#zeno cosini

[deffonotfranz]

"Adesso che son qui, ad analizzarmi, sono colto da un dubbio: che io forse abbia amato tanto la sigaretta per poter riversare su di essa la colpa della mia incapacità? Chissà se cessando di fumare io sarei di venuto l'uomo ideale e forte che m'aspettavo?"

-Zeno Cosini, La coscienza di Zeno

#la coscienza di Zeno #zeno cosini #cigarette quote #quote #book quote #italo svevo #svevo #zeno's conscience

[eva248]

Lecturas de agosto. Cuarta semana

Lecturas de agosto. Cuarta semana

Caso clínico / Graeme Macrae Burnet. Editorial Impedimenta, 2022 En la primavera de 2020, Graeme Macrae Burnet recibe la carta de un desconocido que lo informa de la existencia de unos cuadernos que, según él, podrían «ser la base de un libro interesante». Intrigado, Macrae se sumerge en el material, fechado en los años sesenta, y descubre la historia de una mujer que, en el Londres de la época,…

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#antipsiquiatría #desengaño #Graeme Macrae Burnet #invasión de Polonia #Isabel Bono #Italo Svevo #Nina Berbérova #novelas psicólogicas #psicoanálisis #secundarios #separación #tabaco #Zeno Cosini

[fleurdelys-fletri]

i'm quitting smoking

#zeno cosini be like

[segretecose]

'did logan underline or cross out kendall's name' girlies would have never survived zeno cosini 'did my father just slap me on purpose right before dying or was he unaware he was doing it yeah no surely he didn't know right doctor? actually never mind. i know he did not use his last strength to be violent towards me, his son. he struck me unintentionally [150 pages later] actually my father did use his last strength to slap me, his son, right before dying and what's more i deserve it. i think'

[castratedvader]

to me zeno cosini is deyassified werther, werther in STEM, the sillification of young werther,

#insufferable men incapable of living in a society sjdjjfkgh

[chaoticdeadly]

l'inetto (overthinking)

<<I noticed something in these miserable years of my life, especially in high school. But in order to better explain my example to you, I need you to consider Pascoli's philosophy on the Fanciullino. Unfortunately I am not as inept as Zeno Cosini, I miss that conceit, that arrogance that despite his inferiority to society because of his anti-social behavior, he manages to feel superior through his culture. Unfortunately, I am not Pirandello's victor who through panism and madness succeeds in detaching himself from society by having his true self merge with nature thus annihilating his social self. I still can't be that crazy man I want to be. To be able to name that Divine Indifference of which Montale spoke in his poems. Not the vanquished Pirandello who, through humor or intelligence, managed to make his way in society, as he did in Patente or Uno, Nessuno e Centomila. I can’t see two magnets moving away from each other without touching each other and not being amazed by an invisible energy moving objects as we often see on TV, seeing a chemical reaction, even the most banal, even seeing a flame changing color according to the metal burning, I can’t help but be amazed. It doesn't matter how many times I see the house of Pirandello, the causes, it doesn't matter how many times I see the theatre of Regina Margherita di Girgenti, I can't help but feel an inconceivable enthusiasm. That's because I'm like a child discovering for the first time what life means. Enter a bookstore and see the works of Agatha Cristie, Montale, Ovidio, Machiavelli, Parini, Cassandra Clare, and get excited as if it were the first time I saw them. Looking at the sea with an unthinkable sense of nostalgia, as if I hadn't seen it for years and that was my last day. I can't help but get excited about the things I love, with that hint of euphoria and ecstasy, which make me so happy. I feel like a child who discovers again and again and again the world also and revisits the same things over and over again. For me, reading, observing, studying is a reason for happiness. How do I hide such emotions? I can’t for sure, Freud said that the I am not is not a landlord of its own but must rely on uncertain news from someone or something it doesn’t know. We don't control our emotions and our thoughts. And I'm happy with very little. But the truth is that none of this exists and never can exist. As soon as I look around, at the height of my amazement and enthusiasm, I can't help but see the eyes of my teachers and students, my friends and family, staring at me with that emotion-eating gaze. To meet those stares stunned by my happiness and joy, which they call madness and madness. To hear their accusing voices of my exaggerations, of my senseless scenes only for the pleasure of a teacher, when he too tends to look at me with the same gaze that she looks at me - I shift my gaze to the professor of history -, her cold and accusatory gaze. I cannot help but feel uneasy until anguish takes the place of my happiness and anxiety of joy. My ears, which only wanted to hear the waves of the sea collide against the rocks and the beaches, the tracks tremble when the train arrives, must now try not to listen to those inner voices which cannot be silent and utter a beautiful word. And every time they are tempted to fall into a certain melancholy, thinking how wrong I was to accept the proposal to leave my comfort zones, the walls of that dusty library, the beloved solitude. My happiness is annoying, it's disgusting, it's annoying. They still look at me like I'm crazy. I would love to continue to be, I would like to let them think that, because I'm proud of it, I would like to be the victor who comes out of society like a madman and is free to see the world through the eyes of a child without ever having to worry about the world around him. I would like to be happy without my anxiety or those looks, killing me. I am inept because I do not conform to society because my happiness is different from that of others, my happiness is somehow wrong, although it is not my fault. >>

[aki1975]

Abbazia di Montecassino - 530

Fondata da San Benedetto da Norcia che qui ha introdotto la sua Regola, l’abbazia ne conserva la tomba ed eterna il fondatore di un ordine che, dal tardo impero, ha attraversato la storia della Cristianità fino ad oggi.

Carlo Magno promosse la diffusione della Regola presso i Franchi e sono Benedettini la Congregazione dei Cluniancensi (909) e l’Ordine dei Cistercensi (1098) che hanno salvato la tradizione dalla decadenza che stava vivendo: fra i primi è noto Pietro il Venerabile, fra gli ultimi si annovera Bernardo di Chiaravalle che predicò la Seconda Crociata. Sorti richiamandosi al monachesimo delle origini, crebbero in potere e ricchezza fino a essere superati, secoli più tardi, dal movimento francescano.

Distrutta dai Longobardi, dai Saraceni e da un terremoto, l’abbazia fu ricostruita in stile barocco napoletano e bombardata nel 1944 per liberare la linea Gustav con cui i tedeschi tentarono di fermare l’avanzata alleata in Italia.

Le guerre coloniali prima e mondiali poi segnarono una svolta anche sul piano culturale: le avanguardie letterarie anti-borghesi, anti-imperialiste e anti-positiviste sorte come reazione alla Belle Epoque lasciarono il campo a nuove istanze. Correnti letterarie del primo periodo sono:

- il naturalismo francese, la scapigliatura e il verismo (padron ‘Ntoni dei Malavoglia)

- il simbolismo dei poets maudits con il loro spleen e le loro correspondances

- il crepuscolarismo

Le guerre mondiali segnano poi il superamento delle tendenze nichiliste e vitaliste insite nelle seguenti correnti:

- il decadentismo dandy di D’Annunzio (Andrea Sperelli nel Piacere), Huysmans e Oscar Wilde

- il superomismo di Nietzsche

- il futurismo

ed aprono la strada ad una cultura improntata al realismo sia di origine marxista che improntato alla letteratura americana (Faulkner, Hemingway). I movimenti più rilevanti sono:

- l’imagismo di Ezra Pound

- il monologo interiore post-ottocentesco, basato sugli studi di Schopenauer e Freud e sul tramonto dell’Impero Asburgico, di autori come Italo Svevo e James Joyce e dei loro antieroi, inetti senza qualità (Zeno Cosini, Leopold Bloom);

- l’umorismo di Luigi Pirandello con il suo sentimento del contrario (La patente, L’uomo dal fiore in bocca) e il caos che fa prendere coscienza dell’alienazione contemporanea (Vitangelo Moscarda protagonista di Uno, nessuno, centomila, Mattia Pascal)

- l’ermetismo di Ungaretti, Quasimodo (Ognuno sta solo sul cuore della terra) e Montale (Non chiederci la parola)

- la memorialistica di Remarque, Primo Levi e Carlo Levi,

- l’esistenzialismo di Sartre e Camus

- lo spaesamento di Kafka.

Particolarmente significativa di questo cambiamento la seguente poesia di Quasimodo:

E come potevamo noi cantare

con il piede straniero sopra il cuore,

fra i morti abbandonati nelle piazze

sull’erba dura di ghiaccio, al lamento

d’agnello dei fanciulli, all’urlo nero

della madre che andava incontro al figlio

crocifisso sul palo del telegrafo?

Alle fronde dei salici, per voto,

anche le nostre cetre erano appese,

oscillavano lievi al triste vento.

#storia #architettura #arte #medioevo #letteratura italiana #letteratura

[girlartemisia]

Exhaustion from studying got me writing Zeno Cosini/Guido Speier instead of revising the actual book

#Italo Svevo #La coscienza di Zeno #the two were having such mental gay sex that sleeping with their wives must've been the gayest straight sex they've ever had

[lamentiino]

Zeno Cosini chiedeva sempre l'ultima sigaretta, io l'ultimo tarallino

[laniaakea]

zeno cosini, my most beloathed. every thought circles back to him and his complexes

[agrpress-blog]

La coscienza di Zeno venne pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1923. È passato un bel po’ di tempo, da allora, e da poco l’opera ha spento le sue prime cento candeline, confermandosi nuovamente come uno dei romanzi più divertenti ed emblematici del secolo scorso. Di questo libro si sa tutto e niente. Della coscienza umana, d’altronde, non si può sapere che tutto e niente. Perché il capolavoro sveviano, nei fatti, parla di questo. Di quegli esseri strani e contorti, a volte sadici, a volte semplicemente buffi in modo quasi provocatorio, che sono gli umani. Zeno Cosini, infatti, protagonista del romanzo e irresistibile personaggio tridimensionale, è un uomo come tanti. Ha sogni, aspettative. Studia legge, poi chimica, poi ancora legge. Studia e fuma, fuma tante sigarette, una dopo l’altra, e non riesce mai a smettere. Disegna sulle pareti della sua stanza due lettere, U.S., come un presagio, un ammonimento: ogni giorno, infatti, potrebbe essere il giorno dell’Ultima Sigaretta. Ma tutto ciò non avviene, Zeno non smetterà mai di fumare. Proprio come noi non smetteremo mai di chiederci che cosa lo spinga a fissare ogni giorno una nuova data per celebrare la sua ipotetica defezione dal vizio del fumo. Sono pensieri circolari – circolari come certe boccate, come certe forme geometriche assunte dal fumo che fuoriesce dalla bocca – quelli che interessano il mondo di quest’uomo curioso, ma non singolare. Esitante, noioso, forse – ma mai deludente. Zeno non delude perché non crea aspettative, né tantomeno vuole che certe aspettative gli vengano cucite addosso. Si sposa e ha due figli, ma non vuole recitare la parte del patriarca. Perché dovrebbe, in fondo? Per accontentare un mondo alla deriva? Per far felice una certa idea di esistenza borghese? Per piacere a se stesso? Si ha l’impressione che quest’uomo si piaccia già abbastanza. Non ha tempo da perdere con la costruzione imbranata di flaccide apparenze. O forse ce l’ha, ma lo usa male; non raggiunge il suo scopo. Resta un uomo atipico. Molto simpatico, questo è certo. Cosa ha da dire La coscienza a cento anni dalla sua pubblicazione? Molto. Moltissimo, a dire il vero. Quello di Svevo è un libro che educa la mente di chi legge alla complessità. Ai tormenti dei rapporti e delle situazioni. Alle sfaccettature dello scibile e del vivibile. Alle tensioni. Ai terremoti. Attraverso l’autoanalisi che scaturisce dalla narrazione di Zeno, il nostro protagonista (che non diventa mai il nostro eroe) ci mostra i tranelli dell’esistenza, ci mostra come evitarli – quando possibile – e con quali armi affrontare la realtà. Zeno è molto ironico, e la sua ironia lo salva. Sta tutto qui, forse. La coscienza, dopo oltre un secolo, torna, puntuale come un orologio svizzero, a raccontarci nuovamente una grande verità: la realtà è vasta, immensa, e noi non la vediamo tutta. La nostra visione è sempre parziale, spezzettata. La nostra soggettività è importante, fondamentale, quasi, ma non tocca a noi distribuire le carte. Il mondo è caotico, pieno fino a scoppiare di storie e sguardi parziali: tutto ciò è ingovernabile. Zeno ci toglie la certezza di avere uno sguardo oggettivo. Zeno ci toglie la certezza di avere ragione. E mano male, aggiungerei.

[lamilanomagazine]

Ancona, "La coscienza di Zeno" di Italo Svevo al teatro delle Muse

Ancona, "La coscienza di Zeno" di Italo Svevo al teatro delle Muse Fino a domenica 3 dicembre al Teatro delle Muse è in scena La coscienza di Zeno di Italo Svevo con protagonista Alessandro Haber e la regia di Paolo Valerio. In scena con Alessandro Haber vedremo: Alberto Onofrietti, Francesco Migliaccio e Valentina Violo, Ester Galazzi, Riccardo Maranzana, Emanuele Fortunati, Meredith Airò Farulla, Caterina Benevoli, Chiara Pellegrin, Giovanni Schiavo; adattamento di Monica Codena e Paolo Valerio, scene e costumi di Marta Crisolini Malatesta, luci di Gigi Saccomandi, musiche di Oragravity, video Alessandro Papa, movimenti di scena Monica Codena, la produzione è del Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia, Goldenart Production. Capolavoro della letteratura del Novecento, romanzo antesignano di respiro potentemente europeo, ironico e di affascinante complessità, “La coscienza di Zeno” celebra nel 2023 i cent’anni dalla pubblicazione. La figura monumentale di Italo Svevo ed il suo straordinario romanzo psicanalitico “La coscienza di Zeno”, possiede anche una propria vivace teatralità, per la sperimentazione di una scrittura innovativa e per il suo essere dominata dalla coinvolgente, complessa e attualissima figura di Zeno Cosini. Il romanzo infatti sgorga dagli appunti del protagonista che si sottopone alle cure dello psicanalista Dottor S cercando, per quella via, di risolvere il suo mal di vivere, la sua nevrosi e incapacità di sentirsi “in sintonia” con il mondo e con la realtà. Il suo percepirsi inetto e malato, ed i suoi ostinati - ma mai del tutto convinti - tentativi di cambiare e guarire, portano Zeno ad attraversare l’esistenza intrecciando sorprendentemente quotidianità borghese ad episodi surreali ricchi di humour e di verità, e ad illuminazioni che possiedono una forza che ancora ci scuote. “La coscienza di Zeno” è stata sempre interpretata da grandi attori, come Renzo Montagnani, Giulio Bosetti, Alberto Lionello che fu anche protagonista dello sceneggiato Rai e, nella successiva edizione televisiva, Johnny Dorelli. Nel nuovo allestimento a firma di Paolo Valerio, Zeno avrà il volto di Alessandro Haber, un attore dal carisma potentissimo e dall’istinto scenico assolutamente personale, che fuori da ogni cliché sa coniugare ironia e profondità in ogni interpretazione. Dalle note di regia di Paolo Valerio: _(...) Ho affrontato questo lavoro privilegiando fortemente la narrazione di Svevo: ho voluto racchiudere in questa esperienza teatrale alcune pagine che trovo straordinarie, indimenticabili, costruendo un altro Zeno accanto all’Io narrante. Quindi Zeno - interpretato da Alessandro Haber - si racconta e si rivive attraverso il corpo di un altro attore. Zeno ci rivela l’inciampo, l’umanità… E anche il personaggio di Alessandro Haber s’intreccia a questa inettitudine e talvolta, durante lo spettacolo, si sovrappone l’uomo all’attore, per sottolineare “l’originalità della vita”. Zeno ci appartiene, racconta di noi, della nostra fragilità, della nostra ingannevole coscienza, della voce che ci parla e che nessuno sente e che ci suggerisce la vita. Attraverso l’occhio scrutatore del Dottor S. ho cercato di restituire la dimensione surreale, ironica e talvolta bugiarda di Zeno, immersa nell’atmosfera della sua Trieste e di tutti gli straordinari personaggi che la vivono. Un immaginario il cui respiro cerebrale dialoga con il mondo dell’arte, con la psicoanalisi e dove ho cercato di rendere con forza la dialettica fra “esterno e interno” nella spietata analisi che Zeno fa della propria esistenza, lasciando costantemente aperta una finestra sul proprio mondo interiore. Grazie a tutti gli attori, ai collaboratori e grazie alla passione di Alessandro Haber, il nostro spettacolo vorrebbe essere proprio così, come dice Zeno Cosini: «La vita non è né bella né brutta, ma è originale. La vita mi pareva tanto nuova come se l’avessi vista per la prima volta con i suoi corpi gassosi fluidi e solidi. Se la raccontassimo a qualcuno che non ci fosse abituato rimarrebbe senza fiato dinanzi all’enorme costruzione priva di scopo. Mi avrebbe domandato: ma come l’avete sopportata? E dopo essersi informato di ogni singolo dettaglio, da quei corpi celesti appesi lassù perché si vedano ma non si tocchino, fino al mistero che circonda la morte, avrebbe certamente esclamato: Molto originale!» biglietteria 071 52525 [email protected] e su questo link L’attività di MARCHE TEATRO_Teatro di Rilevante Interesse Culturale è sostenuta da Comune di Ancona/Assessorato alla Cultura, Regione Marche/Assessorato alla Cultura, Ministero della Cultura, Camera di Commercio delle Marche in collaborazione con gli sponsor: Frittelli Maritime Group e Banco Marchigiano. www.marcheteatro.it... #notizie #news #breakingnews #cronaca #politica #eventi #sport #moda Read the full article

[whatinevertold-you]

La vita somiglia un poco alla malattia come procede per crisi e lisi ed ha i giornalieri miglioramenti e peggioramenti. A differenza delle altre malattie la vita è sempre mortale. Non sopporta cure. Sarebbe come voler turare i buchi che abbiamo nel corpo credendoli delle ferite. Morremmo strangolati non appena curati.

-Zeno Cosini; (la coscienza di Zeno)

#citazione tumblr #quotes #love quotes #citazione amore #citazioni #books #photography #art #boyfriend #drawing #music #comics #indie #painting #citazione personale #frasi amore #couple #friends #frasi tumblr #spotify #lifelessons #life #life quotes

[atomicwitchdreamer-blog-blo-blog]

...libro che ha rivoluzionato...scosso, la letteratura in Italia...un capolavoro indiscusso e indiscutibile...romanzo straordinario, originale ed innovativo dalla prima all'ultima pagina. Un viaggio unico ed irripetibile nelle profondità dell'inconscio, osservato in maniera ironica e divertita. Interessante la figura del protagonista, Zeno Cosini, personaggio che con le proprie incertezze ed incoerenze incarna alla perfezione l'Uomo moderno, incapace di trovare dei valori assoluti e trascinati quasi per inerzia nel vortice dell'esistenza, forza imperiosa cui nulla può sottrarsi e che niente può controllare. Lo stesso libero arbitrio viene inficiato dall'irrefrenabile vortice degli eventi e Zeno, incatenato alla propria nevrosi, vive con particolare forza l'incapacità umana di imporsi sulle cose del mondo e sull'angoscia esistenziale che da queste deriva. L'Umanità è destinata ad una sconfitta continua ed incomprensibile: questo il messaggio profondo di un libro che penetra con umorismo e leggerezza nei meandri più profondi dell'animo, ponendo implicitamente inquietanti interrogativi sul senso della vita e sul reale ruolo dell'Uomo nell'universo. Un libro unico e semplicemente uno dei più attuali nella nostra epoca "malata"...da leggere e meditare con grande attenzione e pazienza...#ravenna #booklovers #instabook #igersravenna #instaravenna #ig_books #consiglidilettura #librerieaperte #narrativa #italosvevo (presso Libreria ScattiSparsi Ravenna) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjZmbpgop8H/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#ravenna #booklovers #instabook #igersravenna #instaravenna #ig_books #consiglidilettura #librerieaperte #narrativa #italosvevo

[ericsitalianlitblog]

Ten Interesting Italian Novels

The year is 1327. Benedictines in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon—all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey, where “the most interesting things happen at night." Summary cited from (goodreads.com)

A landmark new translation of a Calvino classic, a whimsical, spirited novel that imagines a life lived entirely on its own terms

Cosimo di Rondó, a young Italian nobleman of the eighteenth century, rebels against his parents by climbing into the trees and remaining there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an existence in the forest canopy—he hunts, sows crops, plays games with earth-bound friends, fights forest fires, solves engineering problems, and even manages to have love affairs. From his perch in the trees, Cosimo sees the Age of Enlightenment pass by, and a new century dawn.

The Baron in the Trees exemplifies Calvino’s peerless ability to weave tales that sparkle with enchantment. This new English rendering by acclaimed translator Ann Goldstein breathes new life into one of Calvino’s most beloved works. Summary cited from (goodreads.com)

Long hailed as a seminal work of modernism in the tradition of Joyce and Kafka, and now available in a supple new English translation, Italo Svevo’s charming and splendidly idiosyncratic novel conducts readers deep into one hilariously hyperactive and endlessly self-deluding mind. The mind in question belongs to one Zeno Cosini, a neurotic Italian businessman who is writing his confessions at the behest of his psychiatrist. Here are Zeno’s interminable attempts to quit smoking, his courtship of the beautiful yet unresponsive Ada, his unexpected–and unexpectedly happy–marriage to Ada’s homely sister Augusta, and his affair with a shrill-voiced aspiring singer. Relating these misadventures with wry wit and irony, and a perspicacity at once unblinking and compassionate, Zeno’s Conscience is a miracle of psychological realism. Summary cited from (goodreads.com)

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration—"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. The Reader buys a fashionable new book, which opens with an exhortation: "Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." Alas, after 30 or so pages, he discovers that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. Returning to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given the choice between the two, he goes for the Pole, as does the Other Reader, Ludmilla. But this copy turns out to be by yet another writer, as does the next, and the next. Summary cited from (goodreads.com)

The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women — the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up — a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. In this final novel she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city's obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood. Proximity to the world she has always rejected only brings her role as its unacknowledged leader into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable. Summary cited from (goodreads.com).

In Ocean Sea, Alessandro Baricco presents a hypnotizing postmodern fable of human malady--psychological, existential, erotic--and the sea as a means of deliverance. At the Almayer Inn, a remote shoreline hotel, an artist dips his brush in a cup of ocean water to paint a portrait of the sea. A scientist pens love letters to a woman he has yet to meet. An adulteress searches for relief from her proclivity to fall in love. And a sixteen-year-old girl seeks a cure from a mysterious condition which science has failed to remedy. When these people meet, their fates begin to interact as if by design. Enter a mighty tempest and a ghostly mariner with a thirst for vengeance, and the Inn becomes a place where destiny and desire battle for the upper hand. Playful, provocative, and ultimately profound, Ocean Sea is a novel of striking originality and wisdom. Summary cited from (goodreads.com).

Leda, a middle-aged divorcée, is alone for the first time in years after her two adult daughters leave home to live with their father in Toronto. Enjoying an unexpected sense of liberty, she heads to the Ionian coast for a vacation.

But she soon finds herself intrigued by Nina, a young mother on the beach, eventually striking up a conversation with her. After Nina confides a dark secret, one seemingly trivial occurrence leads to events that could destroy Nina’s family. Summary cited from (goodreads.com)

19th-century Europe—from Turin to Prague to Paris—abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Conspiracies rule history. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate Black Masses at night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies both real and imagined, lay one lone man? What if that evil genius created its most infamous document? Summary cited from (goodreads.com).

A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante's inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists. Summary cited from (goodreads.com).

The Leopard is a story of a decadent and dying aristocracy threatened by the forces of revolution and democracy. Set against the political upheavals of Italy in the 1860s, it focuses on Don Fabrizio, a Sicilian prince of immense sensual appetites, wealth, and great personal magnetism. Around this powerful figure swirls a glittering array of characters: a Bourbon king, liberals and pseudo liberals, peasants and millionaires. Summary cited from (goodreads.com)

[nicolesitalianlitblog]

10 Interesting Italian Fiction Books

The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano 

“A bestselling international literary sensation about whether a "prime number" can ever truly connect with someone else. A prime number can only be divided by itself or by one—it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia, both "primes," are misfits who seem destined to be alone. Haunted by childhood tragedies that mark their lives, they cannot reach out to anyone else. When Alice and Mattia meet as teenagers, they recognize in each other a kindred, damaged spirit.” (https://www.goodreads.com) 

Swimming to Elba by Silvia Avallone

“A sensually charged novel about two girls growing up fast in a failing industrial town on the coast of Italy. Anna and Francesca are on the brink of everything: high school, adulthood, and the edge of ambition in their provincial town. It’s summer in Piombino, Italy, and in their skimpy bathing suits, flaunting their newly acquired curves, the girls suddenly have everyone in their thrall. This power opens their imagination to a destiny beyond Piombino; the resort town of Elba is just a ferry ride away and yet they’ve never dared to go. Maybe the future is waiting for them there, or somewhere beyond.” (https://www.goodreads.com) 

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

“An enchanting and lyrical look at the life, the traditions, and the cuisine of Tuscany, in the spirit of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos beneath the whitewash in her dining room, a vineyard under wildly overgrown brambles in the garden, and, in the nearby hill towns, vibrant markets and delightful people. In Under the Tuscan Sun, she brings the lyrical voice of a poet, the eye of a seasoned traveler, and the discerning palate of a cook and food writer to invite readers to explore the pleasures of Italian life and to feast at her table.” (https://www.goodreads.com) 

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his." So begins Italo Calvino's compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla, which "has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be," the spider-web city of Octavia, and other marvelous burgs, it may be that he is creating them all out of his imagination, or perhaps he is recreating fine details of his native Venice over and over again, or perhaps he is simply recounting some of the myriad possible forms a city might take.” (https://www.goodreads.com) 

Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo

“Long hailed as a seminal work of modernism in the tradition of Joyce and Kafka, and now available in a supple new English translation, Italo Svevo’s charming and splendidly idiosyncratic novel conducts readers deep into one hilariously hyperactive and endlessly self-deluding mind. The mind in question belongs to Zeno Cosini, a neurotic Italian businessman who is writing his confessions at the behest of his psychiatrist. Here are Zeno’s interminable attempts to quit smoking, his courtship of the beautiful yet unresponsive Ada, his unexpected–and unexpectedly happy–marriage to Ada’s homely sister Augusta, and his affair with a shrill-voiced aspiring singer. Relating these misadventures with wry wit and a perspicacity at once unblinking and compassionate, Zeno’s Conscience is a miracle of psychological realism.” (https://orderisda.org/) 

The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

“Considered one of the most important and widely read novels ever written in the Italian language, The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) is Alessandro Manzoni’s 1827 historical novel, which details the terribly oppressive rule of the Spanish over Italy in the early 1600s. At the center of the novel is the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, whose marriage is forbidden by the local baron, who wishes to wed the lovely Lucia himself. Forced to flee their homes, Renzo and Lucia are separated and must struggle against the ravages of war, famine, and the plague to be reunited again. While in essence a simple and affecting love story, The Betrothed is also a fascinating and detailed glimpse into a dramatic and tumultuous period in Italy’s history. Famed for its depiction of young love, devotion, and fidelity, the novel is also noted for its incredibly realistic depictions of the real-life plague that ravaged Milan, as well as the subsequent bread shortages and violent unrest. Manzoni’s The Betrothed is an epic Italian masterpiece.” (https://orderisda.org) 

The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino 

“This “whimsical, imaginative story about life in the trees” surrounds “Cosimo, a young Italian nobleman of the eighteenth century, rebels against parental authority by climbing into the trees and remaining there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an arboreal existence – hunts, sows crops, plays games with earth-bound friends, fights forest fires, solves engineering problems, and even manages to have love affairs. From his perch in the trees, Cosimo sees the age of Voltaire pass by and a new century dawn.” (https://orderisda.org) 

The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello

“Mattia Pascal endures a life of drudgery in a provincial town. Then, providentially, he discovers that he has been declared dead. Realizing he has a chance to start over, to do it right this time, he moves to a new city, adopts a new name, and a new course of life—only to find that this new existence is as insufferable as the old one. But when he returns to the world he left behind, it’s too late: his job is gone, his wife has remarried. Mattia Pascal’s fate is to live on as the ghost of the man he was.” (https://orderisda.org) 

The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia

“A man is shot dead as he runs to catch the bus in the piazza of a small Sicilian town. Captain Bellodi, the detective on the case, is new to his job and determined to prove himself. Bellodi suspects the Mafia, and his suspicions grow when he finds himself up against an apparently unbreachable wall of silence. A surprise turn puts him on the track of a series of nasty crimes. But all the while Bellodi’s investigation is being carefully monitored by a host of observers, near and far. They share a single concern: to keep the truth from coming out.” (https://orderisda.org) 

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

“Amazon describes Carlo Collodi’s original version as “Carlo Collodi’s original version, is an adventure-filled, menacing fairy tale with a moral. Made by the woodcarver Geppetto, the puppet Pinocchio dreams of becoming a real child. But his unrestrained curiosity, dishonesty, and selfishness put him in constant peril. As he journeys from the deceptive ‘Field of Miracles,’ where he plants gold coins to make them grow, to the land where lazy boys turn into donkeys, Pinocchio’s path is paved with mistakes, willfulness, and danger. And all the while his nose keeps growing bigger and bigger and bigger every time he tells a fib, so all the world can see what a liar he is…” (https://orderisda.org)