My daughter, Rebecca, introduced me to the delightful stories of Italo Calvino. I especially like Calvino’s stories of Marcovaldo, a sweet, bumbling, schlemazel kind of character. Well, I decided to read the other famous Italo: Italo Svevo – his unusual fictional stream-of-consciousness psychological study Zeno’s Conscience. Two years ago I had never heard of these Two Guys Named Italo (why am I suddenly thinking of pizza?). Now I’m reading them and thinking deep thoughts about their work!

Svevo’s subject and style remind me of the little bit of Proust that I’ve read: full of small real-life reminiscences that have secret meaning to their narrator, and add up to a life of inner conflict. Svevo, although years older, was a protégé of James Joyce. Descended from German and Italian Jews, Svevo may even have been a prototype for Joyce’s Leopold Bloom in Ulysses.

Unfortunately, as with Proust, although the writing is rich and full of wit and personality, I simply could not finish Svevo’s book. I wish I had more patience, but the book was just too slow for me, pages and pages of Zeno’s “conscience”: his internal discussions about his day to day life. I appreciate the intelligence and artistry of it, but if the storyline is weak or nonexistent, I can only read so much and then I’ve had enough. Even Shakespeare would become tiresome if his dialogue and descriptions were not plot-driven. I don’t know if Svevo’s other works are stylistically different; Some day I’ll find out.