully repulsed me no longer existed, unless my medical books were mistaken.”)

Day 16

p. 318—p. 336 (“But did that axiom apply also to Guido?”)

Day 17

p. 336—p. 357 (“…unless I was supported by all the members of the family.”)

Day 18

p. 358— p. 378 (“I would say this to Ada herself at the first opportunity.”)

Day 19

p. 378—p. 394 ("I would find, at tomorrow’s opening, the high level of that morning.”)

Day 20

p. 394—p. 418 (“…I must throw away these playthings.”)

Day 21

p. 418—End

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